The Global Banquet exposes globalization’s profoundly damaging effect on our food system in terms that are understandable to the non-specialist. It debunks several underlying myths about global hunger:
 
That hunger results from scarcity;
That small countries don’t know how to feed themselves; and
That only market-driven, chemically-based, industrial agriculture can feed the world.
 
This film reveals how agribusiness squeezes out small farmers and how trade liberalization undercuts subsistence farming—in the U.S. as well as in the developing world. It demonstrates how food security is linked to social development and how women, in particular, are affected by that. And it links factory farming and the alteration and patenting of life forms to degradation of the natural environment.
 
Through interviews with farmers, policy analysts, and international activists, The Global Banquet  examines the ethical questions at the heart of the globalization debate. Beyond that, it shows how farmers, laborers, environmentalists, animal-rights activists, church groups, and students—worldwide—are mobilizing to address the situation.