| Summary: | Focusing on North Dakota, this thoughtful documentary takes a look at the crisis facing many rural communities. What these communities are facing is the abandonment of farms, the departure of young people, closures of local schools, and failures of small businesses. This is a poignant portrait of people who love their land but are being forced out by economic circumstances beyond their control. The attachment to the land is expressed by author Kathleen Norris, who evokes the unique beauty of the prairie. The filmmaker was one of twelve children who grew up in North Dakota. Only two remain in the state. She shows the hard economic reality with which the farmers struggle as family farms no longer support a new generation. The broader implication is that an entire region of our country could become a wasteland. How can this trend be reversed? Among the possible solutions is to begin the more profitable business of processing the farm products locally rather than shipping such commodities to out of state food processing plants. We see one coop which is starting to do this. But there is no single solution to this problem which demands national attention.
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