Bitter Harvest

Ron Howard and cast present the best modern depiction of a United States farm and the demands of modern farming. Facing a unknown peril that has him losing his dairy herd a young farmer faces disparagement and questions about his farming ability while his children also become ill. The movie is based on the true story of PCB's entering the food chain in the mid 1970's. Great acting, drama and suspense plus a great mix of home, work and family in the grasp of technology. One of Ron Howard's most underappreciated works.

Ron Howard does a wonderful job as a dairy farmer whose cattle have become diseased, and because he uses the cows' milk to feed his newborn son, the baby also becomes very ill. Ron Howard runs the gamut of emotions and portrays each one beautifully. A compelling story, and Art Carney and Tarrah Nutter also do a great job in support.

Most movies I see I forget after a while. Others, like Pearl Harbor, or Star Wars, stay with a person. I saw Bitter Harvest as a TV movie in 1981. It left an emotional stamp on my soul that I carry to this day. I don't even know why. Maybe I just believed Ron Howard really cared about the subject of the movie, beyond the playing of a character, and it showed. Tried to buy but was almost seventy dollars on one site. Good job. The story is about a farm family, faced with the ruin of their way of life because of the poisoning of their dairy herd. Faced with a decision no farmer should have to make, the lead, played by Ron Howard, makes the most financially ruinous, but the most ethical one. He shows everyone what an honest man does; tells the truth, and does the right thing. Try to see if possible.

I remember moving to Michigan in 1976 just three years after the event depicted in this movie began and the disaster was still very much a hot topic. Voices were being raised and fingers being pointed on both sides of the issue. There were people frightened of being poisoned by an insidious substance that was said to persist in the body and cause harm for the rest of one's life. On the other side were people from the government, industry, agribusiness and elsewhere claiming that there was no need to panic, that the contamination was under control, that the levels of PBB people had been exposed to were insignificant and there was no threat at all to public health. That last statement was rather hard to swallow since farmers and dairymen were losing their herds to quarantine and disposal and milk products had virtually disappeared from grocery store shelves in parts of the state. The loudest voices raised over the issue in my recollection were the farmers who were facing bankruptcy over the contamination and seen to be doing everything to hide themselves and their livelihoods from it. Mostly I remember fear, fear from the public who didn't know who to believe, fear from the agribusinesses facing career-ending losses, fear from government officials who by the time I came on the scene were scrambling in full-on cover-up mode, and, of course, the fear whipped up by the yellow media smelling blood and ratings in a juicy news story.

I thank the producers of the show for bringing it to our attention even if I only discovered this film just now 30 years after it was made and broadcast. I've wondered about the PBB contamination and what became of it but until watching this show I hadn't really ever followed up on it. After all, there was no Google in 1976, or 1981 for that matter when the film was made. I'd wondered if anyone was ever made to pay for the damage and if there was ever a tracking of people's health who were exposed. There was, on both counts, you can look it up with an internet search like I had to.

Excellently acted, excellently produced, easily watched, I'd recommend it to anyone who has ever felt as though there wasn't an adequate watchdog effort over what happens to people and the environment in the pursuit of profits.

This movie was about a dairy farmer who bought some new feed to increase the production of milk from the cows. Cows were getting sick and producing less milk. This mysterious disease started to effect the humans. The farmer got extremely worried because these cows were his life, so he did all he could to save them. At first no one would help him, but then he came upon a Doctor who agreed to help. Numerous tests were run and at first they thought it was "malnutrition." Later it ended up being the chemical PBB. This was causing the cows to have bald-spots of cows, pink-eye, defects in birth, and eventually death. Humans had some of the same symptoms including a rash. This disease was spreading everywhere. The only way in order to get rid of the chemical, all the infected cows had to be terminated.