Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

Surrealism, avant-garde sound montage, and irreverent wit might be the last thing you'd expect from a government-sponsored film about wartime cookery. But director, artist, animator and all-round firework of a man Len Lye specialised in the unexpected. A simple tale of a mother cheering up her daughter with a pie from her rationing-stricken pantry (interestingly the war is never directly referred to) is skilfully crafted into a work of real artistic depth, while retaining an unpretentious charm.

Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' stories are used to explain certain sections of the Labelling of Food Regulations 1970.

How Somerton, Oxfordshire benefits from membership of the Village Produce Association during WWII.

The effortlessly comic abandons the stress of his city job to work on a farm.

An opening narration explaining that the film's purpose is to examine the "world strategy of food", in terms of its production, distribution and consumption. The film is then divided into three parts: "Food - As It Was", "Food - As It Is" and "Food - As It Might Be".

The penalties of taking conscious risks are emphasized in three stories of casualties. A heavy load slips, a slippery floor, alighting from a moving tractor. Third in series.