Bitter Harvest (1981)

This movie aired on National Television on May 4th 1981 where it was based on a true story that occurred in Michigan back in the late sixties. This movie starred Ron Howard as Ned De Vries, Art Carney as Walter Peary and Tarah Nutter as Kate De Vries. This movie about a young man named Ned who went to college to study business. He married his child hood sweet heart Katie and they have a newborn baby boy. Ned had just found out that his father died so when Ned and Katie heard that they might sale his dads farm Ned and Katie moved back home to the farm to help run it. After being there for a while Ned discovers his love for farming and that he didn't want to be any where else. It's about one year later and everything is going fine. It's early in the morning and Ned goes to barn to Harold his handy man to milk cows and clean stalls. Katie takes there son and goes to another building where she feeds the little calves. Later in the day in a pouring rain storm Katie's favorite cow named Test is ready to give birth. She does and she gave birth to very healthy baby bull. Things start to go wrong so along comes Walter Peary. Walter has a dairy farm of his own across the street from the De Vries place. They kids ask Walter to come over because the baby bull won't nurse of his mother or out of a bottle. As time goes on Ned starts to notice that his milking production is down and his cows are slowly getting sick. However, what really was noticeable was the rash on Ned's baby boy. So he talks to Walter and Walter suggests to Ned that he calls in the state. Along comes a state Agriculture figure and a state appointed doctor. They examined Ned's cows, check his barn and his feed. The state tells Ned that his cows are suffering from mild nutrition and bad management. One day while digging around Ned finds a dead rat, so after pounding a hole in the wall Ned finds another dozen dead rats. What is going on here? Will the state's agricultural officials do something about Howard's plight, or will red tape and bureaucracy ruled the day. What happens to Ned's herd? Will his milk production go down to no production at all? Most of all what happens to Ned's fathers farm. Here are some thoughts of my own about this movie. I thought this was and excellent movie. I was raise in the country and there nothing that smells better then a dairy farm. The longer I watch this the more home sick I became. I remember the days of cleaning hog stalls, separating pigs, baling hay, picking rocks, and not eating until 7 or 8pm at night. However, the one good thing about eating that late is that you were hungry and you ate a lot. This movie was based on a book written by Frederick and Sandra Halbert. A lot of people were affected by this poison that showed in milk and tainted foods. Some people even died and some people developed horrible cancer growths. The government really tried it's hardest to cover this story up and farmers that lived through this still won't talk about what happen in the state of Michigan. This movie was filmed in southern California and was nominated for 4 Emmy awards. I give this movie 10 weasel stars alone based on the true story and the beautiful farm sites.

08/25/13 This is a well-acted drama about a true story of a young engineer turned dairy farmer and his determined search for what was making his cows sick, killing them and making his child and neighbor sick also. In this film Ron Howard does what he does well in any drama he gets our attention and makes us care about his average man portrayal. In this film when government agencies refused to help him find out why his cows were sick and dying he bravely sets out alone to discover the answer. This is a must see film for everyone who cares at all about anyone else. The film doesn’t condemn the lackluster behavior of government agencies. The story clearly demonstrates how government bureaucrats have been hand-strung by our laws and end up not helping the very people they were developed in theory to protect in the first place. There is an underlying frightening truth in this film about how vulnerable our food chain is today.

Bitter Harvest is based on true events that took place in my home state of Michigan, greatly affecting the dairy industry. Great depiction of farmer Ned DeVries, by Ron Howard. Very well done. I encourage everyone who hasn't yet seen this movie, to do so. Side note: there are two other movies by the same title - one from 1963 (set in Wales) and the other from 2017 (set in Soviet Ukraine), both with different plots.

As someone who lived in the midst of this tragedy at the time it happened was very familiar with the feelings of desperation that were felt by my then neighbours. Thought it was an excellent production with very believable acting. So glad that something this good was made about this dreadful happening. Thank you.

I am from Michigan and had never heard of this story. It is based off of a true story, I know the family this happened to. There is a book too.

Excellent show. True of what ( takes) place and does happen. Being Midwest farmers, we related to this old epic movie.

This is one of my favorite movies to watch. Yes, cry through it but it is based on a true story and the struggles of a dairy farmer and family. Check it out!

Really powerful movie of real life of a cattle rancher.