This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Looking for a way to kill the quarantine boredom? To me, it undermines the articulate, informative explanations offered by the professionals with actual working farms and advanced degrees who are given the floor for much of the film. Many farms are barely making a profit and are heavily subsidised by tax payers, if they can be taught to grow food this way, they may see a rise in profits and governments can cease the massive subsidies and use these funds elsewhere! For me, its a plant-exclusive diet and for you it might be eating plant-based before dinner often the perfect place for people to start. After looking at all of the available evidence on holistic grazing, and claims made by the likes of Savory, the report concludes that grass-fed livestock are not a climate solution. Livestock and Land Use: How Are We Feeding The Planet? Clearly this is something that needs our urgent attention and resolution! And this isnt just my own speculation. Modern agriculture was not designed for the betterment of the soil, instead for the short term maximisation of yield. can scoop up and heroically rescue. Kiss the Ground is a 501 (c)(3) Nonprofit A major strategy deployed in the documentary is offering two distinct choices for where consumers should source their food: conventional chemical-filled monocrops, or lush open fields of regenerative agriculture. The first point that I think deserves our attention, before getting into the science on the reversal claim, is the way the producers wanted you to see holistic grazing. star wars fanfiction terran alliance; when a girl says i'll keep that in mind; hillsborough disaster who was to blame; how to get into stanford with a low gpa The key points in Kiss the Ground. This movie will also counterbalance the cowspiracy environmentalists and others with incorrect understanding of cows. We can all make some simple changes for massive benefits to our health and footprint. The long term prognosis for our survival with business as usual is very, very poor , Topsoils are disappearing and the land is desertifying, Regenerative farming principles explained, Examples of regenerative farming restoring land. worlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? Its not a bad thing per se. Regenerative farming restores soils; storing carbon and reducing the need for chemical help to improve yields by harnessing natural processes. Josh Tickell, the director of the movie, was associated with Kiss the Ground and was making a film on organic farming when I met him. What do you hope will be an outcome from the movie? If he is the only one that can achieve the carbon sequestration that he claims, I fail to see how thats a hopeful solution. This is the central statement of Kiss the Ground, an eco-educational Netflix documentary directed and produced by Josh and Rebecca Tickell.On-the-ground agricultural practices carried out by millions of individual farmers directly affect the health of the soil, and by extension, global atmospheric carbon levels and the pace of climate change. Try: Compost Toilets in Africa: Human Feces as Fertilizer | Thrive4Good (thriveforgood.org) or GiveLove. We started ploughing/tilling because it was easier for us to upscale. To rotate cows like bison, it means leaving land free from roaming animals for at least six-nine months a figure that Alan Savory states himself in the documentary. We are made of carbon (16%) and its the element that life is based upon! Despite the documentary not spelling it out, its very clear. Farm work is unglamorous, underappreciated, and not very well-paid for the most part, but it just so happens to be crucial to the survival of our species. If we pull the pin on that, it means one thing and one thing only. And of course, havinginterviewedthe co-founders ofKiss the Ground, Ryland Engelhart and Finian Makepeace, in early 2020, I was particularly excited to watch theKiss the Grounddocumentary(and I recommend you watch it too if you havent already). If you are wondering whether its worth your time to watch, or want to know the gist but dont have an hour and a half to spare, read on and Ill cover the key points simply and factually for you. Its not the most interesting topic of conversation for most, so try just mentioning a one or two of the following points and see if that gets a conversation going. Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. Regenerative agriculture is a more resilient system based on principles of soil health and biodiversity that integrates multiple crops, cover crops, and livestock animals. Today, our platform reaches millions through immersive media and education initiatives. Learn how your comment data is processed. The difference is immense and plain for anyone to see. So what we are talking about here is how to better use the land dedicated to animal agriculture (83 percent of all agricultural land) that is responsible for 80 percent of food-related greenhouse gas emissions yet provides only 18 percent of our total calories. Registration confirmation will be emailed to you. Rich soil, with plenty of microbes, allows healthy plants to grow. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Kiss the Ground brings together a diverse coalition of scientists, farmers, and advocates to share this story, showcase the benefits of adopting regenerative agriculture, and build a movement aimed at renewing the planet's ecosystems. (Source: Kiss the Ground). Kiss the Ground has the perfect documentary mix of celebrity activists and wise elder scientists. There was also no mention of tropical forest restoration which has significantly greater potential at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere compared to grazing cows on land no matter what practice is employed. Those sharing the video said that Zelenskyy sought young Americans to help fight on the ground war. As an employee of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he travels around the country educating farmers on more sustainable farming practices. Sounds pretty ambitious to champion this form of animal agriculture as a climate solution without strong empirical evidence? We should harness the regenerative power of the earth and its processes. The message gets across, but the film downplays a meaningful call to action. As someone who has spent the past 25-plus years working to educate anyone who will listen as to the benefits of regenerative ag, I can say with certainty that the snowball is finally rolling downhill! The basic premise of Kiss the Ground is that the destruction of soil is contributing to the severity and intensity of climate change. So the the more microbes, the more necromass and the faster SOM including soil organic matter is built. A revolutionary group of activists, scientists, farmers, and politicians band together in a global movement of "Regenerative Agriculture" that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world. Their technical expertise should be enough to convince us that their message is not only correct but worth listening to. Kiss the Groundgave the microphone to Ranchers Alan Savory and Gabe Brown, but we didnt hear about any legitimate science testing out whether the claims they were making truly hold up? Rousing speeches have their place in communicating the gravity of the situation to the public, funders, and policymakers, but its not a framing that suggests concrete action, or even a plan. Its a good vibe, like a 90-minute team-taught TED Talkindustrious, sensible, leaning into the future. The Lhos plateau in China is where settled agriculture first began. From rehabilitating entire ecosystems to growing home victory gardens, there are plenty of ways to get involved in regenerative agriculture. Ray: I met the Kiss the Ground group in 2015. Its within this context, that it becomes so vividly apparent, that in this conversation we are not just talking about planetary health, but at its core, human health. By practicing regenerative agriculture, a no-till, chemical-free system designed to bolster and protect soil health, we can grow healthier plants, sequester more carbon, and ultimately reverse climate change., Narrator Woody Harrelson calls regenerative agriculture a simple solutiona way to heal our planet and asks viewers to save our soil in hopes the soil might just save us., The short version: Growing food with regenerative agriculture leads to healthier soil, better food, cleaner skies, and clearer water. . Also, I must confess that I did not fully understand the implications of a film crew following me all over the country. Francis Ge is News Fellow at Stone Pier Press and an aspiring first-generation regenerative farmer. Its a system of thinking and working that takes knowledge, skill, experience, endurance, affinity, if you've got it, and a lot of hard work, just like any other difficult undertaking. Essentially, Hawken and his team have created a long list of approximately 100 solutions, which when implemented together, would be capable of drawing down more carbon than we are emitting by 2050. Specifically, regenerative agriculture is a holistic land management practice that . Repeatedly using abstractions to sum up complex issues makes people comfortable talking about soil as if there is one entity, soil, that we (who is we, anyway?) It would be great to see what was meant to be there! Unless we save our soils, we have 60 harvests left before global starvation. All farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: Plowing the earth, preparing fields for planting, exposing bare soil. Is it possible that some of the great empires that seemingly vanished, like the Myans and Incas, did so because they over farmed, and could not feed their rising populations? Minimising the amount of mechanical disturbance, with no tilling/ploughing. Factory farms are good at one thing producing a lot of meat in a short period of time to feed a growing appetite for meat. Archuleta describes the soil conservation problem as an education problem. If you have found your way to this article, I can only assume that we have something in common: both of us want to see a better world where humans and all life on earth is thriving. There seems to be an incredibly fine line between grazing just enough and overgrazing, which speaks to potentially whycrediblepeer-reviewed science has to date, failed to produce results that come close to what Alan Savory claims. If we choose healthy foods, there is a reciprocation. Having dedicated many years to researching and communicating the science behind an optimal diet for humans, I understand first hand how our health isinextricably tied to the planets(as detailed inmy upcoming book). No big deal. 1 Claims that holistic grazing can reverse climate change. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. After the country decided to increase yields and started intensively farming and tilling the fertile midwestern plains, leaving the soil bare for large periods of time. A Facebook video shows aerial footage of what appears to be large fissures or cracks in the Earth . By I wanted the filmmakers to first understandto let the soil speak and to let nature teach us. So the white papers cited dont even really know what HPG/AMP is or how it works. Half are experts working in their respective fields, and the rest are celebrity activists for whom regenerative agriculture and climate change is more or less a cause. Data from almost40,000 farms, and 119 countries, clearly shows us that a plant-based diet results in less greenhouse gas emissions, less pollution, less ocean acidification, and uses less water and land land which we can therefore free up and convert to forests to rapidly sequester carbon from our atmosphere. Gabe: Yes, I am very optimistic about our future if regenerative practices are widely adopted. But tilling is incredibly intrusive to the soil structures, destroying the balance of microbial life which create organic matter and help the plants get the nutrients to grow. In the 1930s the Dust Bowl was created. He did several versions of this movie. Unfortunately, there are still very few about, especially in the UK. Theres no sense in wasting a precious resource like attention by skirting the truth that transitioning to regenerative agriculture, or changing any entrenched industrial-economic system, is a lot of work. There is not enough money in the world to get me to move from Gods country, North Dakota! The basic premise of Kiss the Ground is that the destruction of soil is contributing to the severity and intensity of climate change. There are over 200 peer reviewed papers that tie/correlate the increase of these chemicals with increases in ADD, child cancers and birth defects. As a last comment, it was brought into the discussion that we shouldnt believe Savory because his decision led to the death of thousands of elephants. 2 Creation of a false dichotomy. Garnetts FCRN self published paper basically just repeated Norborgs paper verbatim. Biodiverse cover crops to feed the soil biology and protect the soils. I thought it would be just another news release or another interview. Without them we will starve. My greatest hope is for me to continue to do this and any chances I have to do so, I will take. Compost your food scraps. Over the years, tilling causes the soil to dirt, leaving it vulnerable to erosion and desertification. My hope is that this film will give consumers, farmers, and ranchers all of us the hope, courage and knowledge to choose biologically-based practices and tools to regenerate soil. "We should be thriving, the planet booming with life and abundance and the healthiest generation walking the earth. Any plans to hire an agent or move to L.A? Your email address will not be published. Having gone from being a vegetable hating, stressed out and sick corporate mum who felt constant guilt for not feeding her family properly and not doing enough for the planet to a healthy, veggie loving and eco-minded mother with much less stress, she's been where you are and can definitely help you overcome your barriers! Check out this map for farms local to you Regenerative Farm Map Regeneration International. Its genuinely remarkable post, I have got much clear idea regarding from this post. I dont know a single holistic management practitioner that advocates cutting down forests to grow more cattle. Ray Archuleta, previously a conservation agronomist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the co-founder of the Soil Health Academy, stands at the front talking to the farmers, and to us. Regenerate America is an unprecedented coalition of farmers, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals from every corner of our country and all political stripes, convened by the national soil health 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization, Kiss the Ground. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. And so, with these words, Harrelson immediately draws us into "Kiss the Ground," a documentary focusing on growing our food in a way that builds and protects our precious soil and also draws back into the ground the carbon dioxide that is causing climate change. Now all debates have two sides and Savory has been confronted with this information before. As a side note, the documentary routinely employed uses numerous fear-mongering tactics to scare the viewer into grasping for whatever solution comes next. All chemical soils are almost devoid of microorganisms, so the plant roots cannot get the nutrients they need. (2015). by Sarah Read | May 18, 2022 | Eat, Eco-friendly eating, Sustainable living tips and advice, Think, Kiss the Ground is another in the line of eco-documentaries that Netflix is putting out there (albeit one of the first and most famous). Yes, whats on our plate is even more important than where its come from or buying local. Bare ground is hotter in the day, and cooler at night; threatening the microorganism populations within, and increases water evaporation, as the ground temperatures rise, the soils become dryer, again, impairing the ecosystem the microorganisms exist within. Everyone can grow a bit of lettuce or chard, some leeks and some French beans in a small garden, or even most of these on a balcony! Dr. Myles Allen and his research team with their recent GWP* metric point out how short lived GHGs have to be accounted for differently than long lived GHGs.. Whats glaringly clear from Hawkens report is that when it comes to our food and greenhouse gas emissions, thetwo areas we can make the biggest impactare reducing food waste (number one solution)and moving to a plant-rich diet (number three solution). But 99 percent of those crops go to feeding livestock. If the U.S shifted away from intensive livestock farming to traditional grazing, its been calculated that theavailable grasslands would only be able to produce 27 percent of the countries current beef supply. Suppose you don't have enough time to read, then watch the KISS the GROUND MOVIE (streaming on Netflix) hosted by Woody Harrelson and directed by Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. This means that compared to factory farms, or traditional grazing where cows are overgrazing and destroying the soil, a regenerative farm using holistic grazing would require a lot more land for any given number of roaming cows. Seven years in the making, the movies thesis proposes that by regenerating the worlds soils, humans can rapidly stabilize Earths climate, restore lost ecosystems and create abundant food supplies. The basic principles are: minimal tilling/ploughing, using cover crops, involving livestock in managed grazing, organic practices avoiding chemicals, composting, crop diversity and using trees and perennials as protection. The elephant in the room during the documentary is that they completely failed to mention that a significant amount of the land dedicated to animal agriculture across the world (not all but certainly a lot) needs to be restored to forests (the number one driver of deforestation is animal agriculture) to get anywhere close to meeting our climate goals. Its the same reason we dont call doctors healers anymoretheir body of knowledge has been formalized, their work recognized and legitimized as a profession, and their value become obvious. We need to act. Ryland Engelhart is a philanthropist. In turn, this means shifting to more plant-based diets. Ganrett also doesnt have a clue how tropospheric hydroxyl oxidation works. In fact, in theDrawdown Report,when you factor in the land that would be freed up if the entire world shifted to a plant-rich diet, this becomes the single biggest lever that each of us can pull to lower our individual environmental footprint. This gets the nutrients back into local farmlands, and helps reduce the impacts of droughts and the need for fertilisers, which are polluting your local rivers. But I also experienced the same misleadingparadigms from the conservative groups like Farm Bureau and other commodities groups. Personally, I thought this was one of the better Netflix documentaries, mainly because, whilst theres a lot of negatives about where the world is heading, the overall message is one of hope. Its filled with intelligent people who refuse to shy away from the impending climate cataclysm and have instead dedicated themselves to the daily work of facing itas farmers, educators, scientists, and yes, even as politicians. For people who have an hour and a half to watch something like this, For people who are time strapped or not sure that this is their kind of thing, The way we are feeding ourselves is undermining the very ecology were dependent upon. It's a nonprofit organization that he leads today as executive director. Thank you for the review. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. The first clue is when the documentary makes mention of the natural history of Bison roaming the United States. This website uses third party cookies to improve your experience with your consent. Enterprise, AL 36330. HaHa! Two-thirds of the worlds land is currently desertifying leading to millions of climate refugees and further environmental destruction. The animals themselves arent the problem, where and how is the issue. Jeff Creque, Rangeland Director, Carbon Cycle Institute. Byck, P. (2016). Celebrity activists, including Ian Somerhalder and Patricia Arquette, drop by to promote a suite of carbon-capture climate change solutions theyre personally involved in, from diversified permaculture to compost toilets. One thing with ruminant livestock is that when they are use as solar powered mobile composters in brittle environments, their manure, urine and saliva act as inoculates that increase soil microbiology. Science experts and celebrity activists unpack the ways in which the earth's soil may be the key to combating climate change and preserving the planet. View and change your settings here, Regenerative Farm Map Regeneration International, Donate Regeneration International | Organic Consumers (netdonor.net), Compost Toilets in Africa: Human Feces as Fertilizer | Thrive4Good (thriveforgood.org). Eco-friendly eating - better for your health and the planet :). It was better than most but could have hit that point harder. I also thoroughly enjoyed Pauls episode onRich Rolls podcastwhere he speaks at length about Project Drawdown. https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/potential-mitigation-of-midwest-grass-finished-beef-production-em, Machmuller, M. B., Kramer, M. G., Cyle, T. K., Hill, N., Hancock, D., & Thompson, A. Regardless of the above claims being scientifically supported or not (well come to that) if one is to advocate for a shift to holistic grazing this will inevitably result in a dramatic reduction in global meat supply. Tilling, the process of pulling up the soil to plant seeds, is destructive to the soil. This is why science is so important. Anecdote and expert opinion or theories are at the bottom of the evidence hierarchy, and its not until we see the findings from higher levels of science, reproduced on scale, that we can begin to have confidence in what we are observing. Kris Nichols is such a key person in this film because her discoveries have allowed for this movement to be built on cutting edge science that changes how we think about soil and landscape function., Since its not every day I get a chance to interview real-live movie stars, I shamelessly asked Gabe, Kris and Ray if they would answer some of my Inside Hollywood questions about their movie-making experiences and what impact they believe the new movie may have on the regenerative ag movement moving forward.