Its clear to see that levels of CO2 in the atmosphere above the main agricultural areas increase significantly in the main tilling/ploughing months, and then as plant cover increases in the fields, it drops! I enjoyed Woody Harrelson as a narrator; he felt genuine. 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! Understanding Ag is an equal opportunity provider and employer. . 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). All of these issues and more can be addressed, at least partially, by regenerative ag. In the 1930s the Dust Bowl was created. Use your local food waste recycling system, and if they dont have one, write to your local council to ask for a food waste collection system. 114k square miles regenerated! (PLEASE VOTE November 3rd or earlier!! The central tenant is that its a diet that places enormous emphasis on calories from plants and de-emphasizes calories from animal products. Do you ever think about where your food comes from. This is bio sequestration using plants to capture and store carbon. Future of Food: Journal on Food, Agriculture & Society, 4(3), 8. Science can provide us with some valid assumptions, but it does not provide recipes. Sounds pretty ambitious to champion this form of animal agriculture as a climate solution without strong empirical evidence? Your email address will not be published. The rest is projected to be lost within 60 years. 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. This review revealed some all to common perceptions about holistic management, a decision making framework, which can be applied to grazing as well as other management situations. A Feb. 27, 2023, video of U.S. President Joe Biden purportedly shows him announcing a new national draft, in which 20-year-olds would be conscripted into military service on account of a growing . Our mission is to awaken people to the possibilities of regeneration and inspire participation in this movement through media, communications, education, workshops, immersive programming, and advocacy. In other words, his claims cannot be supported by data, replicated by others and he doesnt believe in science. 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. The movie is preaching to the choir here, which I think is why I found it disappointing that the filmmakers felt the need to wrap perfectly good explanations of the mechanisms of carbon sequestration and climate change in more evocative but nebulous language like "heal the planet" or "save the soil. The evidence in favor of regenerative agriculture is irrefutable. As someone who has farmed using diesel tractors and bare hands, I can tell you that regenerative agriculture isn't a key or secret or the single solution to a greener future. This process of soil destruction is detrimental to agriculture. Byck, P. (2016). . We told him that you need to leave the audience with hope, which I believe he did. So cows can actually be used to reverse desertification. There are also clear spikes in the CO2 levels in the atmosphere during the ploughing/tilling months with the lowest levels coinciding with maximum plant coverage before harvest. Rich soil, with plenty of microbes, allows healthy plants to grow. The French Minister for agriculture proposed a 4 in 1000 plan, to increase the organic content of our soils by 0.4% per year. The movie doesn't just dive into the microbiology of soil and soil carbon interactions, it also covers the four main principles of soil health: increasing diversity, minimizing soil disturbance, keeping above ground covered and below ground active at all times, and animal integration. In turn, this means shifting to more plant-based diets. Ill start with the hardest and get easier. FACT-CHECK. We already use 3-4 times more fertiliser for each bushel of grain than in the 60s. However, I was slightly apprehensive that the documentary may be too focused on California and Hollywood and not be relevant to farmers and ranchers across the U.S. and the globe. Did you know that we can save the world with soil? I approached this film with professional interest, not just as a News Fellow with Stone Pier Press, but as someone trained in biology at college, regenerative farming at the Rodale Institute (three of the films agricultural experts work/ed here), and food systems at graduate school. . Above all, its great to see this conversation growing from what has very much been a fringe movement to now entering the mainstream. Its the misbalance of carbon that is the issue. 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. The trouble is, our farmers are not taught this; our growers know nothing about how the soil works or the basic ecological principles. Look no further than Kiss the Ground, a newly-released Netflix documentary that explores the relationship between climate change and dirt. Gabe: I would have liked the movie to highlight the importance of grazing animals. Practically speaking this looks like the plate below perhaps this could be The Regenerative Plate that Kiss the Ground adopts in their communication going forwards. Just consider the thousands of peer reviewed papers advocating this diet or that diet and the people in the US are still among the most malnourished in the developed world. It is possible that this is coincidence, but the correlation is striking! A powerful message during a time where the climate emergency is without a doubt causing climate anxiety. Gabe: I agreed to become involved because when Josh explained to me that the purpose of the documentary was to highlight how farming organically could improve our planet, I knew I needed to help bring his understanding of soil health and ecosystem function to a higher level. 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? Eco-friendly eating - better for your health and the planet :). Do you or your families and friends have a special watch party planned when it streams onNetflix? He's a lover of people and of life. Francis Ge is News Fellow at Stone Pier Press and an aspiring first-generation regenerative farmer. Livestock and Land Use: How Are We Feeding The Planet? Remember that the decision to depopulate the elephants when Savory was with the game department was a result of the current science among wildlife researchers. Makes sense why the documentary didnt go there! It turned out to be more involved than I imagined. 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. Our farming systems have moved too far out of alignment with mother nature. 2020 | Maturity Rating: TV-G | 1h 24m | Nature & Ecology Documentaries. "We should be thriving, the planet booming with life and abundance and the healthiest generation walking the earth. We need to talk about agriculture in a way thats meaningful to people with boots on the ground and enumerate specific steps that lead to material change. It also doesnt spend most of its time talking about whos to blame, and its actually mostly about looking for solutions for our futures, and did include suggestions about what we, as ordinary people, can do. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. Tilling, the process of pulling up the soil to plant seeds, is destructive to the soil. The animal point here is controversial I know. Plus FCRNs paper simply ignored the existing peer reviewed science with its claim that no such science exists. These will be using less chemicals and therefore come from healthier soils than normal veg; hugely better for soil biodiversity, natural biodiversity and your health. The filmmakers additionally say "Kiss the Ground" has earned the attention of scientists, farmers and activists alike, crossing boundaries in terms of a highly politicized issue and even being . Cited as the worst man made environmental disaster in history, by the end of 1934 about 200 million acres of croplands had been permanently damaged. I was interested in clicking through at there are many types of regenerative agriculture that do not involve animals for more information, but that currently just links back to this article. This form of regenerative agriculture is by no means the silver bullet that its so often portrayed to be and is certainly not what theworlds leading climate scientistsare most excited by. Fund charities that are helping people to compost their poo in toilets in the third world. Kiss the Ground. No big deal. Ray: I met the Kiss the Ground group in 2015. One can only presume that the slaughtering of the animal is not about soil quality, but about profits. Whats very interesting is the ability of grazing animals to regenerate grasslands from desert, and reduce desertification. 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. Our independent team of journalists To achieve this, we have to change the way that we do agriculture, with less synthetic chemicals and GMOs and use the most powerful carbon capture process ever invented photosynthesis. This is why science is so important. San Francisco have an amazing system, and are the most sustainable city in the US! Unfortunately, these incredibly superior solutions are less sexy because they are not tying livestock, and more specifically the consumption of beef, to the solution. It's a tool. While, there were very subtle hints that people would have only caught if paying very close attention, it was not made overtly clear by the documentary that the proposed solutions means transitioning the world to plant-rich diets. If we want to lower our environmental footprint the single most important thing we can do iseat more plants. If you want to hear a bit more explanation of these, click here or scroll down. Heres the big picture: a wide-screen projection of the surface of the Earth. Their mob grazing action and the impact of their hooves is important. Compost your food scraps. The Lhos plateau in China is where settled agriculture first began. Theyre disconnected form the real world. His response: holistic management does not permit replication, and youll find the scientific method never discovers anything.. Because not only does this mean less greenhouse gas-emitting ruminant animals, but it means we can draw down more carbon from the atmosphere forests are typically far better at doing this than grasslands. Using livestock is thought to make this process 7 times faster! If cattle are allowed to roam and graze, they contribute to carbon sequestration the process by which plants take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. Will you join us? And as the documentary states, shifting us from climate warming to climate cooling. Kiss the Ground gave the microphone to Ranchers Alan Savory and Gabe Brown, but we didn't hear about any legitimate science testing out whether the claims they were making truly hold up? The review is plain evidence that we see what we believe and the reviewers beliefs greatly clouded their vision. I wanted the filmmakers to first understandto let the soil speak and to let nature teach us. Lots of problems with Poores paper as well which didnt account for soil carbon or regenerative systems in any of its meta-analysis of averaged LCAs. Due to its immense scale, and ability to sequester (store) greenhouse gases, it could be the one thing that can balance our climate, clean our water and feed the world! There are a number of others as well as many more in the pipeline. But crop subsidies from the federal government complicate the economics of agriculture. I started trying to teach about soil health with my little plastic jars and myco-workers at the tech center would often laugh and make fun of me. "Kiss the Ground" is based on the fact that modern industrial agriculture is devastating our planet. Its a story about hope and solutions. We started ploughing/tilling because it was easier for us to upscale. Support regenerative farming movements like Regeneration International Donate Regeneration International | Organic Consumers (netdonor.net) and Kiss the Ground Kiss the Ground (ktgcommunity.com) which are spreading the word. Gabe: HaHa! Gabe: Yes, I am very optimistic about our future if regenerative practices are widely adopted. 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? 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. For a climate change documentary its actually vey upbeat, because this is the way we can not only slow, but reverse global warming, sucking CO2 out of the air to stabilise our climate again. Neither does the author. Kris: No, but I am working on creating a virtual party with friends and family as we are scattered throughout the U.S. Ray: I will have a few people over. (Source: Maggie Eileen Lochtenberg, freelance artist and transformational witch. Weaker soils need more chemicals. 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. This website uses third party cookies to improve your experience with your consent. Awesome! (Source: Kiss the Ground). 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. I am very optimistic. Tilling loosens the soil, disturbing microorganisms that live within it, drying it out so. 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. Check out this map for farms local to you Regenerative Farm Map Regeneration International. Everything in natural systems is a cycle and aimed at maintaining balance. And this isnt just my own speculation. But efforts have been made to restore the soils since 1994. kisstheground. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Kiss the Ground is a full-length documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson that sheds light on an, Awakening people to the possibilities of regeneration. Instagram @maggie.eileen.art). I graduated from Vanderbilt University with degrees in Political Science, Economics and Spanish, and I currently study law in Texas. Take the Inflammation quiz - what's your level? The lazy author of this review makes the same mistaken claim. As Hannah Ritchie, Phd (Geosciences) puts it: Whether you buy it from the farmer next door or from far away, it is not the location that makes the carbon footprint of your dinner large, but the fact that it is beef.. 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. Soil is the solution and we have numerous options and opportunities to actualize this solution as consumers, farmers, ranchers, and environmentalists by focusing on the integration of biological processes.
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