Unfortunately, there are still very few about, especially in the UK. Kiss the Ground is a new, feature-length movie that explores key soil health and regenerative agricultural principles, and features interviews with a wide range of authors, experts, farmers, researchers and scientists. Ground News rates Kiss the Ground Film's media bias as unknown. Given soil grows 95 per cent of our food, and sustains human life, this is a huge problem. This will not only better their own wellbeing because they will be consuming foods higher in nutrient density, but they will also support those who are making a positive impact on the environment. So why did a documentary about regenerative agriculture and the power of growing plants not encourage people to grow their own food? Kris:The time and effort that the team put into the interviews and edits as well as probably debating and refining the perspective the film takes should be commended. Now all debates have two sides and Savory has been confronted with this information before. Work your way down the list until you find the things that youre willing to do. There is too much in the air now and too little in the earth (released by tilling and soil degradation and burning fossil fuels and plants/trees) causing global temperatures to rise. 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. Its not a bad thing per se. Impactfull April 2022, What Does Voluntourism Look Like? Its a story about hope and solutions. Ive been interested in and learning more about the importance of soil health for years. Carrie's ranch is comprised of 6,500 acres, Thank you to the @apnews for sharing an art. Its especially interesting to me as I am working towards a biology degree and hope to become a soil scientist. I also thoroughly enjoyed Pauls episode onRich Rolls podcastwhere he speaks at length about Project Drawdown. However, this was taken from a United Nations speech, which leading soil scientists say isabsolutely not supported by science. 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. 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. I was also pleased the documentary shone a light on food waste and composting these are two things that many of us can introduce into our daily lives with minimal barriers to entry. best charter schools in nashville. I dont know a single holistic management practitioner that advocates eating more beef. Those sharing the video said that Zelenskyy sought young Americans to help fight on the ground war. This is a major oversimplification of our complex and varied farming system. Talking about the importance of beingbetter stewards of our land, and why we must do a better job at protecting our natural resources and ecosystems, is absolutely crucial if our species is to not just thrive on Planet Earth, but survive. Regenerative agriculture is an important part of the solution when it comes to climate change. In COP21 in Paris, 2015. Nature strives for balance, and has a system for reversing the carbon released into the atmosphere using the growth of plants and their relationship with soil microbes. Potential mitigation of midwest grass-finished beef production emissions with soil carbon sequestration in the United States of America. The fix is simple: Mimic nature, cover the soil andunderstand how soil is intended to function. Sounds pretty ambitious to champion this form of animal agriculture as a climate solution without strong empirical evidence? 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 But I also experienced the same misleadingparadigms from the conservative groups like Farm Bureau and other commodities groups. The movie has an optimistic tone, do you share that optimism? Humans have created such a massive disturbance in our topsoil and atmosphere that the only way out is forward. It was very much positioned as absolutely crucial to confronting this climate emergency we find ourselves in. Thank you for the review. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 141(34), 310-322. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2011.03.009, Plus a recent LCA funded by General Mills: Ray: Initially, when I first met the Kiss the Ground group, I told them that I was really concerned about how they should approach the landowners. It carries pleasant stuff. Tilling, the process of pulling up the soil to plant seeds, is destructive to the soil. Kiss the Ground is a 501 (c)(3) Nonprofit So its incredibly facile. Proof that this works if given the chance. Their technical expertise should be enough to convince us that their message is not only correct but worth listening to. Regenerative agriculture is a more resilient system based on principles of soil health and biodiversity that integrates multiple crops, cover crops, and livestock animals. It took a Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady cameo to hit this point home. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Until then, its going to be hard to truly transform our agricultural system to benefit all life on the planet. Why not let the viewer know what theworlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? While I was attending the COP21 conference in Paris in 2015, I was again contacted by Josh Tickell and participated in a follow-up interview regarding the 4per1000 Initiative. Still, its hard to ignore that the filmmakers featured almost exclusively rich, white American celebrities in a film about global systems change released in the middle of a national reckoning about our ability to be a diverse and equitable society. Given soil grows 95 per cent of our food, and sustains human life, this is a huge problem. Regenerative agriculture combines 4 practices. Its predicted that, if we can scale up some of these farming methods over the next 30 years, we can REVERSE global warming. Kiss the Ground has been active in this space for a while and is a California-based 501(c)(3) environmental non-profit telling a new story about our ability to regenerate land and reverse climate change by building back healthy soil. Gabe: An increased awareness as to how and why all society should come together to work on the 80% of the things we can agree on such as loss of biodiversity, water quality and quantity issues, poor farm profitability, the decline of rural America, climate change and human health. Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. The difference is immense and plain for anyone to see. Rich soil, with plenty of microbes, allows healthy plants to grow. The Lhos plateau in China is where settled agriculture first began. Personally, I think its a must watch for people to truly understand the situation we are in with the soils, why its important to save our soils, and how we can help. Desertification is the process of land turning to desert. As prices go up, pending one spends the same budget they had previously set aside for meat, their consumption naturally falls. Did you have any reservations about appearing in it? Also, I must confess that I did not fully understand the implications of a film crew following me all over the country. The rest is projected to be lost within 60 years. Let me show you how , Get my FREE guide, and receive eco-friendly eating tips, recipes and motivation. Ill summarise the main points for you in this article; what the issues are, why soil is the answer, and how you can help to save you having to invest the time to watching it yourself. Im sure we can all agree that factory farming is a blight on humanity, and there is far too much mono-cropping, but assuming that its either this intensive form of animal agriculture or holistic grazing, is not accurate. Jeff Creque, Rangeland Director, Carbon Cycle Institute. and experts are committed to making an impact through a wide range of contentand 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? Our farming systems have moved too far out of alignment with mother nature. Many would argue soil degradation is the most critical environmental threat to humans". Monocropping further exacerbates the issue, as the same crop is grown year on year, for miles in the case of US farms, microbial diversity cannot increase. The movie didn't even include an indictment of current US politics or President Trump, which is notable by its absence considering the film was released so close to election time. 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. Kiss the Ground was created in 2013 from a meeting in Venice Beach. Using livestock is thought to make this process 7 times faster! There is a large focus on America, but the issues here in the UK (and the rest of the world) are similar, so it is applicable to all. I promise its way easier to mail one ballot than to cut meat out of your diet or petition your city to collect compost! 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. 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. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. A degenerative system that decimates life in our soil, releases immense amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere, pollutes our waterways, and disrupts the biodiversity and biology on our land and in our oceans. It was better than most but could have hit that point harder. Shop organic where you can. So ifKiss the Groundhad taken a more evidence-based approach and included dietary recommendations what would it have looked like? The rest of our topsoils are projected to be lost within 60 years. Im Sarah, a Sustainable Nutrition and Behaviour Change Coach, and Im here to help if youre done with feeling guilty about doing too little to reduce your environmental impact and feed yourself healthy foods. Not to mention, I got a chuckle out of Bundchen calling Earth, Big Mama.. Xu, S. (2016). They are both such impactful leaders in this movement because they are called to bring these concepts to farmers and ranchers everywhere. This idea reminded me of what I learned from Cradle to Cradle. A powerful message during a time where the climate emergency is without a doubt causing climate anxiety. Bundchen and Brady point to the health of the soil as directly influencing the health of the plants we eat and our health as well. Every year 40m people are displaced as their farmlands become desert. Animals grazing is a part of the carbon cycle, and part of every healthy ecosystem in wild. By 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. And when it comes to the Savory Institute and Savorys claims Dr Garnett states that they are generally anecdotal, based on surveys and testimonies rather than on-site measurements. In fact, it was the single most important thing that lead Savory to question the science regarding overgrazing. Our independent team of journalists Bare soils are at great risk of erosion by heavy rain, and its also been shown that bare soils vary in temperature much more, so the microclimate is changed. Yes, theres no doubt ruminant poop can help improve soil quality, butthere are many types of regenerative agriculture that do not involve animalsoranimal manureand others that act as sanctuaries using animals on their land without sending them to slaughter. For millions of years the world has self-healed and self-balanced. If we can only get everyone on board! If not, heres what you can do to join the regenerative farming movement, or at least help make things better . Thank you for this article! These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You can make change and make a difference, even if you have struggled in the past to make change and feel like a failure. . shabu shabu groupon. Grazing livestock are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock. 2 Creation of a false dichotomy. But I wish people with platforms like documentary films or acting stardom would start framing issues with words that suggest physical work, like "repair" or fix or even "care for/take care of" (i.e. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on our website. I do feel bad for the farmers trapped in the cycle though. Nature Communications, 6, 6995. doi:10.1038/ncomms7995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7995, Wang, T., Teague, W., Park, S., & Bevers, S. (2015). Parents need to know that Kiss the Ground is a 2020 documentary that addresses our current soil erosion crisis throughout the planet and the benefits of practicing "regenerative agriculture." Narrated by Woody Harrelson, the documentary features extensive interviews with farmers, scientists, activists, celebrities, and regular people as they help to create awareness of regenerative . This is the central statement of Kiss the Ground, an eco-educational Netflix documentary directed and produced by Josh and Rebecca Tickell. But efforts have been made to restore the soils since 1994. 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. Find farms local to you that are farming in a regenerative way and support them by buying your produce from there. 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. Post war, these have been rebranded as farm chemicals. Biodiverse cover crops to feed the soil biology and protect the soils. I dont know a single holistic management practitioner that advocates cutting down forests to grow more cattle. In short:- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should With no plants to transpire and create the water vapour which condenses to rain, local rainfall also fails, turning the area to desert. Her main aim is to help people to start making some small (but significant) changes to the way they eat so they can enjoy all the benefits, like more energy, less sickness, reduced risks of future disease and less guilt - because we all need less stress and guilt in our lives! Yes, whats on our plate is even more important than where its come from or buying local. The key points in Kiss the Ground. This is a great way to help poor communities to reduce their disease from poor sanitation AND grow their own foods to lift them out of starvation and malnutrition! 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. 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. (Source: Kiss the Ground). But here too Garnett doesnt understand the science. Everything in natural systems is a cycle and aimed at maintaining balance. Dont get me wrong. 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. Links to some of the recent research supporting HM, Teague, W. R. (2018). The role of ruminants in reducing agricultures carbon footprint in North America. ), Pollinator garden/market flowers at Copper Cricket Farm. 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. As an employee of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he travels around the country educating farmers on more sustainable farming practices. All of these issues and more can be addressed, at least partially, by regenerative ag. The evidence for this claim is research-based, clearly communicated, and visually supported with animations that illustrate submicroscopic events like carbon cycling and expansive drone shots for grand reveals, like the actual desert plateau that is turned back into rolling green farmland. Thanks for a well-referenced and easily readable article this seems like a great resource to send to people. Narrated and featuring Woody Harrelson, Kiss the Ground is an inspiring and groundbreaking film that reveals the first viable solution to our climate crisis.. Francis Ge is News Fellow at Stone Pier Press and an aspiring first-generation regenerative farmer. Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: Kiss the Ground is a nonprofit on a mission to awaken people to the possibilities of regeneration and inspire participation in this movement by educating and engaging through media, communications . This is bio sequestration using plants to capture and store carbon. They are told that the chemicals will make things better by the companies selling these chemicals, and not helped to learn how to work with nature, rather than against it. Tilling and chemical agricultural methods have disrupted this cycle and increased the rate of carbon release. Farmers, scientists, cows, and celebrities work together in this documentary to spread the good word about regenerative agriculture and its potential to mitigate climate change. If he is the only one that can achieve the carbon sequestration that he claims, I fail to see how thats a hopeful solution. Your email address will not be published. But the agreement is that all of the richest grasslands in the world have large grazing animals. HaHa! 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. Im not saying the filmmakers should have gotten a token Black person, but they couldnt have gone wrong centering the voices of people for whom the stakes of not reversing climate change are much higher than their own. I asked Finian Makepeace, the co-founder of the Kiss the Ground organization, to tell me more about how he and the films producers and directors selected our trio of regenerative experts to appear in the movie. Agricultural Systems, 162, 249-258. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.02.003, Teague, W. R., Apfelbaum, S., Lal, R., Kreuter, U. P., Rowntree, J., Davies, C. A., . Modern agriculture was not designed for the betterment of the soil, instead for the short term maximisation of yield. 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. Garnetts FCRN self published paper basically just repeated Norborgs paper verbatim. Im not suggesting we should only be changing our diet but given it has greater potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions you would think it would have been given more emphasis than putting cows on pasture. It would be great to see what was meant to be there! Instagram @maggie.eileen.art). The documentary tiptoed around this, failing to make it explicitly clear that the food on our plate has to change, while seemingly wanting us to believe that holistic grazing on its own can reverse climate change. Less meat to go around and significantly higher prices per unit. 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. Healthy soils can store more carbon than all the trees combined! Real change requires drawdown: year to year reduction in carbon dioxide levels. The problem is, the lay viewer who is not across the science, and blinded by the message of hope, is likely to confuse the role of cows in holistic grazing with instruction that we should continue eating meat at current rates (as long as its grass-fed) and perhaps even double down on our meat consumption. We can all make some simple changes for massive benefits to our health and footprint. 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. Watching attentively, a classroom full of farmers. 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You can reach me at novelhandco@gmail.com or connect with me on LinkedIn. We started ploughing/tilling because it was easier for us to upscale. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 71(2), 156-164. doi:10.2489/jswc.71.2.156 http://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.abstract, Rowntree, J., Ryals, R., Delonge, M., Teague, R. W., Chiavegato, M., Byck, P., . Firstly, just so we are clear, the majority of the worlds mono-crops are fed to livestock. No topsoils; no food! We knew the film would really embody the spirit of the regenerative agriculture movement if Ray and Gabe were in it., And from the first days that Kiss the Ground the organization started, the work and research of Kris Nichols were fundamental to grasping why rebuilding soil was not only possible but the biggest solution to the climate, water, and food crises. What the writers ignored is that it was SCIENCE that led to that preferred plan of action. 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. But its the reality we face. Despite the documentary not spelling it out, its very clear. 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. Hosted by Robbie Lockie, Plant Based News delivers pioneering vegan news and ethical views weekly. I honestly thought it would stand on its own. Understanding Ag is an equal opportunity provider and employer. Copyright 2021 Understanding Ag, LLC | Website by RVT Solutions. Science can provide us with some valid assumptions, but it does not provide recipes. Will you join us? Two-thirds of the worlds land is currently desertifying leading to millions of climate refugees and further environmental destruction. It's a nonprofit organization that he leads today as executive director. And as the documentary states, shifting us from climate warming to climate cooling. Compost your food scraps. While Morgan Freemans voice might have been a better match for shots of billowing fields of grain, perhaps Harrelsons raspy tone is an appropriate fit for the seriousness of the climate crisis. Regenerative farming restores soils; storing carbon and reducing the need for chemical help to improve yields by harnessing natural processes. By 2050, it is estimated that 1bn people will be refugees of soil desertification. In other words, a 73 percent reduction in beef available per person in the U.S. For holistic grazing, that figure would be even higher because it requires far more land per cow and thus produces significantly less beef than the traditional more intensive grazing systems. It only takes a quick read of theDrawdown Reportto realize that this is absolutely unfounded its going to take an enormous amount of solutions to radically transform our energy and food systems to reverse climate change, and holistic grazing, while certainly better than intensive farming, is not the miracle carbon-sequestering practice that those watching are led to believe. There is not enough money in the world to get me to move from Gods country, North Dakota! 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. Even though we werent farmers, scientists or experts we knew that together, we could still make a difference! A soil without organic matter becomes dirt, a mix of rock materials and cannot support life.