Other soil-based carbon capture solutions like composting are crucial to regenerative agriculture. A plant-rich dietary pattern that places emphasis on regeneration but really could be chopped in a number of ways to suit the individual Mediterranean, paleo, pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan, etc can all be done in a plant-predominant manner. . 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: I just heard of the movie and wanted to find out a little more about it until I get time to watch it. Ray: Yes, absolutely. So sadly neither does the author of this review. But what good is hope if its false? Use this compost for your beds rather than buying in compost or fertilisers. Required fields are marked *. I am optimistic because the major issues we are currently facing economic stress, climate change, and food quality are all addressed by the same solution regenerating soil. Desertification is the process of land turning to desert. 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. That was good enough for me. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. The movie funders wanted to make this movie all about organic farming, but Gabe and I worked on him and showed him that organic farming can be as destructive as conventional farmingand to his credit, Josh learned what regenerative farming was all about. 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. 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. 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). 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. Did you have any reservations about appearing in it? The movie stars Woody Harrelson, David Arquette, Gisele Bundchen, Jason Mraz (and others) and three newly minted stars you may know personally: Understanding Ags Ray Archuleta, Gabe Brown and Kris Nichols, Ph.D. Those of us who have been in the regenerative ag arena for some time, already know these three as soil health super-stars, but now a wider, world-wide audience will benefit from their experience, insight and wisdom, too. "Kiss the Ground" is based on the fact that modern industrial agriculture is devastating our planet. 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. Put simply, there are no healthy humans without a healthy planet. There is one hyperlink in error. have no problems. 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. Despite the documentary not spelling it out, its very clear. This is bio sequestration using plants to capture and store carbon. kisstheground. "All farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. 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. We need to spread the word to drive this important movement forwards! He's a lover of people and of life. There are many things you can do, all varying in difficulty. Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems. . These animals then emit greenhouse gases. 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. It turned out to be more involved than I imagined. Hi! It took a Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady cameo to hit this point home. These cookies do not store any personal information. Here are five things I learned from Kiss the Ground. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I promise not to sell your information, and if you don't like what I send, you can easily unsubscribe at any point. shabu shabu groupon. I promise its way easier to mail one ballot than to cut meat out of your diet or petition your city to collect compost! We have now decoupled these so farmers are either crop or livestock, and each are done on an intensive scale, with no natural cycles in place. A powerful message during a time where the climate emergency is without a doubt causing climate anxiety. If we adopt regenerative farming practices, we can reverse carbon release into the atmosphere and stabilise the climate, and it wont take long! Ray: As they say, He who has the gold makes the rules, so there was a lot of pressure to have Josh, the director, slant this movie towards veganism, messaging cows are bad, eat less meat, carbon footprint, and organic farming will save the world, kind of stuff. It does include grazing planning and management, but also many other things. Your email address will not be published. Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: how to make a chi ball visible for beginners Keagy's Best Price Plumbing I thought it was odd that this was left out. But 99 percent of those crops go to feeding livestock. We are made of carbon (16%) and its the element that life is based upon! Its especially interesting to me as I am working towards a biology degree and hope to become a soil scientist. Our modern farming methods are not concerned with soil longevity or quality and are significantly to blame for the destruction of the soils. But its the reality we face. It's a tool. The review is plain evidence that we see what we believe and the reviewers beliefs greatly clouded their vision. So its incredibly facile. However, given the notable absence of well qualified environmental scientists discussing evidence to support their ambitious claims, in favor of anecdotal experience from ranchers, just how much of the information in this documentary can we trust and reliably use to shape our food system and inform our food choices? Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie. Everything in natural systems is a cycle and aimed at maintaining balance. This process of soil destruction is detrimental to agriculture. Your email address will not be published. Suggestions for viewers to compost and eat a plant-based diet come off as both insignificant and off the mark after the grand scheme of carbon cycling via production agriculture the whole film had been setting up. 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. Id be willing to donate it to them. Farming like nature has also been shown to reduce inputs (costs) and improve yields. This movie has given soil a voice to say, I am not dirt! 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. 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. 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. and experts are committed to making an impact through a wide range of contentand 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. Kris: When I was working as the Chief Scientist with the Rodale Institute, I was asked to be interviewed by the Kiss the Ground team who were also interviewing Maria Rodale. Ryland co-founded Kiss the Ground in his living room with a friend ten years ago. GHG Mitigation Potential of Different Grazing Strategies in the United States Southern Great Plains. They are both such impactful leaders in this movement because they are called to bring these concepts to farmers and ranchers everywhere. This sounds like something else that he would likely regret in the near future. Hopefully enough of them will see this movie and find enough alternatives to be able to make some real change. 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. Unfortunately not as much as I had hoped. Shop organic where you can. Why? Potential mitigation of midwest grass-finished beef production emissions with soil carbon sequestration in the United States of America. Animals grazing is a part of the carbon cycle, and part of every healthy ecosystem in wild. 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. In fact, based upon the outcome of that decision, Savory greatly modified his opinion as to what science can and cannot do when it comes to solutions of complex problems. Given soil grows 95 per cent of our food, and sustains human life, this is a huge problem. 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. As long as its grass-fed. Kiss the Ground has the perfect documentary mix of celebrity activists and wise elder scientists. 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. kiss the ground fact checking This idea reminded me of what I learned from Cradle to Cradle. However, after spending time with the Kiss the Ground team particularly in Paris, I understood howpassionate the filmmakers are about the soil solution. Tilling loosens the soil, disturbing microorganisms that live within it, drying it out so. 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. Your email address will not be published. The film uses creative graphics and visuals, along with striking NASA and NOAA footage, and illustrates how, by drawing down atmospheric carbon many of humankinds most pressing climate and environmental problems can be solved. Gabe: I would have liked the movie to highlight the importance of grazing animals. 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. And as the documentary states, shifting us from climate warming to climate cooling. 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. Science can provide us with some valid assumptions, but it does not provide recipes. It would be great to see what was meant to be there! After 14 years, it is lush farmland again. 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. 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. Scientists and researchers in the documentary back them up. Garnetts FCRN self published paper basically just repeated Norborgs paper verbatim. 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? 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. Unfortunately, these incredibly superior solutions are less sexy because they are not tying livestock, and more specifically the consumption of beef, to the solution. Carrie Richards is not giving up. Firstly, just so we are clear, the majority of the worlds mono-crops are fed to livestock. Francis Ge is News Fellow at Stone Pier Press and an aspiring first-generation regenerative farmer. 209 South Oak Ridge Drive 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. Regenerative agriculture describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity - resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle. Get exclusive content in your inbox each Monday. Share this article or talk about the importance of soils to your friends. If youve tried and failed before youre definitely in the right place change is hard, but doable with the right process and support! Every version got better, and the last version was the best one. 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. Something went wrong. 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. After all, its communities of color, low-income communities, and immigrant communities who do the majority of the essential work of growing food and yet are most exploited and harmed by the agroindustrial complex. I live in a rural area and have seen first hand the difference in soils farmed using modern, industrial methods and smaller fields farmed in a more traditional way. The difference is immense and plain for anyone to see. 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 . Awesome! Many of the pesticides and fertilisers have been derived from poison gases used in warfare (chemical warfare and poison used in gas chambers). 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. 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. Its not a bad thing per se. 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. No spam, we promise just our best articles. A major criticism is that there is a lack of science to back up claims. 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. 3 Unclear about how the proposed solutions would affect our diets. Local water cycles produce 40% of our rainfall. Please read our Comment policy before commenting. 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. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on our website. His response: holistic management does not permit replication, and youll find the scientific method never discovers anything.. Our current farming methods are simply not sustainable. 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! One of the . Farmers need to make profits but we need to be transparent here and lay down all solutions on the table to have an open discussion. Ray: Hope. It carries pleasant stuff. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. Heres my critique of that paper: https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/its-the-soil-biology-stupid/ This paper includes a number of these soil science papers. Tilling and chemical agricultural methods have disrupted this cycle and increased the rate of carbon release. 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. On one hand, the use of celebrity ambassadors is an unsubtle but effective tactic to draw casual viewers and followers. The farmers are now starving or have moved on as the soils wont grow anything anymore, they have become dirt. As an employee of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he travels around the country educating farmers on more sustainable farming practices. Check out Kiss the Ground website, where you will find other ways to be involved and even learn how to Become a Soil Advocate! But as crops grow month by month, drawing down atmospheric carbon, the red is gradually replaced by greens and then by blues, until the map is recognizable once again as the pale blue dot we call home. This is a huge problem. 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. Required fields are marked *. This dirt then cannot store water, and heats up massively under the sun with no protection, baking the soils and exacerbating the problem. Scientists work hard to do science, yet despite thousand of papers produced by human nutrition scientists, the diet health of US occupants is at its worst level ever. I wanted the filmmakers to first understandto let the soil speak and to let nature teach us. Healthy soils can store more carbon than all the trees and plants combined, so is more important than saving the rainforests or the ocean phytoplankton in reversing climate change! Gabe: HaHa! But the #1 US crop is GMO corn, sprayed with Glyphosate, which is now found in their drinking water and kills the microbes in our guts. That sounds catastrophic. Humans have created such a massive disturbance in our topsoil and atmosphere that the only way out is forward. So why did a documentary about regenerative agriculture and the power of growing plants not encourage people to grow their own food? The Lhos plateau in China, an area larger than Belgium, had become a dusty wasteland after over farming. 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. can scoop up and heroically rescue. 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. "Kiss the Ground" has a bevy of information to impart, however, and its plucky resistance to politicizing any of it while also acknowledging that so much of this is indeed at the mercy of. Nature Communications, 6, 6995. doi:10.1038/ncomms7995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7995, Wang, T., Teague, W., Park, S., & Bevers, S. (2015). 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. Gabe: I was assured by Josh that the information I presented would not be taken out of context and he agreed to run edits by me first. Directors Joshua Tickell Rebecca Harrell Tickell Writers Johnny O'Hara Joshua Tickell Rebecca Harrell Tickell Stars By 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. In other words, his claims cannot be supported by data, replicated by others and he doesnt believe in science. This positioning starts with the documentarys focus on theDrawdown Reportby Environmentalist Paul Hawken from Project Drawdown. The claim: Video shows cracks in the ground that formed after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Sure, its easy to see with our own eyes that there is more life on land that is managed in a regenerative way, but in order to really know that it is a climate solution, we would need evidence that carbon levels in the soil are not only increasing but increasing by more than the emissions emitted by the animals involved in the system. Gabe: That each and every person needs to step up and make a differencethat they can make a difference by purchasing from farmers and ranchers who practice regenerative ag. 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. 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. This is a major oversimplification of our complex and varied farming system. If not, heres what you can do to join the regenerative farming movement, or at least help make things better . With topsoils disappearing and temperatures rising, about 2/3 of the world is desertifying. 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. Try: Compost Toilets in Africa: Human Feces as Fertilizer | Thrive4Good (thriveforgood.org) or GiveLove. Upcoming Kiss the Ground Movie Features Three Understanding Ag Experts, Questions and Answers with Our In-House Stars. Their mob grazing action and the impact of their hooves is important. 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. What the writers ignored is that it was SCIENCE that led to that preferred plan of action. Using perennials and trees as protection for the soils. The filmmakers were able to discuss organic and regenerative agriculture, livestock production and veganism, and climate change in a manner that made no individuals or groups either heroes or villains but rather made the soil the hero which is the appropriate focus in my opinion. reduce the burden of chronic disease in our communities, https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/its-the-soil-biology-stupid/, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.02.003, http://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.abstract, https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/potential-mitigation-of-midwest-grass-finished-beef-production-em, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2011.03.009, https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019.pdf. Watch the film trailer here and the full movie on Netflix. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Kris: There has never been a time when the potential to fundamentally change global agriculture, food quality, and economic viability for small and large farmers by regenerating the soil to restore and revitalize ecosystem services is as great is it is now. 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. Many would argue soil degradation is the most critical environmental threat to humans. All whilst minimising our 'footprint'. Jeff Creque, Rangeland Director, Carbon Cycle Institute. Regenerative agriculture combines 4 practices. 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. 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. In fact, the documentary claims that greenhouse gases are sequestered (stored/drawn down) in grazing herds, due to the generation of healthy soils, but released in feed lots where the animals are not a part of the natural cycle. Its not too long, but youll learn a lot from it. Also that we can fix this and the fix is quite simple. Either way, shifting the typical diet in such a way is a certain win for humanity and all life on Earth, and thus something that not only should have been made clearer in Kiss the ground, but something that everyone reading should strongly consider. doi:10.1093/jas/skx060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jas/skx060, Stanley, P. L., Rowntree, J. E., Beede, D. K., DeLonge, M. S., & Hamm, M. W. (2018). San Francisco have an amazing system, and are the most sustainable city in the US! So the the more microbes, the more necromass and the faster SOM including soil organic matter is built. Which would net off the existing emissions we make, at least stabilising things. Its the misbalance of carbon that is the issue. The solution is right under our feet - THE SOIL. You can see all of thisherefor yourself. 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.