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. 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). 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. Its predicted that, if we can scale up some of these farming methods over the next 30 years, we can REVERSE global warming. (Though theyre still good ideas.). The fix is simple: Mimic nature, cover the soil andunderstand how soil is intended to function. And this isnt just my own speculation. Our modern farming methods are not concerned with soil longevity or quality and are significantly to blame for the destruction of the soils. Hosted by Robbie Lockie, Plant Based News delivers pioneering vegan news and ethical views weekly. Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie. How 'Kiss the Ground' Directors Avoided Making Soil - TheWrap You can make change and make a difference, even if you have struggled in the past to make change and feel like a failure. Kris: We are facing a catastrophic cascade in Earths ecosystems impacting human health and the global economy which fundamentally rests in pressures stemming from changes in the economic and ecological agricultural landscape due to climate change and escalating worldwide competition for natural resources and commodities, including petroleum, natural gas, grains,oilseeds, and proteins. 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. But what good is hope if its false? This positioning starts with the documentarys focus on theDrawdown Reportby Environmentalist Paul Hawken from Project Drawdown. Did you know that we can save the world with soil? Given soil grows 95 per cent of our food, and sustains human life, this is a huge problem. 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. I was in California at a meeting and met Finnian Makepeace, who is the groups co-founder. If we adopt regenerative farming practices, we can reverse carbon release into the atmosphere and stabilise the climate, and it wont take long! Get exclusive content in your inbox each Monday. Farming like nature has also been shown to reduce inputs (costs) and improve yields. This is how the natural carbon cycle should work. The Lhos plateau in China, an area larger than Belgium, had become a dusty wasteland after over farming. 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. worlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? 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. The solution is right under our feet THE SOIL. Mitos y realidades sobre las algas | Mitos y realidades sobre las algas This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. All chemical soils are almost devoid of microorganisms, so the plant roots cannot get the nutrients they need. Regenerative agriculture combines 4 practices. 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 reveals that, by regenerating the world's soils, we can completely and rapidly stabilize Earth's climate, restore lost ecosystems and create abundant food supplies. 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. So the the more microbes, the more necromass and the faster SOM including soil organic matter is built. 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. 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. So the white papers cited dont even really know what HPG/AMP is or how it works. Unfortunately, there are still very few about, especially in the UK. 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 claim: Video shows cracks in the ground that formed after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. ), Pollinator garden/market flowers at Copper Cricket Farm. 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. Regenerated healthy soil greatly increases the carrying capacity of land, so the amount of land needed for regen grazing isnt an issue. Even though we werent farmers, scientists or experts we knew that together, we could still make a difference! 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. This is the central statement of Kiss the Ground, an eco-educational Netflix documentary directed and produced by Josh and Rebecca Tickell. This is a huge problem. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. 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. 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. Ray: Not at the moment, but if Steven Spielberg calls, I WILL answer. Its not just about more trees, the carbon that can be stored in healthy, organic material rich soils is much greater. 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. It is a strategic use of fame and visibility, and the filmmakers and stars are clearly aware of the cultural impact of their appearances in the film. Where I think the documentary falls short is in three critical areas. 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. I am alive!. The trouble is, our farmers are not taught this; our growers know nothing about how the soil works or the basic ecological principles. And Norborgs paper rehashed papers by Briske and Holechek that looked at short duration rotational grazing systems rather than holistically planned grazing systems [HPG] known in the peer reviewed scientific literature as adaptive multi-paddock or AMP managed grazing systems. Five takeaways from new Kiss the Ground documentary - Novel Hand The review is plain evidence that we see what we believe and the reviewers beliefs greatly clouded their vision. 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. Although I would have liked more with real life farmers and ranchers, it is hard to put together a documentary that will appeal across the spectrum from rural to urban communities, young and old, and everyday people to activists. Minimising the amount of mechanical disturbance, with no tilling/ploughing. Finally, the elephant / cow in the room (not sure which is more fitting) duringKiss the Ground is how are we going to produce enough meat using holistic grazing to meet current demands? Carrie's ranch is comprised of 6,500 acres, Thank you to the @apnews for sharing an art. Autor de l'entrada Per ; Data de l'entrada calexico west port of entry hours; 12 month libor rate 2021 a kiss the ground fact checking a kiss the ground fact checking If youve heard anything about Tom Bradys lifestyle, you know that its extreme. Skip on down to the final thoughts if you dont have time to get more into the facts! 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. But here too Garnett doesnt understand the science. Registration confirmation will be emailed to you. 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. Many countries signed, including the UK, but not the US, China or India, the biggest agricultural and CO2 producers. Upcoming Kiss the Ground Movie Features Three Understanding Ag Experts, Questions and Answers with Our In-House Stars. The French Minister for agriculture proposed a 4 in 1000 plan, to increase the organic content of our soils by 0.4% per year. Xu, S. (2016). Enteric methane is broken down in a short period of time, and microbial methane is the same carbon cycling and recycling over and over. Something went wrong. Firstly, just so we are clear, the majority of the worlds mono-crops are fed to livestock. 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. Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: 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 . 209 South Oak Ridge Drive 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. Kiss the Ground | Successful Farming Unfortunately not as much as I had hoped. 2020 | Maturity Rating: TV-G | 1h 24m | Nature & Ecology Documentaries. (Source: Kiss the Ground). 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. Get our weekly editors newsletter & special offers delivered right to your inbox! 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. 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. Rising animal production and consumption, whatever the farming system and animal type, is causing damaging greenhouse gas release and contributing to changes in land use. In short:- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should Jeff Creque, Rangeland Director, Carbon Cycle Institute. Future of Food: Journal on Food, Agriculture & Society, 4(3), 8. All of us make critical decisions every day as we manage our lives and we dont consult the literature when making those decisions. Its the misbalance of carbon that is the issue. 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. 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. A Case Study in a Cambodian Orphanage. How 'Kiss the Ground' Directors Avoided Making Soil - Yahoo The farmers are now starving or have moved on as the soils wont grow anything anymore, they have become dirt. Carrie Richards is not giving up. 'Kiss the Ground' review: The soil may save us, but it's not that 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. 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. 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. 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. Biodiverse cover crops to feed the soil biology and protect the soils. Looking for a way to kill the quarantine boredom? care as a social process). Instagram @maggie.eileen.art). Gabe: No, but only because I am on to the next project, bringing society together in supporting regenerative ag. Also that we can fix this and the fix is quite simple. 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. Savorys claims dont stand up when you put them under the microscope. 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! 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. Hopefully enough of them will see this movie and find enough alternatives to be able to make some real change. 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. Many would argue soil degradation is the most critical environmental threat to humans. Our farming systems have moved too far out of alignment with mother nature. The natural carbon cycle involves carbon release by animals consuming plant and other organic materials and releasing the carbon as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If youve seen The People vs. Larry Flynt in all of its obscenity, like I did in Constitutional Law last semester, youll be a little surprised to hear the voice of actor Woody Harrelson narrating a documentary about social and environmental issues. 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. What the writers ignored is that it was SCIENCE that led to that preferred plan of action. 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. Please check your entries and try again. "All farmable soil could be gone in 60 years. As an employee of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he travels around the country educating farmers on more sustainable farming practices. Tilling and chemical agricultural methods have disrupted this cycle and increased the rate of carbon release. 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. Kris: Yes. Despite all of this, my fear is that many will be left with a complete misunderstanding of where environmental science truly lies. This is actually seen using satellites which monitor the CO2 levels. Kiss The Ground: Just A Last Ditch Effort To Keep Meat Relevant? 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. We are healthier, as is the earth. Kiss the Ground features successful composting programs in San Francisco, Detroit, and Haiti. I dont understand how they didnt emphasize that you still have to eat a plant rich diet if you want everyone in the world to eat pasture raised animals Theres only so much to land and hence animals you can raise. A prime example of this is their claim that there is only 60 years of farming left. 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. His response: holistic management does not permit replication, and youll find the scientific method never discovers anything.. 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. 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. Today, our platform reaches millions through immersive media and education initiatives. My hubby is from Alberta, the beef province of Canada and he was telling me about how land intensive pasture raised animals are. That was good enough for me. This seems like pretty important information that was left off the table. Stardom is a complicated thing, but at least all that money and power are being put to good use. Eco-friendly eating - better for your health and the planet :). 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. 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. We told him that you need to leave the audience with hope, which I believe he did. And lets not forget, this is the same man who ordered40,000 African elephants to slaughterbecause he incorrectly thought they were damaging the land. We recently caught up with @mcgrathfamilyfarm. A major criticism is that there is a lack of science to back up claims. Science can provide us with some valid assumptions, but it does not provide recipes. Heres below are just a handful of recent PEER REVIEWED papers supporting HPG. 'Kiss the Ground' Review: Celeb-Studded Doc on Fixing - IndieWire Harvard research has shown that these chemicals can build up in breast fed babies this use of chemicals has to stop! 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. Animals grazing is a part of the carbon cycle, and part of every healthy ecosystem in wild. Kiss The Ground - YouTube If we look at where many of the 20 or so great civilisations have been, many are now desert Could this be our future if we carry on down this path? Your email address will not be published. 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. Kiss the Ground Film | Official Website Its not too long, but youll learn a lot from it. can scoop up and heroically rescue. 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. 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. 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. Copyright EAT THINK EXPLORE 2020 Powered by WordPress Theme Divi Hosted sustainably by Ecohosting, Join my mailing list to receive the latest news, tips and scientific advice to help you move to a more eco-friendly way of eating and get your FREE guide to get you started on your journey today! Its absolutely good to love the earth and want to save the soil. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. After 14 years, it is lush farmland again. 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. 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.