Post war, these have been rebranded as farm chemicals. Gabe: No, but only because I am on to the next project, bringing society together in supporting regenerative ag. Ive been interested in and learning more about the importance of soil health for years. Overlaying it, a swirling heat map of global atmospheric carbon, changing from dark red to cool blue over the course of a year. 'Kiss the Ground' review: The soil may save us, but it's not that 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. When receiving subsidies for crops like corn and beans, farmers know that they will make a profit. As long as its grass-fed. Understanding Ag is an equal opportunity provider and employer. Which would net off the existing emissions we make, at least stabilising things. Carrie's ranch is comprised of 6,500 acres, Thank you to the @apnews for sharing an art. forests are typically far better at doing this than grasslands, when you factor in the land that would be freed up if the entire world shifted to a plant-rich diet, there are many types of regenerative agriculture that do not involve animals, available grasslands would only be able to produce 27 percent of the countries current beef supply. Because whereKiss the Groundlacks in science, it makes up in celebrity power with the likes of Woody Harrelson, Jason Mraz, Ian Somerhalder, Gisele Bndchen, and Tom Brady all featured. With this in mind, I feel obliged to point out the uncomfortable contrast between the two main types of interviewees in the film. Whilst maintaining a large veg bed to feed the whole family takes up a lot of space and requires time, there are many crops that require very little maintenance or space, and actually like growing in your flower beds amongst the flowers! Nicholas Carter and Simon Hill (MSc Nutr). Thanks for a well-referenced and easily readable article this seems like a great resource to send to people. Kris: Yes. To move the conversation forward with the urgency this topic deserves, filmmakers have to use the emotion they elicit to generate willpower and give the public the conceptual framework they need to act, not just to feel. All whilst minimising our 'footprint'. Water and carbon escape into the atmosphere in enormous plumes blanketing the entire northern hemisphereshown onscreen as ominous swirls of red. I would simply build on the work of Michael Pollan, a well-known science writer: Where possible eat regenerative food, not too much, mostly plants.. Regenerative farming restores soils; storing carbon and reducing the need for chemical help to improve yields by harnessing natural processes. 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. But here too Garnett doesnt understand the science. They are both such impactful leaders in this movement because they are called to bring these concepts to farmers and ranchers everywhere. Its filled with intelligent people who refuse to shy away from the impending climate cataclysm and have instead dedicated themselves to the daily work of facing itas farmers, educators, scientists, and yes, even as politicians. Despite all of this, my fear is that many will be left with a complete misunderstanding of where environmental science truly lies. Weaker soils need more chemicals. 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. So why did a documentary about regenerative agriculture and the power of growing plants not encourage people to grow their own food? Using livestock is thought to make this process 7 times faster! 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. I honestly thought it would stand on its own. Ground News is unable to assign a bias rating and does not have ratings available from Ad Fontes Media, All Sides, and Media Bias/Fact Check. 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. kiss the ground fact checking Eating less meat, of all types, is. 1 Claims that holistic grazing can reverse climate change. With topsoils disappearing and temperatures rising, about 2/3 of the world is desertifying. As prices go up, pending one spends the same budget they had previously set aside for meat, their consumption naturally falls. The basic premise of Kiss the Ground is that the destruction of soil is contributing to the severity and intensity of climate change. With that said, any time a new study, book, documentary, or other media publication is published, I read or watch with great interest. Regenerative Agriculture, What is it? - Kiss the Ground ), Pollinator garden/market flowers at Copper Cricket Farm. Rich soil, with plenty of microbes, allows healthy plants to grow. Having dedicated many years to researching and communicating the science behind an optimal diet for humans, I understand first hand how our health isinextricably tied to the planets(as detailed inmy upcoming book). worlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? Its the misbalance of carbon that is the issue. At Novel Hand, Im specifically interested in learning about topics related to justice and poverty, and how to create equitable, sustainable impact. This is the central statement of Kiss the Ground, an eco-educational Netflix documentary directed and produced by Josh and Rebecca Tickell. Watch the Film OUR COMMUNITY Also, I must confess that I did not fully understand the implications of a film crew following me all over the country. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. In short:- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should 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). Its especially interesting to me as I am working towards a biology degree and hope to become a soil scientist. Kiss the Ground was created in 2013 from a meeting in Venice Beach. I help with that too , Join my supportive community to move to eco-friendly eating and receive tips, advice, recipes and support. 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. His response: holistic management does not permit replication, and youll find the scientific method never discovers anything.. Skip on down to the final thoughts if you dont have time to get more into the facts! Hopefully enough of them will see this movie and find enough alternatives to be able to make some real change. Unless we save our soils, we have 60 harvests left! So ifKiss the Groundhad taken a more evidence-based approach and included dietary recommendations what would it have looked like? Shop organic where you can. Real change requires drawdown: year to year reduction in carbon dioxide levels. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. This is a review Im very familiar with having read through it front to back a handful of times. But what good is hope if its false? Modern agriculture was not designed for the betterment of the soil, instead for the short term maximisation of yield. And of course, havinginterviewedthe co-founders ofKiss the Ground, Ryland Engelhart and Finian Makepeace, in early 2020, I was particularly excited to watch theKiss the Grounddocumentary(and I recommend you watch it too if you havent already). Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: The trouble is, our farmers are not taught this; our growers know nothing about how the soil works or the basic ecological principles. It was very much positioned as absolutely crucial to confronting this climate emergency we find ourselves in. Simple reducing emission does nothing to decrease the greenhouse gases that are already in our atmosphere. Animals grazing is a part of the carbon cycle, and part of every healthy ecosystem in wild. He also heard about the NRCS soil health effort and my role in encouraging the agency to bring more resources to support the regenerative ag movement. Your email address will not be published. Until recently, however, the roles of soil and grazing animals have been missing pieces of the climate puzzle. Im Alexa, the Founder and Editor of Novel Hand. Awesome! We need to spread the word to drive this important movement forwards! Why? Please check your entries and try again. BookstoreBook submissionsNewsNewsletter signupRecipesGardening, Our storyGet involvedJobs/FellowshipPartnersContact usPrivacy Shipping & return policy. 2021 Plant Based News is a UK-based digital media outlet publishing content about veganism and plant-based living, including news and current events, health, personal transformation stories, features, and recipes. It turned out to be more involved than I imagined. Upcoming Kiss the Ground Movie Features Three Understanding Ag Experts, Questions and Answers with Our In-House Stars. 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. 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 positioning starts with the documentarys focus on theDrawdown Reportby Environmentalist Paul Hawken from Project Drawdown. Minimising the amount of mechanical disturbance, with no tilling/ploughing. Check out this map for farms local to you Regenerative Farm Map Regeneration International. Eat quality (organic, pasture raised meat, or, even better, that from regenerative farms) meat as a treat not a staple. Ill start with the hardest and get easier. A soil without organic matter becomes dirt, a mix of rock materials and cannot support life. Watch the film trailer here and the full movie on Netflix. Dont get me wrong. Copyright 2021 Understanding Ag, LLC | Website by RVT Solutions. 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? Desertification is the process of land turning to desert. 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. Watch Kiss the Ground | Netflix Kiss the Ground - YouTube shabu shabu groupon. It would be great to see what was meant to be there! Regenerative agriculture combines 4 practices. By 2014 there was no vegetation left across an area the size of Belgium! 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. https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019.pdf. In many ways, this stands to do more harm than good. 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. After all, this method of grazing, which Gabe Brown and Alan Savory speak about at length, is being positioned in the documentary as the solution we have all been waiting for to reverse climate change. Ryland co-founded Kiss the Ground in his living room with a friend ten years ago. Industrial agriculture (left) causes desertification through tilling and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. 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 . This dirt then cannot store water, and heats up massively under the sun with no protection, baking the soils and exacerbating the problem. I thought it would be just another news release or another interview. I graduated from Vanderbilt University with degrees in Political Science, Economics and Spanish, and I currently study law in Texas. 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. This sounds like something else that he would likely regret in the near future. These animals then emit greenhouse gases. Francis Ge is News Fellow at Stone Pier Press and an aspiring first-generation regenerative farmer. This seems like pretty important information that was left off the table. 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. 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. 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. The lazy author of this review makes the same mistaken claim. "Kiss the Ground" is based on the fact that modern industrial agriculture is devastating our planet. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Although, when I watched it for the third time, it became obvious that the biology 101 lessons from Ray were cleverly used to dance around the fact there is no solid science to back up Savory and Browns claims. The difference is immense and plain for anyone to see. There was mention of a regenerative diet but what does that mean? The farmers are now starving or have moved on as the soils wont grow anything anymore, they have become dirt. Ground News rates Kiss the Ground Film's media bias as unknown. Kiss the Ground Directed by Joshua Tickell, Rebecca Harrell Tickell Documentary 1h 24m Find Tickets When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an. The NFL quarterback goes to bed earlier than any college student has ever dreamed of, and his diet is impeccably healthy. 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. Did you know that we can save the world with soil? The claim: Video shows cracks in the ground that formed after earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. 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? 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. Journal of Animal Science. Unfortunately not as much as I had hoped. With no plants to transpire and create the water vapour which condenses to rain, local rainfall also fails, turning the area to desert. 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. Kiss the Ground Film | Official Website 'Kiss the Ground' Review: Regenerating Hope for the Climate 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 is bio sequestration using plants to capture and store carbon. Kiss the Ground is a full-length documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson that sheds light on an "new, old approach" to farming called " regenerative agriculture " that has the potential to balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world. Impactfull April 2022, What Does Voluntourism Look Like? Put simply, there are no healthy humans without a healthy planet. Were trapped on a planet to which we've already done irreparable damage. Garnett, Poore and their ilk just do key word searches on computer screens and average parsed pre-existing data in their papers. For me, its a plant-exclusive diet and for you it might be eating plant-based before dinner often the perfect place for people to start. In turn, this means shifting to more plant-based diets. 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. However, this was taken from a United Nations speech, which leading soil scientists say isabsolutely not supported by science.