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. Gabe: HaHa! His response: holistic management does not permit replication, and youll find the scientific method never discovers anything.. 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. Weaker soils need more chemicals. If we adopt regenerative farming practices, we can reverse carbon release into the atmosphere and stabilise the climate, and it wont take long! Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter. 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. Until then, its going to be hard to truly transform our agricultural system to benefit all life on the planet. kisstheground. 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. 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. 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. Carrie's ranch is comprised of 6,500 acres, Thank you to the @apnews for sharing an art. Gabe: Yes, I am very optimistic about our future if regenerative practices are widely adopted. 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. Theres also a lot of new recent PEER REVIEWED soil science that demonstrates this. Enterprise, AL 36330. He did several versions of this movie. There is one hyperlink in error. 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. 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. Your email address will not be published. If we choose healthy foods, there is a reciprocation. The elephant in the room during the documentary is that they completely failed to mention that a significant amount of the land dedicated to animal agriculture across the world (not all but certainly a lot) needs to be restored to forests (the number one driver of deforestation is animal agriculture) to get anywhere close to meeting our climate goals. Ground News rates Kiss the Ground Film's media bias as unknown. Integrating animals grazing the cover crops for their manure and the beneficial effects of their hooves. So the the more microbes, the more necromass and the faster SOM including soil organic matter is built. The Lhos plateau in China, an area larger than Belgium, had become a dusty wasteland after over farming. The short clip featured Zelenskyy speaking and the audio was that of a translator. When those are plants that we eat, healthy soil is crucial. Dr. Myles Allen and his research team with their recent GWP* metric point out how short lived GHGs have to be accounted for differently than long lived GHGs.. FACT-CHECK. Hosted by Robbie Lockie, Plant Based News delivers pioneering vegan news and ethical views weekly. Do you ever think about where your food comes from. As an employee of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he travels around the country educating farmers on more sustainable farming practices. The animal point here is controversial I know. 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. Great news! Kiss the Ground members are the grassroots stakeholders that stand with us in the regenerative movement. Sustainability, 7(10), 13500. http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/10/13500, Teague, W. R., Dowhower, S. L., Baker, S. A., Haile, N., DeLaune, P. B., & Conover, D. M. (2011). Theyre disconnected form the real world. Their technical expertise should be enough to convince us that their message is not only correct but worth listening to. It is possible that this is coincidence, but the correlation is striking! 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. Its not just about more trees, the carbon that can be stored in healthy, organic material rich soils is much greater. Sign up for the latest courses, learning resources, news and events. Kris: Im always excited by the opportunities to discuss Regenerative Agriculture. With this in mind, I feel obliged to point out the uncomfortable contrast between the two main types of interviewees in the film. Hopefully, this movie will help open many more. A powerful message during a time where the climate emergency is without a doubt causing climate anxiety. Enteric methane is broken down in a short period of time, and microbial methane is the same carbon cycling and recycling over and over. have no problems. 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. Kiss the Ground features successful composting programs in San Francisco, Detroit, and Haiti. 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. Unfortunately, there are still very few about, especially in the UK. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. Heal the planet is a phrase that implies not only the existence of some kind of natural balance to which we can return, but the existence of a cure that human benevolence can deliver. This positioning starts with the documentarys focus on theDrawdown Reportby Environmentalist Paul Hawken from Project Drawdown. 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). Here are five things I learned from Kiss the Ground. I also thoroughly enjoyed Pauls episode onRich Rolls podcastwhere he speaks at length about Project Drawdown. All of us make critical decisions every day as we manage our lives and we dont consult the literature when making those decisions. Unless we save our soils, we have 60 harvests left before global starvation. 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. 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. Using livestock is thought to make this process 7 times faster! Jemima is the Head of Editorial of Plant Based News. 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! If filmmakers are serious about educating and calling people to action, they shouldn't couch their messages in gentle, sweeping language. As the plants struggle to grow following the removal of organic material year on year, and in the absence of their supporting microbial populations, our farmers resort to chemical fertilisers. If we can only get everyone on board! If you want to hear a bit more explanation of these, click here or scroll down. This is why science is so important. 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. However, after spending time with the Kiss the Ground team particularly in Paris, I understood howpassionate the filmmakers are about the soil solution. So sadly neither does the author of this review. Unfortunately, Savory seems to have led himself to believe that his unscientific approach should be expanded across the world really, tear down more forests to make room for holistic grazing? One of the . However, this was taken from a United Nations speech, which leading soil scientists say isabsolutely not supported by science. So ifKiss the Groundhad taken a more evidence-based approach and included dietary recommendations what would it have looked like? 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. 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. The central tenant is that its a diet that places enormous emphasis on calories from plants and de-emphasizes calories from animal products. Farm work is unglamorous, underappreciated, and not very well-paid for the most part, but it just so happens to be crucial to the survival of our species. Why not let the viewer know what theworlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? There are sites where this has been done, and what was desert is now lush grassland with grasses growing taller than people. Where I think the documentary falls short is in three critical areas. 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. Before we get into a few major claims made inKiss the Groundthat are directly at odds with scientific knowledge, I want to preface this entry by saying that I wholeheartedly supportregenerative agricultureas a goal and think the documentary did a great job bringing light to the detrimental impact that intensive animal agriculture is having on our planet.