Ill start with the hardest and get easier. 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. 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? Archuleta describes the soil conservation problem as an education problem. But efforts have been made to restore the soils since 1994. Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: 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. Sign up for the latest courses, learning resources, news and events. Plowing the earth, preparing fields for planting, exposing bare soil. I honestly thought it would stand on its own. #2 - The planet is desertifying (more land is becoming desert), #4 - Our modern farming methods are killing the soils, #5 - Nature has invented the most sophisticated carbon capture method - photosynthesis, #6 - Soils are a huge potential carbon store, #8 - Regenerative farming can reverse climate change, The way we are feeding ourselves is undermining the very ecology were dependent upon. Get our weekly editors newsletter & special offers delivered right to your inbox! At Novel Hand, Im specifically interested in learning about topics related to justice and poverty, and how to create equitable, sustainable impact. Why? Potential mitigation of midwest grass-finished beef production emissions with soil carbon sequestration in the United States of America. Tilling, the process of pulling up the soil to plant seeds, is destructive to the soil. Over the years, tilling causes the soil to dirt, leaving it vulnerable to erosion and desertification. We started ploughing/tilling because it was easier for us to upscale. Your email address will not be published. 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. Registration confirmation will be emailed to you. That was good enough for me. Filmmakers Josh Tickell and Rebecca Tickell wound up spending seven years making their latest doc, "Kiss the Ground," and all along the way they worried that by the end of the process there . Given soil grows 95 per cent of our food, and sustains human life, this is a huge problem. So its incredibly facile. 'Kiss the Ground' review: The soil may save us, but it's not that 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., . 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? Eco-friendly eating - better for your health and the planet :). kisstheground. It does include grazing planning and management, but also many other things. As Hannah Ritchie, Phd (Geosciences) puts it: Whether you buy it from the farmer next door or from far away, it is not the location that makes the carbon footprint of your dinner large, but the fact that it is beef.. Forages and Pastures Symposium: Cover Crops in Livestock Production: Whole-System Approach: Managing Grazing to Restore Soil Health And farm livelihoods. The solution is right under our feet - THE SOIL. 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. It's a tool. 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. These cookies do not store any personal information. Until then, its going to be hard to truly transform our agricultural system to benefit all life on the planet. I promise not to sell your information, and if you don't like what I send, you can easily unsubscribe at any point. Copyright 2021 Understanding Ag, LLC | Website by RVT Solutions. With topsoils disappearing and temperatures rising, about 2/3 of the world is desertifying. This movie will also counterbalance the cowspiracy environmentalists and others with incorrect understanding of cows. 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.. Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. This is why science is so important. With no plants to transpire and create the water vapour which condenses to rain, local rainfall also fails, turning the area to desert. Makes sense why the documentary didnt go there! Regenerative agriculture is a more resilient system based on principles of soil health and biodiversity that integrates multiple crops, cover crops, and livestock animals. The rest is projected to be lost within 60 years. 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. 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. And lets not forget, this is the same man who ordered40,000 African elephants to slaughterbecause he incorrectly thought they were damaging the land. And as the documentary states, shifting us from climate warming to climate cooling. 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. 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.. Carrie's ranch is comprised of 6,500 acres, Thank you to the @apnews for sharing an art. I wanted the filmmakers to first understandto let the soil speak and to let nature teach us. A major criticism is that there is a lack of science to back up claims. kiss the ground fact checking - alfarisqatar.com In the 1930s the Dust Bowl was created. As a side note, the documentary routinely employed uses numerous fear-mongering tactics to scare the viewer into grasping for whatever solution comes next. 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. Great news! This is where a report written by Dr. Tara Garnett for the University of Oxford becomes very interesting a report titleGrazed and Confusedthat I have written about beforehere. 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. 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. These carbon rich sugars are used by microorganisms in the soil and (in return for providing minerals and other soil nutrients to the plant roots) secrete a carbon rich glue to hold effectively build their mini environments under the surface. There seems to be an incredibly fine line between grazing just enough and overgrazing, which speaks to potentially whycrediblepeer-reviewed science has to date, failed to produce results that come close to what Alan Savory claims. Minimising the amount of mechanical disturbance, with no tilling/ploughing. To rotate cows like bison, it means leaving land free from roaming animals for at least six-nine months a figure that Alan Savory states himself in the documentary. Id be willing to donate it to them. Its not just about more trees, the carbon that can be stored in healthy, organic material rich soils is much greater. 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. 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. Half are experts working in their respective fields, and the rest are celebrity activists for whom regenerative agriculture and climate change is more or less a cause. 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. 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. Given soil grows 95 per cent of our food, and sustains human life, this is a huge problem. 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. 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. 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. 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. The fix is simple: Mimic nature, cover the soil andunderstand how soil is intended to function. 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). Kiss the Ground Movie Review | Common Sense Media 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. 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. Firstly, just so we are clear, the majority of the worlds mono-crops are fed to livestock. All whilst minimising our 'footprint'. The short clip featured Zelenskyy speaking and the audio was that of a translator. 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. 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. Watching attentively, a classroom full of farmers. Holistic management is a decision making framework which has been developed over the years to deal with complex situations. 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. The Lhos plateau in China, an area larger than Belgium, had become a dusty wasteland after over farming. Get exclusive content in your inbox each Monday. 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! 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. 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. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. Enterprise, AL 36330. BOOM found that the viral video has been cropped from a longer conversation during a press conference where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned a hypothetical scenario of Ukraine losing the war and Russia invading other NATO countries including the Baltic states in Eastern Europe which would force the US to get involved and send troops. If we restore all the degraded land, we can return the earth to paradise, making room for biodiversity and feeding the worlds population (with lowered animal protein consumption). For millions of years the world has self-healed and self-balanced. Understanding Ag is an equal opportunity provider and employer. So ifKiss the Groundhad taken a more evidence-based approach and included dietary recommendations what would it have looked like? The trouble is, our farmers are not taught this; our growers know nothing about how the soil works or the basic ecological principles. https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019.pdf. His response: holistic management does not permit replication, and youll find the scientific method never discovers anything.. 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. Several scientists featured in Kiss the Ground are clear that simply reducing carbon emission wont be enough to save the planet. 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? Kris: No, but I am working on creating a virtual party with friends and family as we are scattered throughout the U.S. Ray: I will have a few people over. If you cant get them into a council waste system, there are a variety of small compost bins you can put in your garden at home. . When those are plants that we eat, healthy soil is crucial. A major strategy deployed in the documentary is offering two distinct choices for where consumers should source their food: conventional chemical-filled monocrops, or lush open fields of regenerative agriculture. The sort of solution you might suspect is at the top of all climate scientists lists. Theyre disconnected form the real world. 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 The documentary carefully positions holistic grazing as the answer to intensive animal agriculture (including the mono-cropping that occurs to feed factory-farmed animals). 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. By practicing regenerative agriculture, a no-till, chemical-free system designed to bolster and protect soil health, we can grow healthier plants, sequester more carbon, and ultimately reverse climate change., Narrator Woody Harrelson calls regenerative agriculture a simple solutiona way to heal our planet and asks viewers to save our soil in hopes the soil might just save us., The short version: Growing food with regenerative agriculture leads to healthier soil, better food, cleaner skies, and clearer water. This website uses third party cookies to improve your experience with your consent. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. 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. Ive been interested in and learning more about the importance of soil health for years. These animals then emit greenhouse gases. Its a practice that requires a level of care you have to commit to every time you go into the field. Using livestock is thought to make this process 7 times faster! This is a huge problem. Our modern farming methods are not concerned with soil longevity or quality and are significantly to blame for the destruction of the soils. 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. Consumers need to do their part by supporting pastured proteins. Lots of problems with Poores paper as well which didnt account for soil carbon or regenerative systems in any of its meta-analysis of averaged LCAs. This dirt then cannot store water, and heats up massively under the sun with no protection, baking the soils and exacerbating the problem. Despite the documentary not spelling it out, its very clear. Another issue with our modern methods is that we plough to remove existing plants, and then plant, or even leave the field bare over winter. have no problems. I do feel bad for the farmers trapped in the cycle though. Kiss the Ground: Documentary Review - United Church of Christ GHG Mitigation Potential of Different Grazing Strategies in the United States Southern Great Plains. how to make a chi ball visible for beginners Keagy's Best Price Plumbing Many of them are based on anecdotal evidence and experience. 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: Regardless of the labelthat we choose to adopt, eating this way will nourish the soil, reduce emissions from agriculture, and at the same timereduce the burden of chronic disease in our communities. The message gets across, but the film downplays a meaningful call to action. 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 . So really, the idea of conservation and restoration, needed to be absolutely front and center ifKiss the Groundtruly wanted to educate the masses about how agriculture can help tackle climate change. A prime example of this is their claim that there is only 60 years of farming left. Plus FCRNs paper simply ignored the existing peer reviewed science with its claim that no such science exists. 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. Other soil-based carbon capture solutions like composting are crucial to regenerative agriculture. Share this article or talk about the importance of soils to your friends. Try: Compost Toilets in Africa: Human Feces as Fertilizer | Thrive4Good (thriveforgood.org) or GiveLove.

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