Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Tying the message of Kiss the Ground to voting for policymakers who will systemically change the way the country incentivizes regenerative agriculture and reversing climate change would have been an obvious and easy leap to make. 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. 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. Heres below are just a handful of recent PEER REVIEWED papers supporting HPG. Its genuinely remarkable post, I have got much clear idea regarding from this post. 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. 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. 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 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. Here are five things I learned from Kiss the Ground. 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. Having gone from being a vegetable hating, stressed out and sick corporate mum who felt constant guilt for not feeding her family properly and not doing enough for the planet to a healthy, veggie loving and eco-minded mother with much less stress, she's been where you are and can definitely help you overcome your barriers! Thanks for a well-referenced and easily readable article this seems like a great resource to send to people. 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. Ray: That a large audience will come away with a basic awareness about the transformative power of our living and life-giving soil. Weaker soils need more chemicals. The French Minister for agriculture proposed a 4 in 1000 plan, to increase the organic content of our soils by 0.4% per year. Regenerative agriculture is a more resilient system based on principles of soil health and biodiversity that integrates multiple crops, cover crops, and livestock animals. 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. Ray: I met the Kiss the Ground group in 2015. https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019.pdf. Its the misbalance of carbon that is the issue. 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! (Source: Kiss the Ground). Awesome! A soil without organic matter becomes dirt, a mix of rock materials and cannot support life. At Novel Hand, Im specifically interested in learning about topics related to justice and poverty, and how to create equitable, sustainable impact. Science can provide us with some valid assumptions, but it does not provide recipes. care as a social process). But efforts have been made to restore the soils since 1994. This positioning starts with the documentarys focus on theDrawdown Reportby Environmentalist Paul Hawken from Project Drawdown. I approached this film with professional interest, not just as a News Fellow with Stone Pier Press, but as someone trained in biology at college, regenerative farming at the Rodale Institute (three of the films agricultural experts work/ed here), and food systems at graduate school. These animals then emit greenhouse gases. 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. Check out this map for farms local to you Regenerative Farm Map Regeneration International. Impactfull April 2022, What Does Voluntourism Look Like? 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? Its sad, really, seeing gray, dead soil devoid of life. Its within this context, that it becomes so vividly apparent, that in this conversation we are not just talking about planetary health, but at its core, human health. 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. Your email address will not be published. We all know that science has its failings. Take the Inflammation quiz - what's your level? If we choose healthy foods, there is a reciprocation. 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. worlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? Kiss the Ground is a nonprofit on a mission to awaken people to the possibilities of regeneration and inspire participation in this movement by educating and engaging through media, communications . #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. For teachers, educators, schools, community organizers and home schoolersthanks to a generous grant from the Bia Echo Foundation and Triptyk, there is a free 45-minute-long Educational Version of the Kiss the Ground movie and also a free DVD with both the 85 minute long feature and the educational cut on one disk. Hailing from Newcastle, Australia, she predominantly writes about climate and animal rights issues, alongside her work in psychology. It's a nonprofit organization that he leads today as executive director. In short:- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should Unfortunately, overtly telling people they need to cut down on their meat consumption for this change in agriculture to work isnt going to help with the documentarys popularity. 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. Over the years, tilling causes the soil to dirt, leaving it vulnerable to erosion and desertification. 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. With topsoils disappearing and temperatures rising, about 2/3 of the world is desertifying. Anyway, I can go on and on doing a review of the shortcoming of this review, but the author is obviously more interested in justifying the supposed superiority of his food religion than he is in actual peer reviewed range, soil or atmospheric science by people who actually understand agricultural systems. It is possible that this is coincidence, but the correlation is striking! We are healthier, as is the earth. That was good enough for me. Industrial agriculture (left) causes desertification through tilling and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. A powerful message during a time where the climate emergency is without a doubt causing climate anxiety. Many countries signed, including the UK, but not the US, China or India, the biggest agricultural and CO2 producers. All natural systems exist in balance, with a diversity of plants and animals. All of these issues and more can be addressed, at least partially, by regenerative ag. Even though we werent farmers, scientists or experts we knew that together, we could still make a difference! 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). Ray: Not at the moment, but if Steven Spielberg calls, I WILL answer. 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. poet charles mackay biography 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. Required fields are marked *. They thought I had lost my mind, but through hard work and perseverance weve been able to open many eyes through the years. This is because there is a legacy load of carbon in the atmosphere an amount of carbon dioxide that will persist for decades, if not centuries. We already use 3-4 times more fertiliser for each bushel of grain than in the 60s. 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. 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. 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. Its absolutely good to love the earth and want to save the soil. Your email address will not be published. This is a major oversimplification of our complex and varied farming system. They are both such impactful leaders in this movement because they are called to bring these concepts to farmers and ranchers everywhere. Ray Archuleta, previously a conservation agronomist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the co-founder of the Soil Health Academy, stands at the front talking to the farmers, and to us. 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.. ), Pollinator garden/market flowers at Copper Cricket Farm. 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.. 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. 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! I dont know a single holistic management practitioner that advocates eating more beef. Many would argue soil degradation is the most critical environmental threat to humans". Consumers falsely see meat as part of the solution, and although they may do their best to seek out regenerative meat (