Back on Earth Day I went to see the new documentary about regenerative farming shown in the image (with a link to the site if you click on it) with the illustrious regenerative farmer renegade Gabe Brown donning a red cape above. This is not, nor hopefully will it be the last, first attempt from filmmaker folks espousing the urgent need to shift gears on how we’re treating our only home but it certainly seems to have a few more celebrities on board the farming fight movie train than with previous Hollywood productions – I’ll note that the folks bringing this newest film to us also produced the 2020 documentary Kiss the Ground , a precursor of sorts to Common Ground.
Wait, Hollywood you say? Involved in something sustainable? Before you get too excited, I’m just talking about farming and how to change our industrialized (and not in the least civilized) agricultural ways – not about the giant blockbuster films that are telling the same tired stories ad infinitum stopping being produced. Now THAT would be some welcome change.
As stated in Common Ground, the facts are plain as day: farmers are more often than not faced with having to spend or borrow too much money for inputs (patented seeds and chemicals primarily) in relation to the outputs that don’t actually make them enough to pay back their debt, even with the wickedly skewed Farm Bill offering “support” in place, let alone a profit. Just the skyrocketing suicide rates among farmers should be enough to have people uniting to save not just our land but these incredible fellow family members from untimely passings – if there are no farmers then there will certainly be no food. And the damage to the land? Well folks, the answer to the problems that industrialized farming presents is actually found in it – and in caring for it appropriately (and respectfully, mind you). No surprises here really.
I’ll admit that I was heartened by the message of the film, more and more people are understanding that it’s wayyyy past the time to change our approach to farming and how we’re living/eating/being in community with our planet – and we’re seeing the effects more and more of how approaches that we KNOW don’t work (Dust Bowl revisit anyone?) continuing to have deleterious effects for us all…or are we??
So, back to what can we do about this on an individual level? Today? Well, the choices are many, thankfully. Some great ideas shared in the link for Common Ground are an option. But I’ll just add my own idea here for you here because personally connecting with my local farmers and having conversations with them and others is something I’ve been doing (and quite a few of them are already practicing regenerative farming, YAY!) as well as looking for the regeneratively farmed seal on processed products I’m buying – though I do need to step up my game on reducing purchasing processed products in general even more.
So here it is – sit with yourself for a bit and consider your connection to our beautiful, wild and somewhat unpredictable Earth for as long as you can today. What comes up with this? How are you connected and how are you not? Do you think you need to change anything about this and if so what kind of change is needed? If you give yourself long enough I imagine you’ll be able to glean some pretty simple ways to pivot so that your values are more aligned with your actions and those actions will reflect your deep care and appreciation of the only place we have to call home for the foreseeable future.
TimeSpaceOne 