Groundswell (2026) Movie Script
[pensive music playing]
[Demi Moore] A very long time ago...
[whooshing]
...the Earth was a much colder place.
-[gentle music playing]
-[wind rushing]
Then the Earth slowly started to warm...
...by just a few degrees.
That small increase in temperature
completely transformed our frozen world...
[birds chirping]
...into a stable climate.
[uplifting music playing]
That changed us from hunter-gatherers...
...to farmers.
From farming came cities...
...and, eventually, great civilizations.
One after another,
those civilizations rose to power...
...and fell.
Then we learned to harness
the power of fossilized energy.
That power allowed us to build
the world we live in today.
But like the civilizations
that came before us...
...our power to alter land
may also be our greatest weakness.
To survive and thrive
in the new world that's coming...
...we need to change.
And that change needs to happen
from the ground up.
We need to enter a new age:
the age of regeneration.
[birds chirping]
The Earth,
our beautiful home, is a living thing.
-[gentle music playing]
-[crackling softly]
-[birds chirping]
-[water drop echoes]
And we're all part of her.
Our health and the health of our planet
are deeply connected.
We're a microcosm of the universe.
Like all forms of life,
we share something amazing.
When our bodies become injured,
we have the ability to heal.
We can regenerate.
[birds chirping]
And thankfully, so can the Earth.
[hopeful music playing]
Because right now...
[thunder rumbling]
...our planet has a sickness.
Our mother
has a fever.
[Nelly sings "Hot in Herre"]
[echoing] It's hot in
So hot in here...
[Woody Harrelson] If you've been
paying attention lately,
you might have noticed something.
[car horns honking]
-It's getting hot in here
-So hot
-So take off all your clothes
-Ay
-It's getting hotter.
-I am getting so hot...
-2012 was the warmest year...
-2016...
[newsman] ...had the warmest
global temperatures...
2017 was the third warmest year
on record...
2023 will be the hottest year
ever recorded.
2024 is set to be even hotter than 2023.
It's getting hot in here...
The Earth is now hotter
than it's ever been.
I am getting so hot...
[Harrelson] And all that extreme heat
is causing some extreme problems.
I am getting so hot...
[newswoman] This year's fire season
has officially set a devastating record.
-[record scratches]
-[song stops abruptly]
[pensive music playing]
[Harrelson] I know what you're thinking.
"Not another depressing
climate documentary."
This is where we usually tell you
the bad news
and try to make you feel guilty.
[pensive music continues over laptop]
Well...
[music stops]
...this film is different.
[wind whistling softly]
It's about a solution
to a whole bunch of problems.
[hopeful music playing]
It's about something
we all have in common.
It's something we all need every day.
It's something we all love.
This film
is about... food.
[sizzling]
And about how changing
the way we grow food
might be our best hope
to regenerate our world.
Now, here's where we tend to go wrong.
Humans keep trying to fix
our heating planet
with policy and technology.
And so far, that hadn't cooled
much of anything.
Is carbon the only driver
of our heating planet?
Or is there something else?
Something equally important?
Since human beings began building cities
and transforming landscapes,
we've removed three trillion trees.
That's half the trees on planet Earth.
And we've scraped away nearly
three-quarters of the vegetation.
[somber music playing]
[Jay Famiglietti] As humans,
we've been pushing the landscape
towards desertification for as long
as we have been growing food.
In particular,
over the last few hundred years,
with things like large-scale agriculture.
[Harrelson] "Desertification" is a term
that describes when ecosystems
are replaced with hot, dry deserts.
[Famiglietti] Over half of the world's
major aquifers are being rapidly depleted.
The continents are drying out.
[chuckles] Sh-Should I say it again?
[wind whistling softly]
[Harrelson] As continents dry out
and the plant life dies,
the land gets hotter.
The atmosphere is
actually heated from below,
so whatever the temperature is here...
...on the ground, it's gonna be more.
[pensive music playing]
[Harrelson] In other words,
we've turned our lush, green planet
into a hot frying pan.
[whooshing]
The drying and heating of Earth's land
is accelerating at an alarming rate.
[Famiglietti] The areas
that are dry are growing at
two times the area of California
each year.
The deserts are
expanding rapidly globally,
destroying our ecosystem.
It's like a spreading cancer.
We feel like there's nothing
we can do to stop it.
And yet...
...not only can we stop it,
we can actually reverse desertification
and go back to abundance.
[gentle music playing]
[Harrelson] It's pretty simple.
The fewer trees and plants,
the hotter it is.
And the more green on the ground,
the cooler the planet is.
To fix our warming planet
and feed our growing numbers,
perhaps we need to begin with a solution
that's not based on human intellect
but rather on the wisdom of nature.
[birds chirping]
[Moore] There is one solution
to fix our heating planet.
[Cosmo Sheldrake
featuring Nature sing "Soil"]
[wind blowing]
It's an ancient technology
that's highly scalable.
It already exists everywhere in the world.
I want to be ground...
It can hold more carbon
than the atmosphere.
I want to be fed on...
And when it's managed right,
it regulates water,
which, in turn, regulates the climate.
[birds chirping]
I want to be soil...
Soil is such an important carbon sink.
I want to be soil...
[Natalie Topa] When we have
healthy living soils,
we're allowing soil to actually inhale
and breathe in
the carbon from the atmosphere.
[Asmeret Asefaw Berhe] There's more carbon
in soil than there is
in all of the world's vegetation
plus all the carbon
that's currently up in the atmosphere.
Some carbon is deposited
in deeper soil layers.
It can persist there for
thousands of years and even longer,
building up over time the amount of carbon
that you have in soil.
Well, it would never get lonely...
[Winowiecki] When we have
a healthy, functioning soil,
we can also store a lot of water.
with everyone round
[Topa] The soil is
the largest and cheapest
water storage tank that exists.
I want to go downwards...
We can harvest water
into the soils, hold it,
slow it, spread it
and sink it into the ground
so that it can hydrate and quench
those thirsty landscapes.
I want to be ground...
[Berhe] Soil is
what makes the difference between
life and lifelessness on planet Earth.
I want to be soil
[birds chirping]
I want to be sound...
Every living thing
on the face of the planet
depends on soil.
And I would never...
For food, feed, fiber,
for delivery and purification of water,
for recycling our waste,
soil being the most important
reservoir of life that we know of.
I want to be soil...
[Arizona Muse] There are trillions of
microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil.
So how many microorganisms are there
in a whole garden full of soil?
live upside down...
These things are
supposed to blow our minds.
It's made of teeny tiny little things
that are alive.
Inside there are
trillions of microorganisms.
[gasps] Whoa!
So, soil is a complex cosmos in itself
that we have so much to learn about
and so much to love
and so much to respect.
We just really never want
to treat our soil like dirt.
that I want to be soil
that I want to be ground
-[song ends]
-[wind whistling softly]
[Savory] Soil is sand until life is added.
-[gentle music playing]
-[birds chirping]
Once life is added, the sand becomes soil.
The source of energy
to feed all those different life-forms
is photosynthesis.
[intriguing music playing]
All that photosynthesis is feeding
the soil microorganisms.
And that all becomes food
for everything else that depends on it.
[Harrelson] Although nature
is infinitely complex,
life on land is made of
three main components.
[Nicolette Hahn Niman] Every ecosystem
has fungi, plants and animals.
All of the functions that are
happening in an ecosystem
are mediated by these three components.
[Harrelson] There are
two kinds of agriculture.
One utilizes these natural components.
The other seeks to eliminate them.
We call these two kinds
regenerative agriculture
and industrial agriculture.
-[gentle music playing]
-[cattle mooing]
Regenerative agriculture is
a way of growing food
that puts carbon into the ground
and builds the soil.
[Jonathan Lundgren] Industrial agriculture
is actually a source
-of carbon emissions,
-[cattle mooing]
so it's sending carbon dioxide and
greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere.
It's a part of the problem.
Regenerative agriculture actually takes
the carbon out of the atmosphere
and puts it back down into the ground.
It's a solution to the problem.
[Harrelson] Industrial agriculture
tills and breaks up the soil.
[Topa] When you start tilling the land,
break it all up,
release all that carbon,
kill all those soil organisms,
let that heat get in
and really bake the soil...
...it makes the entire landscape
completely vulnerable to hot temperatures.
[intriguing music playing]
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
leaves the soil intact
so life can thrive.
A central basis of
regenerative agriculture
is promoting biodiversity of life.
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
utilizes a diversity of plants,
not a singular species, aka a monocrop.
[Lundgren] The main tools of a
regenerative farm are plants and animals.
Plants can't survive without animals.
From honeybees to bison.
[Harrelson] From the smallest insects
to herds of large creatures,
regenerative agriculture
integrates animals
directly into crop fields and orchards.
Regenerative agriculture promotes life.
Industrial agriculture seeks
to replace life with
fertilizers or insecticides or herbicides.
[Savory] If you look at all of
modern industrial agriculture,
it's based on
kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
doesn't use toxic herbicides
or pesticides.
[Kara Boyd] The best benefit
of regenerative ag to me,
we're decreasing synthetic fertilizer use,
we're reversing damage that's been done
and putting more money
into the farmers' pockets.
[Harrelson] Scientists are studying
regenerative farms,
and the results are surprising.
We set out to study thousands of farms
across North America.
We've amassed the largest database of
regenerative farming systems in existence.
[Harrelson] Regenerative farms store
37% more carbon than industrial farms.
On regenerative farms, soils hold
the water and keep it from running off.
There are three to six times more
life-forms than on industrial farms.
Regenerative farmers are often
twice as profitable.
Industrial farmers have 2,000 times the
national average in Parkinson's disease...
...they have ten times the cancer rate,
and they have
twice the rate of depression.
[intriguing music playing]
[John Boyd] My parents and grandfather,
they didn't have tons of fertilizer
and harmful chemicals.
They were doing
regenerative agriculture back then.
They-they just didn't have the name
"regenerative agriculture."
They called it survival.
[Harrelson] Today, our survival
may once again depend on
embracing the practices
of regenerative agriculture.
[Topa] We can heal
the entire world with our food.
[hopeful music playing]
Or we can totally destroy the world
with the way we grow food.
[Lundgren] Farmers that are focusing
on life and soil health
are solving the climate crisis.
[Harrelson] But to affect
the global climate and feed humanity...
...regeneration would need to scale
throughout the world.
Each continent could play a role.
Each type of ecosystem and watershed
could be regenerated.
The only way to know if such a massive
global undertaking is possible...
[Men at Work sing "Down Under"]
...is to go on a massive global journey.
Let's call it a regeneration road trip.
Traveling in a fried-out Kombi
on a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady
She made me nervous
-She took me in and gave me breakfast
-Camera speed. And... mark.
And she said,
"Do you come from a land down under
where women glow and men plunder?"
In Australia,
the effects of a heating planet...
"You better run,
you better take cover"
...have been severe in recent years.
-[song ends]
-[fire crackling]
But what if Australia's environment
could be healed?
[Paul Girrawah House
speaking native language]
[House] Our people have been
First Nation Indigenous custodians
of our ancestral country
for over 60,000 years.
[pensive music playing]
When Europeans arrived here,
they experienced a pristine landscape.
[Carolyn Hall] Beautiful,
fertile floodplains.
Lush, wonderful land.
A very different landscape
to what we see today.
[intriguing music playing]
But when the Europeans came here,
they disturbed the landscape,
removing large tracts of vegetation.
And with no vegetation,
we've got degraded soil.
[Ashley Silver] And when soil is degraded,
it loses its water-holding capacity,
so Australia is dehydrated.
[Hall] And the ultimate endpoint of that
is desertification.
[gentle music playing]
[Harrelson] Farmers are starting
to come together to figure out
how to rehydrate Australia's soils.
[low chatter]
And one of those farmers is Gabe Brown.
In 2021, Gabe was diagnosed with ALS,
known as the farmer's disease.
It can be caused by exposure
to toxic pesticides.
[Gabe Brown] Physically, it's harder
for me to make these trips.
My health is degrading,
but my life is sharing my story.
If I can do that and help someone else
get further down their
regenerative journey, that's a win-win.
[Lyndsey Douglas] Our keynote speaker
this morning is
one of the pioneers
of the soil health movement.
One of the 25 most influential
agriculture leaders.
Please give a big Australian welcome
to Gabe Brown.
[cheering and applause]
As I've gone down this path
of regeneration,
I've come to the understanding
that it all starts in healthy soil.
When we go onto a degraded landscape
and we take an infrared thermometer,
we saw over a 50-degree temperature swing
between bare soil
and covered soil.
[Harrelson] This temperature difference
between soil that is bare
and soil that is covered in plant life
is the difference between
dehydration and rehydration.
There's one key element needed
to rehydrate a landscape.
[Brown] In order to hydrate
an ecosystem, we have to move carbon
back into the soil.
[Harrelson] The more carbon there is
in soil, the more water the soil can hold.
[Brown] For every one percent increase
in soil organic matter,
we're gonna be able to hold approximately
20,000 more gallons of water
per foot per acre.
[lighthearted music playing]
[Harrelson] So, how do we encourage people
to put carbon into the ground?
To help incentivize carbon farming,
the Australian government created
a carbon market.
So, what is a carbon market?
[wind whistling softly]
[Carl Binning] What
the carbon market does,
it offers farmers the opportunity
to generate another revenue stream.
Soil is one of the most important
stores of carbon on the planet.
And plants are the most effective way
of pulling carbon
out of our atmosphere at scale.
[Silver] Livestock producers who put
more carbon into the soil can be paid
within the carbon markets.
[Harrelson] To receive carbon credits,
a farmer must show
they've stored carbon in their soil.
And getting started is
as simple as a soil test.
[Hugh McMurtrie] Just heading out into the
paddock now to do our first soil sample
and get tested for
soil organic carbon levels.
[Sandia and Yellow play
"Nothing Feels Better Than Now"]
The carbon improves
the health of the soil.
It'll also make us more resilient.
If we get carbon credits for it,
then that's a bonus.
[Harrelson] To increase soil carbon,
farmers must incorporate
regenerative principles.
The more regeneration that occurs,
the more carbon that can be stored,
and the more money they can make.
We've been performing
regenerative farming,
and our soil test showed
positive carbon sequestration.
And we were issued carbon credits.
And we have certainly seen
our grasslands regenerate
and our soils regenerate.
And we have seen nature recover.
[Harrelson] If Australia sequestered
one ton of carbon per acre per year
in its 380 million agriculture acres,
the Aussie carbon market would increase
from one billion dollars
to 15 billion dollars annually.
And that would pay farmers and ranchers
to rehydrate and regenerate...
...the entire Australian continent.
[Brown] I've been asked the question
over and over:
"Gabe, this is Australia.
Can it work here?"
By adopting these regenerative practices,
of course it can.
[song ends]
[Moore] Across the world
in another dry environment,
regeneration begins with the people
who have been working the land
for centuries.
[Oscar Sulley and The Uhuru Dance Band
sing "Olufeme"]
[song continues with lyrics
in native language]
[song ends]
Every regeneration project
begins with one powerful thing.
Seeds.
[gentle music playing]
There's one ancient tribe
that's trying to bring back
some of Africa's most important
seed-spreading creatures.
[upbeat percussive music playing]
[Robert Lemayian] We are called Samburu.
Our staple food is blood, milk and meat.
So our livestock means
everything to us as a tribe.
That is our livelihood.
[pensive music playing]
[bleating]
[Moore] Herd animals need food,
and that food usually comes
in the form of grasslands.
[Titus Letaapo] The livestock
relies on grass.
So when the, when the grassland
is doing very well, uh,
then, uh, the ecosystem is supportive, uh,
to wildlife and also to the community.
[Moore] But to figure out how to get
the grasses back into northern Kenya,
we first have to address...
the elephant in the room.
[lighthearted music playing]
[Lemayian] So, elephants are really,
really special in the Samburu culture.
[Katie Rowe] They're such keystone species
in creating grasslands.
When they spend
an amount of time in an area,
you see how impactful they are.
This is an acacia tree that has been
pulled and pushed down by an elephant.
They have reduced the speed of water
running off the surface of the soil.
It helps to catch the grass seeds.
As a result of that elephant
pushing down this tree,
life bounces back
and everything regenerates.
[Moore] Elephants also fertilize the land
with something that contains
yet more seeds.
Elephant dung, as it is here,
is life in itself.
You can just see it's full of fiber,
and there are loads of insects.
It's holding loads
of different types of seeds.
The importance of this poop
is just enormous.
[pensive music playing]
[Lemayian] The people,
their livestock and the wildlife
lived alongside each other
for many, many years.
And then...
...poaching.
[Moore] Over many years,
poaching eliminated vast numbers
of Kenya's rhinos and elephants,
which, in turn, caused the grasslands
to turn to dust and scrubby brush.
[Lemayian] We are doomed.
Unless...
[upbeat music playing]
...we start to protect
and regenerate our land.
And the only way that this can happen
is if we can bring back the elephants.
So we rescue and rehabilitate
the elephant.
[Moore] Through their sanctuary,
the Samburu have successfully saved
and rehabilitated thousands of elephants.
-[insects chirring]
-[birds chirping]
[Mark Bradshaw and Roo Pigott
sing "Awololo"]
[song continues
with lyrics in native language]
[Lemayian] As a result of
conservation work that we are doing,
the elephant numbers have
really, really bounced back.
I do see a very, very positive impact
on the land,
with the number of elephants
now increasing.
Look at this grass.
This is actually, uh, very, very exciting
for us as a tribe.
You know, we haven't seen this
for quite a very, very long time.
We see that there is hope, and we see that
we are going to regenerate our land
back into grasslands.
[Moore] As people have fled
climate chaos and conflicts,
northern Uganda has become
a haven for refugees.
With the number of refugees
growing globally,
can regeneration be a tool
to bring land back to life?
-[song ends]
-[pensive music playing]
[in Acholi] The reason I left South Sudan
is because of the war.
[in Acholi] That is the main reason
why I came here,
because of death and gunshots.
[Abwo in Acholi] What happened
in my village in war,
people were being shot and killed.
[Moore] The climate of sub-Saharan Africa
is indeed changing.
And the reason it's changing
should come as no surprise.
[Topa] A lot of what is happening is
because of ecological collapse,
hydrological collapse and carbon
and nutrient cycle collapse.
[clicks, beeps]
Hundred and fifty-three degrees.
Sixty-seven point five degrees
Celsius, okay?
This is not an enabling environment
for any plant growth.
I've seen in farms
in all parts of Africa
farmers who have bought into this model
of chemical farming.
They take a totally intact fertile system,
dismantle that
and now start applying
synthetic fertilizers, pesticides.
And it's expanding, the Sahara Desert
and the entire area below that.
[Thomas Cole] What we're seeing
over these years is
a pretty stark increase
in human population in sub-Saharan Africa.
At the same time, you've had
a steady decline in soil fertility.
So that means the land
that more and more people are living on
is producing less food.
[Miriam Lakot Kibwota] When the refugees
come to Uganda,
you are supposed to depend on food
that is distributed to you.
If it is not there, you have to go hungry.
[Linda Eckerbom Cole] How do we show
that a refugee camp
can actually be a place of regeneration?
[Thomas Cole] We said
we'd love to start a farm.
[Mel Dean sings "Under African Skies"]
[song continues
with lyrics in native language]
We did a design to figure out
what do we want.
First thing we need to do
is control the water.
Every time it rains,
the water is just washing through here.
[Kibwota speaks native language]
Letter "A."
[Thomas Cole] We have these simple tools,
an A-frame that we use
to map out the contour of their land,
knowing where to put
these water-harvesting structures.
In West Africa,
they're called demi-lunes, half-moons.
[Evelyne Lalwedo] The open part,
it is facing up the slope.
[Thomas Cole] Some people
call them smile berms,
so we say, "Okay, the tip of the smile
always needs to be pointing up."
You have to smile.
[Lalwedo] So, as part of our designing,
we incorporated the pond into the farm
to help us capture
the excess water.
[Thomas Cole] When it does rain,
these systems are welcoming that rain
and really banking that water in the soil.
[Lalwedo] We ensure that we direct
the running water where we need it.
[Thomas Cole] Apart from
a few native trees,
all of this growth is
within the last 18 months' rainfall.
[song fades]
[Moore] The principles of regeneration
could offer hope
to the nearly one billion people
in sub-Saharan Africa.
[Johan Hugo and Lazarus play "Angelo"]
[Lalwedo] I started learning,
how can I build on the soil?
We have all the materials
within our means.
[Thomas Cole] You walk into
someone's piece of land,
you're like, "Whoa."
[song continues
with lyrics in native language]
[Lalwedo] Behind me here is a food forest.
We have over 20-plus
different kind of plant species.
They are doing very okay together.
[Santa Aber in Acholi] My life
has changed because
I don't go asking neighbors for food.
But the neighbors come ask me for food
and also provide me with money.
[speaks Acholi]
[Abwo in Acholi] I have
mango, avocado, guava,
lemons, arrowroots and many more.
I am very happy, very happy.
[laughing]
[Linda Eckerbom Cole] The majority
of the people that we work with
become food secure.
They have enough money where they can
send their children to school.
That's economic empowerment and change.
[Salina Abraha] I have seen
endless examples
where all of this restoration
is happening.
It's working in different countries.
It's working in Ethiopia.
It's working in Nigeria.
It's working in Kenya and Uganda.
And all of it's different,
but it's a movement that is undeniable
and is really connected.
[Topa] Farm by farm,
we can actually heal
that band that covers
the Great Green Wall.
[Abraha] This mosaic
of different landscapes
that cuts across the entire continent.
[Topa] It takes many farmers,
many gardeners, many ecosystem actors
to take restorative action.
By integrating regenerative practices,
by working together with communities
for citizen engineering,
farm by farm, we're actually stopping
the Sahara Desert from inching southward,
to bring that desert back to life.
[Abraha] The Great Green Wall,
for me, is something that is
vital to our survival,
to our growth and our future.
[Harrelson] As Africa builds
a Green Wall to heal its deserts,
there's another densely populated country
that's using the principles of
regeneration to heal its landscapes.
[upbeat Indian music playing]
[Agam Khare] The only culture in India
that has existed for 5,000 years
is agriculture.
In India, there are about
100 million farming families.
Almost 50% of the families
are completely dependent
on the traditional means of agriculture.
[Harrelson] India was once
a thriving agricultural land
rich with natural resources.
[pensive music playing]
[Khare] India was the epicenter
of agriculture production.
[Vandana Shiva] In India,
we never had monocultures.
The principle of diversity,
that's the very core of Indian farming.
You work with nature,
and then you produce
high-quality diverse food.
[Khare] Then fast-forward.
Industrialization started happening.
[Shiva] So, the first thing was,
colonialism was converting agriculture
into plantation economies
for exporting commodities.
[Harrelson] When the British left,
India shifted to industrial agriculture,
and the new industrial agriculture
was given a special name.
The green revolution was the name given
to the introduction of chemical farming.
[upbeat Indian music playing]
[Shaan Bhargava] People brought in all
sorts of scientists from other countries.
We were introduced to hybrid seed,
insecticides and pesticides.
People really did get amazing crops
for a decade or two.
But as time goes on,
we see the flip side of that coin.
[tense music playing]
All this monocropping encourages people
to cut down their trees.
[Khare] We have lost about
6,500 hectares of forest.
[Shiva] And with it,
the diversity has disappeared.
[Khare] We rank number two in the world
in the loss of biodiversity.
[somber music playing]
[Harrelson] The empty promises
of the green revolution
left India's agriculture in ruins.
[Khare] Over the late 1990s,
soil health was depleting rapidly.
The same soil which was earlier
responsible for sequestering carbon...
...is now giving out carbon.
[Shiva] So the soils are desertified.
The chemical farms have lost
their soil fertility
and their soil nutrients.
We're using more and more and more
to produce less and less and less
with agriculture
that destroys biodiversity,
destroys soil and water,
while the farmer is being squeezed out.
What farmers are earning is collapsing,
so, every year, the farmers had to borrow.
Every one of them is in debt.
From 1995 to about 2016,
400,000 farmers committed suicide.
[crowd singing in native language]
[Harrelson] The result:
a new crop of people
committed to safeguarding India's farmers
by safeguarding the soil.
[singing continues]
And for some, that work begins
with measuring carbon.
[hopeful Indian music playing]
Soil today is the largest terrestrial sink
for carbon.
We are setting up
2,000 of these soil testing centers
all across the country.
It measures organic carbon content
in the soil,
ensuring the carbon can be sequestered
and put back to where it belongs.
[Harrelson] And when organic carbon
increases, the yield of farms increase.
In other words,
more carbon equals more food.
[hopeful music playing]
[Khare] The organic carbon levels
can be improved in the soil.
The yields of the farms can go up
by anywhere between 20 to 35 percent,
which directly translates
into the income of the farmers.
You're talking about elevating
billions of people out of poverty.
It's not just an opportunity.
I also think of it as a moral obligation.
-[crowd chanting in distance]
-[birds chirping]
[Harrelson] For one spiritual leader
in India,
saving hundreds of millions of lives
begins with saving soil.
[woman] Groundswell, Sadhguru, take two.
[Sadhguru] Soil is not your property.
It's a legacy that you received
from previous generations.
And it's your fundamental responsibility
to pass it on as a living entity
to next generations.
[whooshing]
I've grown up on farms for many years.
When you work on the soil,
you must know you're part of the soil.
You are soil.
There are only 55 to 60 years of soil
left on the planet for agriculture.
[pensive music playing]
So, what to do? How to wake up the world?
[wind whistling]
[engine revs]
-[Conscious Planet sings "Soil Song"]
-La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, la, le, le, le, le, le, le
La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, le, le, le, le, le
So I decided to ride from London
to southern India.
[Josie Gibson] And talking about soil,
you are on a mission.
[Phillip Schofield] This hundred-day
motorcycle journey.
The hundred-day journey
spanning 30,000 kilometers.
[Sadhguru] Riding nonstop through
the rain, through snow, through desert.
You know, I'm 65 years of age.
Hope I survive. [laughs]
[crowd cheering and whistling]
My aim is if we can get the people to say,
"We are concerned about
the quality of soil,"
then the political leaders will act.
So I thought I should get that statement
from the people.
Hello. Can you hear me?
[crowd] Yes!
La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, la, le, le, le, le, le, le, le, le
Le, le, le, le, le
La, le, le, le, le, le...
[Harrelson] Sadhguru attended
691 events across 27 countries,
reaching billions of people
with his message.
[Sadhguru] Once the political leaders saw
that so many people
are concerned about it,
suddenly everybody was concerned about it
and many countries responded.
La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, le, le, le, le, le
[singer vocalizing]
-[crowd cheering]
-[song ends]
But is the problem fixed?
No.
Very little has happened on the ground.
Still, it looks like we don't understand
the magnitude of the problem.
[pensive music playing]
[horns honking]
[Robin Datta and William Baker
play "Epic Dawn"]
[Harrelson] Just as soil
can be turned to dust,
soil can be healed.
And sometimes it's as simple as capturing
water instead of letting it run off.
[Manvendra Singh Shekhawat] In all
these years that I have lived here,
I've never seen rains like this.
We are in Jaisalmer, which
most of the world writes off as a desert.
It is one of the most arid parts
of the country.
It rains less than
15 centimeters annually.
[Jatan Shekhawat] Right now,
we are in a place called Dhun.
It's a man-made eco-reserve,
which we have been working on rewilding
for last ten years.
[Manvendra] We have designed
the entire structure of this place,
keeping in mind
a once-in-30-year rain event.
I think that this is it.
When you have events like this,
you can capture this entire precipitation
and utilize it
in period when you don't have water.
We have created about 60 ponds
in the nearby region.
[traditional Indian music playing]
What was here before was
a semiarid piece of land,
completely deserted.
And what you see now is a verdant oasis.
And then here you can see this was dust,
and now it is two-meter-tall grass.
When you plant grasses,
when you plant trees,
it acts as a big sponge.
Because of the porosity of soil,
it just permeates.
Grasses are important for climate because
each one of this straw is a carbon pump
sequestering carbon in the ground.
[Harrelson] Grasses are
a key component to regeneration.
For grasses to keep growing,
they need four-legged creatures.
[Manvendra] Without all the cattle here,
there was no way that we could have
regenerated this land.
So, animals, land with water,
that virtuous cycle really starts life
in even the most arid places.
This is what can happen in just ten years,
if you just allow the land to heal itself.
It's a miracle.
[Moore] In India, regenerative pioneers
are trying to reverse
the effects of industrial agriculture.
Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere...
[Guillermo Portabales sings "Cumbiamba"]
...there's one country
that's using a new model
to regenerate forests
and bring back biodiversity.
[song continues with lyrics in Spanish]
Their efforts could determine
the future of a food item
used by over one billion people every day.
And it all boils down to a cup of joe.
[Ana Mara Gil Duran in Spanish]
Coffee here in Colombia
is the economic base for many families.
[Juan Carlos Ardila] We say in Colombia,
coffee does not create wealth
but stops poverty.
Coffee is very intensive labor.
It's not automatic. [chuckles]
You plant it.
You harvest it.
You remove the skin.
Ferment it.
You wash it.
Dry it.
Pack it.
Roast it.
Grind it.
Prepare it.
At the end, you have
the perfect cup of coffee.
[song ends]
[pensive music playing]
[Moore] Like most agricultural regions,
Colombia is facing severe deforestation.
Industrial coffee plantations
clear-cut forests,
thereby killing off biodiversity.
[Jose Castao] When they started
cutting the trees to plant more coffee,
there was a big loss of habitat.
[Moore] The problem is so severe
that industrial coffee is a significant
cause of deforestation worldwide.
[Viviana Gutierrez] You can really see
across the way what's happening.
This is completely barren.
[Ruth Bennett] Coffee's under threat
right now.
Soils that have been exposed
to full-sun coffee monocultures
for the past 20 or 30 years
no longer have the nutrients necessary
to keep coffee growing on those lands.
We need coffee agriculture to move away
from these intensified monocultures,
or we won't have coffee.
[upbeat music playing]
[Moore] But there is
a better way to grow coffee.
And not surprisingly, it has to do
with farming regeneratively.
[in Spanish] I have 11,200 coffee trees.
So we are working with some good practices
of regenerative agriculture.
[Moore] Regenerative coffee farms
mimic a forest,
where they plant a mix of trees,
including banana and plantain trees.
The giant leaves provide shade
for the smaller coffee trees,
regulating the temperature
and holding water in the soil.
[Daro in Spanish] The banana trees
make shade for the soil.
All of these leaves decompose
and produce organic material.
We are making the most
of the organic material.
[Bennett] Shade-grown systems
produce better
and higher quality coffee
than sun-grown systems.
Every year, that shade
interacts with temperature
in a slightly different way.
The seeds are denser,
and so they pack more complex flavors in.
And all of that is linked
with the microbial life in the soil.
[in Spanish] Look at
the quality of the soil
that you can create.
Clean soil,
because it doesn't contain
agrochemicals of any kind.
This is what makes
the quality of the coffee
recognized worldwide.
[Moore] Regenerative coffee farms
have another benefit.
They protect the biodiversity
of the rainforest.
Among the many species
that thrive on these farms
is one that's easy to observe.
[pensive music playing]
[Gutierrez] If you close your eyes
and you go to a regenerative coffee farm,
you immediately feel a difference,
because of all the birds that you hear.
[birds chirping and calling]
[birdsong continues]
Birds are literally
the canary in the coal mine.
They can tell us
how healthy an ecosystem is.
The more similar that you can make
your coffee farm to a forest,
the more that you're able
to contribute to biodiversity.
Using birds as indicators,
we've been able to evaluate
about 84,000 farms worldwide.
What we've seen is that the levels
of biodiversity in those coffee farms
are really similar to other levels
of biodiversity in protected areas.
So the potential of coffee to contribute
to conservation is really unmatched.
The coffee regions around the world
overlap greatly with
the biodiversity hot spots in the world.
So it's really vital to grow coffee
in ways that create the conditions
for biodiversity to thrive as you're able
to create a livelihood for yourself.
[upbeat Latin music playing]
[Moore] Like so many of our food choices,
every cup of coffee is a vote
that directly affects the future.
[Gutierrez] There's so much more
that could be in our cup of coffee.
There could be healthy rivers,
healthier soils.
There could be
increased resilience to drought.
As you're drinking coffee,
as you're watching birds in your backyard,
think about,
"Where were those birds all winter?
And how does my cup of coffee influence
if my birds are gonna come back or not?"
[Bennett] When we choose
regenerative coffee,
we are giving farmers
an economic reason and opportunity
to maintain those forests,
those shade trees and that biodiversity.
[Ardila] If you, as a coffee drinker,
choose a brand that is working on
regenerative agriculture,
you will achieve something
that is beyond the product itself,
for the planet...
...for yourself
and for the people trying
to do things differently.
[Moore] Just across the border,
to the south of Colombia,
is one of the most important
ecosystems on Earth...
[Sofi Tukker sings "Drinkee"]
...which has become a battleground
for industrial versus
regenerative agriculture.
[song continues with lyrics in Portuguese]
As of late, the world has watched
while Brazil's beauty is set on fire.
There's a growing number of people
fighting to regenerate
Brazil's biodiversity and its soils.
[song ends]
[birds chirping]
[Porangu plays "Illuminar"]
[Moore] The heart of Brazil's
natural biodiversity lies in the Amazon.
This magnificent rainforest
not only provides habitat
to 40% of Earth's species,
it also does something else.
[thunder rumbling softly]
The scientists call the Amazon,
like, uh, a green ocean.
And it's working like a pump...
...bringing water from the ocean
into the continent.
This is a giant irrigation system.
When you have this process happen,
you have a lot of moisture in the air.
You have flying rivers.
[wind whistling softly]
[Moore] The Amazon works
like the heart of our planet,
pumping water to other continents.
[Moutinho] Its roots distributing water
and rain for different places
beyond the Amazon.
[Txai Suru in Portuguese] The Amazon
is connected with the other biomes.
We are connected to this planet.
Who can live without water?
Who can live without air?
Show me anything here
that does not come from nature.
That's why we Indigenous women
speak a lot about
reforesting the heart and mind.
Because today this is necessary
for the people to understand
the moment which we are living.
[song ends]
[birds chirping]
[mellow music playing]
The Cerrado is the second biggest
ecosystem in Brazil
after the Amazon.
And it's the most biodiverse savannah
in the world.
[Hannah Simmons] Over 50%
of the Cerrado has been deforested
for agricultural use.
[Figueiredo] We are substituting
10,000 species for only one plant:
soybean.
Stopping the advance of soy frontier
is a very difficult task,
because it depends on all those
investments that come from abroad.
[Moore] All told, about 20% of the Cerrado
and Amazon has been deforested.
Because the demand for soy
and corn is growing,
Brazil now makes up one-quarter
of the soy and corn grown globally.
[intriguing music playing]
[Figueiredo] The tipping point
is approaching very fast,
and then all the ecosystem will collapse.
[Moore] If Brazil's soy frontier
keeps expanding...
...deforestation may reach
a critical level.
[in Portuguese] If we continue with
the same model of development...
...we will increase
the vulnerability of Brazil.
That's why we will put in place
a new way of making
our agriculture viable.
[insects chirring]
[Moore] The best way to regenerate
a forest may be to learn from the people
who've lived there for thousands of years.
-[percussive tribal music playing]
-[group singing in native language]
[Hotix Suman in Portuguese] All of
this restoration secures
and preserves our nature.
This is our inspiration.
[music and singing continue]
We also have traditional technology
to protect our territory.
[Barbatuques sing "Baian"]
[song continues with lyrics in Portuguese]
[Moore] The Xavante use
a technique they call muvuca,
which involves mixing native seeds
and throwing them onto the soil.
This creates resilient native forests
that restore biodiversity.
[song ends]
[pensive music playing]
[Moore] The Xavante seeds
are also brought to a seed bank
that sells seeds across Brazil
to help replant forests.
A new model pays farmers
to use those seeds, regrow forests
and safeguard them
from being chopped down.
[intriguing music playing]
[in Portuguese] Thirteen years ago,
this looked the same as this.
We will bring your forest
into the carbon market
and pay you to keep the forest standing.
[Moore] Just like in Australia,
the Brazilian carbon market
pays farmers
to put carbon into the ground.
[Trovo in Portuguese] Today
you can see that we have
a lot of organic material.
We have a lot of native vegetation.
Today there are lots of animals.
There are capybaras.
People don't believe
that this is possible.
It is possible,
and it is lucrative to do this.
[Simmons] The farmer
doesn't have to do anything,
and he's now getting money
from his forest.
From the 400,000 carbon credits
that we've generated,
we've paid farmers four million dollars.
So that's real money in their pockets.
[birds chirping]
[Moore] What if farmers
could get paid to grow their food
and put carbon into the ground
inside the forest?
[hopeful music playing]
[Pedro Diniz] People say
we're never gonna be able
to feed the world with a food forest.
And I ask all the time, why?
[Winowiecki] Agroforestry is
when you incorporate trees
into a farming system.
Agroforestry systems are providing
nutritious food, such as fruits or nuts,
as well as providing shade.
It actually can regulate climate.
[Diniz] The original soil from the farm,
very sandy.
Completely different color.
This is all sand.
This is all organic material.
Probably three times more carbon here
than original soil.
That's nature magic.
[upbeat music playing]
[in Portuguese] My work is
to create abundant systems
through agroforestry.
This is the abundance
we procure and create.
On the farm, we have
banana, mango, avocado,
cupuau, cacao, aa.
A lot of species.
Today I counted 156 species.
[laughs] It's a forest!
[Harrelson] The deforestation
in the Amazon is associated
with one particular food item.
[intriguing music playing]
That's because most of the corn and soy
grown in the world goes to feed animals.
And that corn and soy contains
unhealthy oils
that negatively impact our health.
[Eric Smith] We have been breeding for
the past 80 years for a single outcome.
Yield.
We pay based on the volume of the food.
It's a very simple equation.
Dollar per pound.
So, everything we've done
in animal agriculture
has been for getting big, fat animals.
When you have these animals
that are in confinement
being force-fed grain to fatten them up
as large as possible,
you are getting very unhealthy
fat profiles out of these animals.
[Harrelson] There are
two primary types of fat we eat:
omega-3 and omega-6.
[Smith] The omega-6's
tend to come primarily from seed,
whereas the omega-3's
primarily come from grass.
Omega-3 fatty acids are
typically anti-inflammatory.
Omega-6 fatty acids
can be pro-inflammatory
when we consume them in excess.
In the American diet, we're consuming
way too many omega-6's
and way too few omega-3's.
The fat quality has gotten so far off,
and it's why everyone is inflamed.
We've done that to our animals,
we've done that to our foods,
and we've done it to ourselves.
[Harrelson] Corn and soy grown to feed
animals contributes to deforestation.
Then force-feeding cows
makes the meat unhealthy.
This begs the question:
Does animal farming
always have to be unhealthy?
[Niman] You can't give
a simple answer to the question
"What is animal production's
impact on climate?"
It's really varied.
It depends entirely
on how you're doing it.
The first thing to challenge is this idea
that you have to have
this modern factory farm system
in order to feed the population.
But the truth is we haven't tried,
in the modern era,
producing animals at scale any other way.
We went down this road
of getting farming and agriculture
looking more and more like factories.
[cattle mooing]
We've convinced people
this is the only way to do it,
but there are so many good examples
where it's being done
a very different way.
[Harrelson] And maybe
there is a better way,
one that doesn't involve
deforestation and feedlots
but instead builds soil.
Because maybe it's like
they say in the South.
It ain't the cow, it's the how.
[cattle mooing]
[Creedence Clearwater Revival
sings "Fortunate Son"]
Some folks are born
made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays
"Hail to the Chief"
-Ooh, they point the cannon
at you, Lord...
-[snorting]
How are y'all?
-[woman] Looking good.
-Aw, shucks.
[Will Harris] People say
three kind of people in Bluffton.
There's good people that go to church,
there's bad people
that don't go to church,
and there's the Harrises.
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no
-It ain't me
-[calling]
It ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
[song fades]
All I ever wanted to do was be
an industrial cattleman just like my dad.
[Glenn Sutton and Lloyd Green
play "Green Bluegrass"]
My dad took over the farm
post-World War II, 1945.
And he changed the farm to be
a monoculture of only cattle.
Part of that was getting rid
of anything that was not a cow.
So we started using ammonium nitrate.
We started confinement feeding.
We used growth hormones and steroids,
subtherapeutic antibiotics.
All the tools that science gives you
to make meat production
affordable and efficient,
we subscribed to.
[song ends]
-[cattle mooing]
-[pensive music playing]
[Will Harris] When I was an
industrial monocultural cattle producer,
I thought good animal welfare was
you keep them well-fed,
you keep them well-watered.
And that's-that's good animal welfare.
That's-that's fine.
You can check that box.
But we loaded out
a load of cattle one day,
and I'd done it hundreds of times, so...
A two-level truck, the ones on top
urinating and defecating
on the ones on the bottom.
They'd be on it for 30 hours
going to Nebraska or somewhere.
Didn't bother me a bit.
But that day it did.
And, uh, I didn't want to do it anymore.
[Matthew Sanchez, Matthew James Parker
and Sam Taylor play "On Our Way"]
[Jenni Harris] My dad started
transitioning our farm away from
an industrialized model
that it had been for decades.
That transition led him towards
regenerative agriculture.
He started finding that
the best way to graze pasture
without the use of chemical fertilizers
is a multispecies approach.
And so that led him to integrate
hogs, poultry and rabbits.
And all of a sudden, we just became
this very polycultural production system
that survived in balance.
[faint chatter]
[singers vocalizing]
[Will Harris] These cattle will move
from one paddock to the next every day,
and that has a lot of different benefits.
[Harrelson] In industrial agriculture,
cows are kept in confinement
and fed corn and soy.
In regenerative agriculture,
cows are moved quickly across the land
like herd animals,
and they eat grass.
And that builds soil carbon.
[Brown] A lot of pastures are overgrazed.
In other words, they've left the animals
in a given pasture for too long,
and then the animal has eaten
the plant down to the ground.
Plants have stopped growing.
We're not photosynthesizing anymore.
So they need to move the animals
from one pasture to another
in order to allow those plants to regrow.
[Harrelson] Keeping cows
in smaller paddocks,
moving them often and not letting them
return for six months
ensures that grass isn't eaten down
too much and it has time to regrow.
The plant, the energy from the sun
and the water from the rain,
is breathing in carbon dioxide,
and it's growing foliage.
But there's an equal amount
under the surface of the soil
that is roots that slough off
because the top's been bit off.
Much of that carbon is sequestered
for a long time.
So it's adding carbon every day.
[song ends]
[birds chirping]
This is very flat country here.
We don't get this kind of
severe elevation difference.
[Jenni Harris] Our farm is
literally higher than our neighbor's,
and the only difference is
the type of agriculture
that happens on the soil.
We're putting carbon back, and commodity
agriculture is steady taking away.
[pensive music playing]
[Will Harris] An environmental
consulting group did
an in-depth study here on the farm,
and they found that White Oak Pastures
sequesters three and a half pounds
of carbon dioxide equivalent
to every pound of beef we produce.
[Harrelson] Sequestering carbon into soil
is the basis for the regeneration
of entire ecosystems.
And it turns out that cows
can play a big role in that.
When you get these cycles of nature
operating in a system like
White Oak Pastures,
it spins off an abundance.
[lively music playing]
You know, everything we do here
is an emulation of nature.
It's a very imperfect emulation of nature,
so we strive to do the best we can
to make it as perfect
an emulation as possible.
[Jenni Harris] And so
the looming question is:
Can we feed the population
with these regenerative practices?
People think,
"Well, if we move to regenerative,
we're not gonna have enough food."
I would come right back to them and say,
"If you don't adopt
the regenerative model,
there's no way
you're gonna feed the world."
My neighbor's farm,
they may grow slightly more
bushels of corn per acre than I.
Well, now not only do I produce corn
on those acres,
I can run cows on those acres,
we can have our hogs on those acres,
we can have our sheep,
we can have our laying hens,
our honeybees.
Now who's producing
more nutrient-dense food per acre?
There's no comparison.
[Jenni Harris] There's no reason
that there can't be
a farm in every agricultural county
that feeds their local community.
There's no doubt about it,
there will be no change
until consumers want change.
Without consumers demanding it,
it will not happen.
[Jenni Harris] All farmers need
is support.
[Bicep plays "Glue"]
[Moore] There's one pop star DJ
who's using his fame
to change what we buy
at the grocery store.
[crowd cheering]
[song continues louder]
When I'm alone...
[Andy Cato] I was very lucky
in that I spent 25 years
making music, touring, deejaying.
When I'm alone...
A job that so many people dream of doing.
I'm a very, very lucky man.
When I'm alone...
I substituted playing records
and making music
for the hardest profession in the world.
-[song ends]
-[cheering fades]
Farming.
[gentle music playing]
I was coming back from a gig,
and I picked up an article.
It was talking about the environmental
consequences of food production.
It said, "If you don't like the system,
don't depend on it."
And from the first moment
that I planted seeds
and witnessed that miraculous cycle...
...there was just no turning back for me.
Six weeks of no rain, we can,
uh, still get the spade in the ground.
It's encouraging.
Driest spring for 103 years.
You wouldn't know it
looking at that, would you?
[birds chirping]
It's quite amazing what a bit of plant
diversity can do given half a chance.
[Moore] Andy's journey from DJ to farmer
has given him a chance
to talk about regenerative agriculture
to a prime-time audience.
[lighthearted music playing]
[Cato] Being involved in Clarkson's Farm
happened by accident.
He asked me over for a cup of tea,
and then the cameras were rolling,
and then we were kind of off.
[Jeremy Clarkson] Andy, Kaleb.
-How you doing?
-Kaleb, Andy.
Are you in a band?
-I was in a band.
-I can tell.
Because?
Because you've left your tractor running
at a pound a liter.
-[laughter]
-[upbeat music playing]
[Cato] In 25 years of music,
I occasionally got asked
for the odd selfie.
I got asked for a thousand times
more selfies than the previous 25 years.
People would say,
"The soil guy off Clarkson's."
The fact that those things are being used
as phrases is fantastic, you know.
[Clarkson] I know it's called
regenerative farming,
-isn't it?
-Mm.
But I'd really like to understand
what it is.
Regenerative farming is a way of farming
which tries to copy natural systems.
So what we've got to get away from
is monocultures.
By putting two plant families
in the same field,
we're starting that process
of feeding the soil
with a diversity of plants.
[Moore] It's understood
that pop stars have been known
to make some pretty good bread.
But this guy does it literally.
So, Wildfarmed is a food
and farming business
that grows food in nature-rich landscapes.
Better for you and better for the planet.
-[Groove Armada sings "My Friend"]
-I call on you...
[Moore] The Wildfarmed bread company
pays farmers a premium
to take some of their land
and grow regenerative wheat.
[Cato] This enormous process happened
despite the market
not recognizing any value
in all the things
that those farmers are doing.
[Moore] The best thing
since sliced bread may just be...
...regenerative sliced bread.
[Cato] We can empower customers
with this hopeful message
that your food choices are
your greatest point of agency.
[Brown] We've seen a lot of interest
in the retail space.
You can't hardly pick up
any type of advertisement
without them talking about regenerative.
We're getting momentum
from not only industry
but momentum from farmers.
[song ends]
[wind whistling softly]
[hopeful music playing]
[Harrelson] The U.K. is home
to one of the largest
regenerative agriculture conferences
in the world.
And what do they call this movement
that is wildly gaining momentum?
They call it...
...Groundswell.
The headliners for this event
aren't pop stars or actors.
They're farmers.
The farmers are so important, in fact,
they're now being given a royal welcome.
Please welcome His Royal Highness
to the stage.
[applause]
[Prince William] Good morning, everyone.
There's not many moments
that I'm the warm-up act,
but I'm very happy to be
Gabe Brown's warm-up act today.
[applause]
We come together to reaffirm
our commitment to a brighter,
resilient and regenerative future.
[Brown] I tell you,
it's really good to be here.
I have to be honest with you.
I'm a bit nervous following
that warm-up act, but, uh...
[laughter]
Let's change the production model
into one that is truly regenerative.
And I've been in this
approximately 30 years.
The first 26 years, man, we were pushing
that snowball straight up the hill.
This past year,
I saw more positive movement
than I did the 26 before that combined.
I really think,
in the not too distant future,
we won't even have to talk about
regenerative agriculture
because it'll be the norm.
[Moore] In 2020, when Kiss the Ground,
the first film in this trilogy,
was released,
there was less than five million acres
of land in regenerative agriculture
in the United States.
[Harrelson] I'll make you a deal.
I won't give up, and neither should you.
[Moore] In 2023,
when Common Ground,
the second film in this trilogy, launched,
brands started committing
to going regenerative.
And third-party certifications
began to ensure
that regenerative products mean
that carbon is going into the soil.
[Ian Somerhalder] Within three years,
we transitioned
30 million acres
from conventional to regen.
This is a real movement.
It's happening right now as we speak.
[Moore] Today, regenerative agriculture
has grown to 250 million acres globally.
But to reach the tipping point, where
regenerative agriculture truly takes hold,
we need to regenerate
one billion acres globally.
That's about ten percent
of all agriculture on planet Earth.
It's a big mission,
and it's well underway.
[Cato] All of this stuff is doable.
We don't need any inventions.
We don't need any technology.
And for the movement to build
at the speed and scale
that the ecological reality demands,
we just need to choose to do it.
[Abraha] There's no world
in which I'm living
where this regeneration movement
doesn't work.
This needs to work.
-[Sadhguru] Time is running out.
-[crowd cheering]
Let's stand up and let's make it happen.
[hopeful music swells]
[Coldplay sings "Paradise"]
[Harrelson] Saving our soils,
our climate and our future
begins with the groundswell
of regeneration
that's spreading across the globe.
[Lemayian] I always say
hope is not a plan.
So, to protect and regenerate our land...
...the Samburu people have got a plan.
When she was just a girl...
It is all about tuning our mind
to regeneration.
If you regenerate soil,
you're also regenerating
your own life.
and dreamed of para...
[Khare] Regeneration is not about
just safeguarding what we have.
It's about elevating humanity.
dream of para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
[Harrelson] For most of my adult life,
I've been an advocate
of protecting our environment.
[newswoman] That man scaling
the cables in bright yellow
is Cheers TV star Woody Harrelson.
[newswoman 2] Harrelson was doing it,
he says, for the redwoods.
[Harrelson] My reasons are simple.
I'm a parent.
I have three daughters.
So I'm gonna keep up that fight.
When she was just a girl,
she expected...
[Moore] I love being a mother
and now a grandmother.
When I look into her eyes,
I can see generations into the future.
But what will that future be?
This could be paradise...
[laughing]
We want our children to be healthy
and to thrive.
And the best way to do that
is growing our food
so it regenerates our soil,
our communities and our planet.
The answer to so many of our problems
is in the ground beneath our feet.
Nature has the ability to heal herself.
But she can't do it alone.
set to rise
This could be para, para, paradise
para, para, paradise
This could be para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
This could be para, para, paradise
para, para, paradise
This could be para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
This could be para, para, paradise
para, para, paradise
This could be para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
[song fades]
[music fades]
[Demi Moore] A very long time ago...
[whooshing]
...the Earth was a much colder place.
-[gentle music playing]
-[wind rushing]
Then the Earth slowly started to warm...
...by just a few degrees.
That small increase in temperature
completely transformed our frozen world...
[birds chirping]
...into a stable climate.
[uplifting music playing]
That changed us from hunter-gatherers...
...to farmers.
From farming came cities...
...and, eventually, great civilizations.
One after another,
those civilizations rose to power...
...and fell.
Then we learned to harness
the power of fossilized energy.
That power allowed us to build
the world we live in today.
But like the civilizations
that came before us...
...our power to alter land
may also be our greatest weakness.
To survive and thrive
in the new world that's coming...
...we need to change.
And that change needs to happen
from the ground up.
We need to enter a new age:
the age of regeneration.
[birds chirping]
The Earth,
our beautiful home, is a living thing.
-[gentle music playing]
-[crackling softly]
-[birds chirping]
-[water drop echoes]
And we're all part of her.
Our health and the health of our planet
are deeply connected.
We're a microcosm of the universe.
Like all forms of life,
we share something amazing.
When our bodies become injured,
we have the ability to heal.
We can regenerate.
[birds chirping]
And thankfully, so can the Earth.
[hopeful music playing]
Because right now...
[thunder rumbling]
...our planet has a sickness.
Our mother
has a fever.
[Nelly sings "Hot in Herre"]
[echoing] It's hot in
So hot in here...
[Woody Harrelson] If you've been
paying attention lately,
you might have noticed something.
[car horns honking]
-It's getting hot in here
-So hot
-So take off all your clothes
-Ay
-It's getting hotter.
-I am getting so hot...
-2012 was the warmest year...
-2016...
[newsman] ...had the warmest
global temperatures...
2017 was the third warmest year
on record...
2023 will be the hottest year
ever recorded.
2024 is set to be even hotter than 2023.
It's getting hot in here...
The Earth is now hotter
than it's ever been.
I am getting so hot...
[Harrelson] And all that extreme heat
is causing some extreme problems.
I am getting so hot...
[newswoman] This year's fire season
has officially set a devastating record.
-[record scratches]
-[song stops abruptly]
[pensive music playing]
[Harrelson] I know what you're thinking.
"Not another depressing
climate documentary."
This is where we usually tell you
the bad news
and try to make you feel guilty.
[pensive music continues over laptop]
Well...
[music stops]
...this film is different.
[wind whistling softly]
It's about a solution
to a whole bunch of problems.
[hopeful music playing]
It's about something
we all have in common.
It's something we all need every day.
It's something we all love.
This film
is about... food.
[sizzling]
And about how changing
the way we grow food
might be our best hope
to regenerate our world.
Now, here's where we tend to go wrong.
Humans keep trying to fix
our heating planet
with policy and technology.
And so far, that hadn't cooled
much of anything.
Is carbon the only driver
of our heating planet?
Or is there something else?
Something equally important?
Since human beings began building cities
and transforming landscapes,
we've removed three trillion trees.
That's half the trees on planet Earth.
And we've scraped away nearly
three-quarters of the vegetation.
[somber music playing]
[Jay Famiglietti] As humans,
we've been pushing the landscape
towards desertification for as long
as we have been growing food.
In particular,
over the last few hundred years,
with things like large-scale agriculture.
[Harrelson] "Desertification" is a term
that describes when ecosystems
are replaced with hot, dry deserts.
[Famiglietti] Over half of the world's
major aquifers are being rapidly depleted.
The continents are drying out.
[chuckles] Sh-Should I say it again?
[wind whistling softly]
[Harrelson] As continents dry out
and the plant life dies,
the land gets hotter.
The atmosphere is
actually heated from below,
so whatever the temperature is here...
...on the ground, it's gonna be more.
[pensive music playing]
[Harrelson] In other words,
we've turned our lush, green planet
into a hot frying pan.
[whooshing]
The drying and heating of Earth's land
is accelerating at an alarming rate.
[Famiglietti] The areas
that are dry are growing at
two times the area of California
each year.
The deserts are
expanding rapidly globally,
destroying our ecosystem.
It's like a spreading cancer.
We feel like there's nothing
we can do to stop it.
And yet...
...not only can we stop it,
we can actually reverse desertification
and go back to abundance.
[gentle music playing]
[Harrelson] It's pretty simple.
The fewer trees and plants,
the hotter it is.
And the more green on the ground,
the cooler the planet is.
To fix our warming planet
and feed our growing numbers,
perhaps we need to begin with a solution
that's not based on human intellect
but rather on the wisdom of nature.
[birds chirping]
[Moore] There is one solution
to fix our heating planet.
[Cosmo Sheldrake
featuring Nature sing "Soil"]
[wind blowing]
It's an ancient technology
that's highly scalable.
It already exists everywhere in the world.
I want to be ground...
It can hold more carbon
than the atmosphere.
I want to be fed on...
And when it's managed right,
it regulates water,
which, in turn, regulates the climate.
[birds chirping]
I want to be soil...
Soil is such an important carbon sink.
I want to be soil...
[Natalie Topa] When we have
healthy living soils,
we're allowing soil to actually inhale
and breathe in
the carbon from the atmosphere.
[Asmeret Asefaw Berhe] There's more carbon
in soil than there is
in all of the world's vegetation
plus all the carbon
that's currently up in the atmosphere.
Some carbon is deposited
in deeper soil layers.
It can persist there for
thousands of years and even longer,
building up over time the amount of carbon
that you have in soil.
Well, it would never get lonely...
[Winowiecki] When we have
a healthy, functioning soil,
we can also store a lot of water.
with everyone round
[Topa] The soil is
the largest and cheapest
water storage tank that exists.
I want to go downwards...
We can harvest water
into the soils, hold it,
slow it, spread it
and sink it into the ground
so that it can hydrate and quench
those thirsty landscapes.
I want to be ground...
[Berhe] Soil is
what makes the difference between
life and lifelessness on planet Earth.
I want to be soil
[birds chirping]
I want to be sound...
Every living thing
on the face of the planet
depends on soil.
And I would never...
For food, feed, fiber,
for delivery and purification of water,
for recycling our waste,
soil being the most important
reservoir of life that we know of.
I want to be soil...
[Arizona Muse] There are trillions of
microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil.
So how many microorganisms are there
in a whole garden full of soil?
live upside down...
These things are
supposed to blow our minds.
It's made of teeny tiny little things
that are alive.
Inside there are
trillions of microorganisms.
[gasps] Whoa!
So, soil is a complex cosmos in itself
that we have so much to learn about
and so much to love
and so much to respect.
We just really never want
to treat our soil like dirt.
that I want to be soil
that I want to be ground
-[song ends]
-[wind whistling softly]
[Savory] Soil is sand until life is added.
-[gentle music playing]
-[birds chirping]
Once life is added, the sand becomes soil.
The source of energy
to feed all those different life-forms
is photosynthesis.
[intriguing music playing]
All that photosynthesis is feeding
the soil microorganisms.
And that all becomes food
for everything else that depends on it.
[Harrelson] Although nature
is infinitely complex,
life on land is made of
three main components.
[Nicolette Hahn Niman] Every ecosystem
has fungi, plants and animals.
All of the functions that are
happening in an ecosystem
are mediated by these three components.
[Harrelson] There are
two kinds of agriculture.
One utilizes these natural components.
The other seeks to eliminate them.
We call these two kinds
regenerative agriculture
and industrial agriculture.
-[gentle music playing]
-[cattle mooing]
Regenerative agriculture is
a way of growing food
that puts carbon into the ground
and builds the soil.
[Jonathan Lundgren] Industrial agriculture
is actually a source
-of carbon emissions,
-[cattle mooing]
so it's sending carbon dioxide and
greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere.
It's a part of the problem.
Regenerative agriculture actually takes
the carbon out of the atmosphere
and puts it back down into the ground.
It's a solution to the problem.
[Harrelson] Industrial agriculture
tills and breaks up the soil.
[Topa] When you start tilling the land,
break it all up,
release all that carbon,
kill all those soil organisms,
let that heat get in
and really bake the soil...
...it makes the entire landscape
completely vulnerable to hot temperatures.
[intriguing music playing]
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
leaves the soil intact
so life can thrive.
A central basis of
regenerative agriculture
is promoting biodiversity of life.
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
utilizes a diversity of plants,
not a singular species, aka a monocrop.
[Lundgren] The main tools of a
regenerative farm are plants and animals.
Plants can't survive without animals.
From honeybees to bison.
[Harrelson] From the smallest insects
to herds of large creatures,
regenerative agriculture
integrates animals
directly into crop fields and orchards.
Regenerative agriculture promotes life.
Industrial agriculture seeks
to replace life with
fertilizers or insecticides or herbicides.
[Savory] If you look at all of
modern industrial agriculture,
it's based on
kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.
[Harrelson] Regenerative agriculture
doesn't use toxic herbicides
or pesticides.
[Kara Boyd] The best benefit
of regenerative ag to me,
we're decreasing synthetic fertilizer use,
we're reversing damage that's been done
and putting more money
into the farmers' pockets.
[Harrelson] Scientists are studying
regenerative farms,
and the results are surprising.
We set out to study thousands of farms
across North America.
We've amassed the largest database of
regenerative farming systems in existence.
[Harrelson] Regenerative farms store
37% more carbon than industrial farms.
On regenerative farms, soils hold
the water and keep it from running off.
There are three to six times more
life-forms than on industrial farms.
Regenerative farmers are often
twice as profitable.
Industrial farmers have 2,000 times the
national average in Parkinson's disease...
...they have ten times the cancer rate,
and they have
twice the rate of depression.
[intriguing music playing]
[John Boyd] My parents and grandfather,
they didn't have tons of fertilizer
and harmful chemicals.
They were doing
regenerative agriculture back then.
They-they just didn't have the name
"regenerative agriculture."
They called it survival.
[Harrelson] Today, our survival
may once again depend on
embracing the practices
of regenerative agriculture.
[Topa] We can heal
the entire world with our food.
[hopeful music playing]
Or we can totally destroy the world
with the way we grow food.
[Lundgren] Farmers that are focusing
on life and soil health
are solving the climate crisis.
[Harrelson] But to affect
the global climate and feed humanity...
...regeneration would need to scale
throughout the world.
Each continent could play a role.
Each type of ecosystem and watershed
could be regenerated.
The only way to know if such a massive
global undertaking is possible...
[Men at Work sing "Down Under"]
...is to go on a massive global journey.
Let's call it a regeneration road trip.
Traveling in a fried-out Kombi
on a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady
She made me nervous
-She took me in and gave me breakfast
-Camera speed. And... mark.
And she said,
"Do you come from a land down under
where women glow and men plunder?"
In Australia,
the effects of a heating planet...
"You better run,
you better take cover"
...have been severe in recent years.
-[song ends]
-[fire crackling]
But what if Australia's environment
could be healed?
[Paul Girrawah House
speaking native language]
[House] Our people have been
First Nation Indigenous custodians
of our ancestral country
for over 60,000 years.
[pensive music playing]
When Europeans arrived here,
they experienced a pristine landscape.
[Carolyn Hall] Beautiful,
fertile floodplains.
Lush, wonderful land.
A very different landscape
to what we see today.
[intriguing music playing]
But when the Europeans came here,
they disturbed the landscape,
removing large tracts of vegetation.
And with no vegetation,
we've got degraded soil.
[Ashley Silver] And when soil is degraded,
it loses its water-holding capacity,
so Australia is dehydrated.
[Hall] And the ultimate endpoint of that
is desertification.
[gentle music playing]
[Harrelson] Farmers are starting
to come together to figure out
how to rehydrate Australia's soils.
[low chatter]
And one of those farmers is Gabe Brown.
In 2021, Gabe was diagnosed with ALS,
known as the farmer's disease.
It can be caused by exposure
to toxic pesticides.
[Gabe Brown] Physically, it's harder
for me to make these trips.
My health is degrading,
but my life is sharing my story.
If I can do that and help someone else
get further down their
regenerative journey, that's a win-win.
[Lyndsey Douglas] Our keynote speaker
this morning is
one of the pioneers
of the soil health movement.
One of the 25 most influential
agriculture leaders.
Please give a big Australian welcome
to Gabe Brown.
[cheering and applause]
As I've gone down this path
of regeneration,
I've come to the understanding
that it all starts in healthy soil.
When we go onto a degraded landscape
and we take an infrared thermometer,
we saw over a 50-degree temperature swing
between bare soil
and covered soil.
[Harrelson] This temperature difference
between soil that is bare
and soil that is covered in plant life
is the difference between
dehydration and rehydration.
There's one key element needed
to rehydrate a landscape.
[Brown] In order to hydrate
an ecosystem, we have to move carbon
back into the soil.
[Harrelson] The more carbon there is
in soil, the more water the soil can hold.
[Brown] For every one percent increase
in soil organic matter,
we're gonna be able to hold approximately
20,000 more gallons of water
per foot per acre.
[lighthearted music playing]
[Harrelson] So, how do we encourage people
to put carbon into the ground?
To help incentivize carbon farming,
the Australian government created
a carbon market.
So, what is a carbon market?
[wind whistling softly]
[Carl Binning] What
the carbon market does,
it offers farmers the opportunity
to generate another revenue stream.
Soil is one of the most important
stores of carbon on the planet.
And plants are the most effective way
of pulling carbon
out of our atmosphere at scale.
[Silver] Livestock producers who put
more carbon into the soil can be paid
within the carbon markets.
[Harrelson] To receive carbon credits,
a farmer must show
they've stored carbon in their soil.
And getting started is
as simple as a soil test.
[Hugh McMurtrie] Just heading out into the
paddock now to do our first soil sample
and get tested for
soil organic carbon levels.
[Sandia and Yellow play
"Nothing Feels Better Than Now"]
The carbon improves
the health of the soil.
It'll also make us more resilient.
If we get carbon credits for it,
then that's a bonus.
[Harrelson] To increase soil carbon,
farmers must incorporate
regenerative principles.
The more regeneration that occurs,
the more carbon that can be stored,
and the more money they can make.
We've been performing
regenerative farming,
and our soil test showed
positive carbon sequestration.
And we were issued carbon credits.
And we have certainly seen
our grasslands regenerate
and our soils regenerate.
And we have seen nature recover.
[Harrelson] If Australia sequestered
one ton of carbon per acre per year
in its 380 million agriculture acres,
the Aussie carbon market would increase
from one billion dollars
to 15 billion dollars annually.
And that would pay farmers and ranchers
to rehydrate and regenerate...
...the entire Australian continent.
[Brown] I've been asked the question
over and over:
"Gabe, this is Australia.
Can it work here?"
By adopting these regenerative practices,
of course it can.
[song ends]
[Moore] Across the world
in another dry environment,
regeneration begins with the people
who have been working the land
for centuries.
[Oscar Sulley and The Uhuru Dance Band
sing "Olufeme"]
[song continues with lyrics
in native language]
[song ends]
Every regeneration project
begins with one powerful thing.
Seeds.
[gentle music playing]
There's one ancient tribe
that's trying to bring back
some of Africa's most important
seed-spreading creatures.
[upbeat percussive music playing]
[Robert Lemayian] We are called Samburu.
Our staple food is blood, milk and meat.
So our livestock means
everything to us as a tribe.
That is our livelihood.
[pensive music playing]
[bleating]
[Moore] Herd animals need food,
and that food usually comes
in the form of grasslands.
[Titus Letaapo] The livestock
relies on grass.
So when the, when the grassland
is doing very well, uh,
then, uh, the ecosystem is supportive, uh,
to wildlife and also to the community.
[Moore] But to figure out how to get
the grasses back into northern Kenya,
we first have to address...
the elephant in the room.
[lighthearted music playing]
[Lemayian] So, elephants are really,
really special in the Samburu culture.
[Katie Rowe] They're such keystone species
in creating grasslands.
When they spend
an amount of time in an area,
you see how impactful they are.
This is an acacia tree that has been
pulled and pushed down by an elephant.
They have reduced the speed of water
running off the surface of the soil.
It helps to catch the grass seeds.
As a result of that elephant
pushing down this tree,
life bounces back
and everything regenerates.
[Moore] Elephants also fertilize the land
with something that contains
yet more seeds.
Elephant dung, as it is here,
is life in itself.
You can just see it's full of fiber,
and there are loads of insects.
It's holding loads
of different types of seeds.
The importance of this poop
is just enormous.
[pensive music playing]
[Lemayian] The people,
their livestock and the wildlife
lived alongside each other
for many, many years.
And then...
...poaching.
[Moore] Over many years,
poaching eliminated vast numbers
of Kenya's rhinos and elephants,
which, in turn, caused the grasslands
to turn to dust and scrubby brush.
[Lemayian] We are doomed.
Unless...
[upbeat music playing]
...we start to protect
and regenerate our land.
And the only way that this can happen
is if we can bring back the elephants.
So we rescue and rehabilitate
the elephant.
[Moore] Through their sanctuary,
the Samburu have successfully saved
and rehabilitated thousands of elephants.
-[insects chirring]
-[birds chirping]
[Mark Bradshaw and Roo Pigott
sing "Awololo"]
[song continues
with lyrics in native language]
[Lemayian] As a result of
conservation work that we are doing,
the elephant numbers have
really, really bounced back.
I do see a very, very positive impact
on the land,
with the number of elephants
now increasing.
Look at this grass.
This is actually, uh, very, very exciting
for us as a tribe.
You know, we haven't seen this
for quite a very, very long time.
We see that there is hope, and we see that
we are going to regenerate our land
back into grasslands.
[Moore] As people have fled
climate chaos and conflicts,
northern Uganda has become
a haven for refugees.
With the number of refugees
growing globally,
can regeneration be a tool
to bring land back to life?
-[song ends]
-[pensive music playing]
[in Acholi] The reason I left South Sudan
is because of the war.
[in Acholi] That is the main reason
why I came here,
because of death and gunshots.
[Abwo in Acholi] What happened
in my village in war,
people were being shot and killed.
[Moore] The climate of sub-Saharan Africa
is indeed changing.
And the reason it's changing
should come as no surprise.
[Topa] A lot of what is happening is
because of ecological collapse,
hydrological collapse and carbon
and nutrient cycle collapse.
[clicks, beeps]
Hundred and fifty-three degrees.
Sixty-seven point five degrees
Celsius, okay?
This is not an enabling environment
for any plant growth.
I've seen in farms
in all parts of Africa
farmers who have bought into this model
of chemical farming.
They take a totally intact fertile system,
dismantle that
and now start applying
synthetic fertilizers, pesticides.
And it's expanding, the Sahara Desert
and the entire area below that.
[Thomas Cole] What we're seeing
over these years is
a pretty stark increase
in human population in sub-Saharan Africa.
At the same time, you've had
a steady decline in soil fertility.
So that means the land
that more and more people are living on
is producing less food.
[Miriam Lakot Kibwota] When the refugees
come to Uganda,
you are supposed to depend on food
that is distributed to you.
If it is not there, you have to go hungry.
[Linda Eckerbom Cole] How do we show
that a refugee camp
can actually be a place of regeneration?
[Thomas Cole] We said
we'd love to start a farm.
[Mel Dean sings "Under African Skies"]
[song continues
with lyrics in native language]
We did a design to figure out
what do we want.
First thing we need to do
is control the water.
Every time it rains,
the water is just washing through here.
[Kibwota speaks native language]
Letter "A."
[Thomas Cole] We have these simple tools,
an A-frame that we use
to map out the contour of their land,
knowing where to put
these water-harvesting structures.
In West Africa,
they're called demi-lunes, half-moons.
[Evelyne Lalwedo] The open part,
it is facing up the slope.
[Thomas Cole] Some people
call them smile berms,
so we say, "Okay, the tip of the smile
always needs to be pointing up."
You have to smile.
[Lalwedo] So, as part of our designing,
we incorporated the pond into the farm
to help us capture
the excess water.
[Thomas Cole] When it does rain,
these systems are welcoming that rain
and really banking that water in the soil.
[Lalwedo] We ensure that we direct
the running water where we need it.
[Thomas Cole] Apart from
a few native trees,
all of this growth is
within the last 18 months' rainfall.
[song fades]
[Moore] The principles of regeneration
could offer hope
to the nearly one billion people
in sub-Saharan Africa.
[Johan Hugo and Lazarus play "Angelo"]
[Lalwedo] I started learning,
how can I build on the soil?
We have all the materials
within our means.
[Thomas Cole] You walk into
someone's piece of land,
you're like, "Whoa."
[song continues
with lyrics in native language]
[Lalwedo] Behind me here is a food forest.
We have over 20-plus
different kind of plant species.
They are doing very okay together.
[Santa Aber in Acholi] My life
has changed because
I don't go asking neighbors for food.
But the neighbors come ask me for food
and also provide me with money.
[speaks Acholi]
[Abwo in Acholi] I have
mango, avocado, guava,
lemons, arrowroots and many more.
I am very happy, very happy.
[laughing]
[Linda Eckerbom Cole] The majority
of the people that we work with
become food secure.
They have enough money where they can
send their children to school.
That's economic empowerment and change.
[Salina Abraha] I have seen
endless examples
where all of this restoration
is happening.
It's working in different countries.
It's working in Ethiopia.
It's working in Nigeria.
It's working in Kenya and Uganda.
And all of it's different,
but it's a movement that is undeniable
and is really connected.
[Topa] Farm by farm,
we can actually heal
that band that covers
the Great Green Wall.
[Abraha] This mosaic
of different landscapes
that cuts across the entire continent.
[Topa] It takes many farmers,
many gardeners, many ecosystem actors
to take restorative action.
By integrating regenerative practices,
by working together with communities
for citizen engineering,
farm by farm, we're actually stopping
the Sahara Desert from inching southward,
to bring that desert back to life.
[Abraha] The Great Green Wall,
for me, is something that is
vital to our survival,
to our growth and our future.
[Harrelson] As Africa builds
a Green Wall to heal its deserts,
there's another densely populated country
that's using the principles of
regeneration to heal its landscapes.
[upbeat Indian music playing]
[Agam Khare] The only culture in India
that has existed for 5,000 years
is agriculture.
In India, there are about
100 million farming families.
Almost 50% of the families
are completely dependent
on the traditional means of agriculture.
[Harrelson] India was once
a thriving agricultural land
rich with natural resources.
[pensive music playing]
[Khare] India was the epicenter
of agriculture production.
[Vandana Shiva] In India,
we never had monocultures.
The principle of diversity,
that's the very core of Indian farming.
You work with nature,
and then you produce
high-quality diverse food.
[Khare] Then fast-forward.
Industrialization started happening.
[Shiva] So, the first thing was,
colonialism was converting agriculture
into plantation economies
for exporting commodities.
[Harrelson] When the British left,
India shifted to industrial agriculture,
and the new industrial agriculture
was given a special name.
The green revolution was the name given
to the introduction of chemical farming.
[upbeat Indian music playing]
[Shaan Bhargava] People brought in all
sorts of scientists from other countries.
We were introduced to hybrid seed,
insecticides and pesticides.
People really did get amazing crops
for a decade or two.
But as time goes on,
we see the flip side of that coin.
[tense music playing]
All this monocropping encourages people
to cut down their trees.
[Khare] We have lost about
6,500 hectares of forest.
[Shiva] And with it,
the diversity has disappeared.
[Khare] We rank number two in the world
in the loss of biodiversity.
[somber music playing]
[Harrelson] The empty promises
of the green revolution
left India's agriculture in ruins.
[Khare] Over the late 1990s,
soil health was depleting rapidly.
The same soil which was earlier
responsible for sequestering carbon...
...is now giving out carbon.
[Shiva] So the soils are desertified.
The chemical farms have lost
their soil fertility
and their soil nutrients.
We're using more and more and more
to produce less and less and less
with agriculture
that destroys biodiversity,
destroys soil and water,
while the farmer is being squeezed out.
What farmers are earning is collapsing,
so, every year, the farmers had to borrow.
Every one of them is in debt.
From 1995 to about 2016,
400,000 farmers committed suicide.
[crowd singing in native language]
[Harrelson] The result:
a new crop of people
committed to safeguarding India's farmers
by safeguarding the soil.
[singing continues]
And for some, that work begins
with measuring carbon.
[hopeful Indian music playing]
Soil today is the largest terrestrial sink
for carbon.
We are setting up
2,000 of these soil testing centers
all across the country.
It measures organic carbon content
in the soil,
ensuring the carbon can be sequestered
and put back to where it belongs.
[Harrelson] And when organic carbon
increases, the yield of farms increase.
In other words,
more carbon equals more food.
[hopeful music playing]
[Khare] The organic carbon levels
can be improved in the soil.
The yields of the farms can go up
by anywhere between 20 to 35 percent,
which directly translates
into the income of the farmers.
You're talking about elevating
billions of people out of poverty.
It's not just an opportunity.
I also think of it as a moral obligation.
-[crowd chanting in distance]
-[birds chirping]
[Harrelson] For one spiritual leader
in India,
saving hundreds of millions of lives
begins with saving soil.
[woman] Groundswell, Sadhguru, take two.
[Sadhguru] Soil is not your property.
It's a legacy that you received
from previous generations.
And it's your fundamental responsibility
to pass it on as a living entity
to next generations.
[whooshing]
I've grown up on farms for many years.
When you work on the soil,
you must know you're part of the soil.
You are soil.
There are only 55 to 60 years of soil
left on the planet for agriculture.
[pensive music playing]
So, what to do? How to wake up the world?
[wind whistling]
[engine revs]
-[Conscious Planet sings "Soil Song"]
-La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, la, le, le, le, le, le, le
La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, le, le, le, le, le
So I decided to ride from London
to southern India.
[Josie Gibson] And talking about soil,
you are on a mission.
[Phillip Schofield] This hundred-day
motorcycle journey.
The hundred-day journey
spanning 30,000 kilometers.
[Sadhguru] Riding nonstop through
the rain, through snow, through desert.
You know, I'm 65 years of age.
Hope I survive. [laughs]
[crowd cheering and whistling]
My aim is if we can get the people to say,
"We are concerned about
the quality of soil,"
then the political leaders will act.
So I thought I should get that statement
from the people.
Hello. Can you hear me?
[crowd] Yes!
La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, la, le, le, le, le, le, le, le, le
Le, le, le, le, le
La, le, le, le, le, le...
[Harrelson] Sadhguru attended
691 events across 27 countries,
reaching billions of people
with his message.
[Sadhguru] Once the political leaders saw
that so many people
are concerned about it,
suddenly everybody was concerned about it
and many countries responded.
La, la, le, le, le, le, le
La, le, le, le, le, le
[singer vocalizing]
-[crowd cheering]
-[song ends]
But is the problem fixed?
No.
Very little has happened on the ground.
Still, it looks like we don't understand
the magnitude of the problem.
[pensive music playing]
[horns honking]
[Robin Datta and William Baker
play "Epic Dawn"]
[Harrelson] Just as soil
can be turned to dust,
soil can be healed.
And sometimes it's as simple as capturing
water instead of letting it run off.
[Manvendra Singh Shekhawat] In all
these years that I have lived here,
I've never seen rains like this.
We are in Jaisalmer, which
most of the world writes off as a desert.
It is one of the most arid parts
of the country.
It rains less than
15 centimeters annually.
[Jatan Shekhawat] Right now,
we are in a place called Dhun.
It's a man-made eco-reserve,
which we have been working on rewilding
for last ten years.
[Manvendra] We have designed
the entire structure of this place,
keeping in mind
a once-in-30-year rain event.
I think that this is it.
When you have events like this,
you can capture this entire precipitation
and utilize it
in period when you don't have water.
We have created about 60 ponds
in the nearby region.
[traditional Indian music playing]
What was here before was
a semiarid piece of land,
completely deserted.
And what you see now is a verdant oasis.
And then here you can see this was dust,
and now it is two-meter-tall grass.
When you plant grasses,
when you plant trees,
it acts as a big sponge.
Because of the porosity of soil,
it just permeates.
Grasses are important for climate because
each one of this straw is a carbon pump
sequestering carbon in the ground.
[Harrelson] Grasses are
a key component to regeneration.
For grasses to keep growing,
they need four-legged creatures.
[Manvendra] Without all the cattle here,
there was no way that we could have
regenerated this land.
So, animals, land with water,
that virtuous cycle really starts life
in even the most arid places.
This is what can happen in just ten years,
if you just allow the land to heal itself.
It's a miracle.
[Moore] In India, regenerative pioneers
are trying to reverse
the effects of industrial agriculture.
Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere...
[Guillermo Portabales sings "Cumbiamba"]
...there's one country
that's using a new model
to regenerate forests
and bring back biodiversity.
[song continues with lyrics in Spanish]
Their efforts could determine
the future of a food item
used by over one billion people every day.
And it all boils down to a cup of joe.
[Ana Mara Gil Duran in Spanish]
Coffee here in Colombia
is the economic base for many families.
[Juan Carlos Ardila] We say in Colombia,
coffee does not create wealth
but stops poverty.
Coffee is very intensive labor.
It's not automatic. [chuckles]
You plant it.
You harvest it.
You remove the skin.
Ferment it.
You wash it.
Dry it.
Pack it.
Roast it.
Grind it.
Prepare it.
At the end, you have
the perfect cup of coffee.
[song ends]
[pensive music playing]
[Moore] Like most agricultural regions,
Colombia is facing severe deforestation.
Industrial coffee plantations
clear-cut forests,
thereby killing off biodiversity.
[Jose Castao] When they started
cutting the trees to plant more coffee,
there was a big loss of habitat.
[Moore] The problem is so severe
that industrial coffee is a significant
cause of deforestation worldwide.
[Viviana Gutierrez] You can really see
across the way what's happening.
This is completely barren.
[Ruth Bennett] Coffee's under threat
right now.
Soils that have been exposed
to full-sun coffee monocultures
for the past 20 or 30 years
no longer have the nutrients necessary
to keep coffee growing on those lands.
We need coffee agriculture to move away
from these intensified monocultures,
or we won't have coffee.
[upbeat music playing]
[Moore] But there is
a better way to grow coffee.
And not surprisingly, it has to do
with farming regeneratively.
[in Spanish] I have 11,200 coffee trees.
So we are working with some good practices
of regenerative agriculture.
[Moore] Regenerative coffee farms
mimic a forest,
where they plant a mix of trees,
including banana and plantain trees.
The giant leaves provide shade
for the smaller coffee trees,
regulating the temperature
and holding water in the soil.
[Daro in Spanish] The banana trees
make shade for the soil.
All of these leaves decompose
and produce organic material.
We are making the most
of the organic material.
[Bennett] Shade-grown systems
produce better
and higher quality coffee
than sun-grown systems.
Every year, that shade
interacts with temperature
in a slightly different way.
The seeds are denser,
and so they pack more complex flavors in.
And all of that is linked
with the microbial life in the soil.
[in Spanish] Look at
the quality of the soil
that you can create.
Clean soil,
because it doesn't contain
agrochemicals of any kind.
This is what makes
the quality of the coffee
recognized worldwide.
[Moore] Regenerative coffee farms
have another benefit.
They protect the biodiversity
of the rainforest.
Among the many species
that thrive on these farms
is one that's easy to observe.
[pensive music playing]
[Gutierrez] If you close your eyes
and you go to a regenerative coffee farm,
you immediately feel a difference,
because of all the birds that you hear.
[birds chirping and calling]
[birdsong continues]
Birds are literally
the canary in the coal mine.
They can tell us
how healthy an ecosystem is.
The more similar that you can make
your coffee farm to a forest,
the more that you're able
to contribute to biodiversity.
Using birds as indicators,
we've been able to evaluate
about 84,000 farms worldwide.
What we've seen is that the levels
of biodiversity in those coffee farms
are really similar to other levels
of biodiversity in protected areas.
So the potential of coffee to contribute
to conservation is really unmatched.
The coffee regions around the world
overlap greatly with
the biodiversity hot spots in the world.
So it's really vital to grow coffee
in ways that create the conditions
for biodiversity to thrive as you're able
to create a livelihood for yourself.
[upbeat Latin music playing]
[Moore] Like so many of our food choices,
every cup of coffee is a vote
that directly affects the future.
[Gutierrez] There's so much more
that could be in our cup of coffee.
There could be healthy rivers,
healthier soils.
There could be
increased resilience to drought.
As you're drinking coffee,
as you're watching birds in your backyard,
think about,
"Where were those birds all winter?
And how does my cup of coffee influence
if my birds are gonna come back or not?"
[Bennett] When we choose
regenerative coffee,
we are giving farmers
an economic reason and opportunity
to maintain those forests,
those shade trees and that biodiversity.
[Ardila] If you, as a coffee drinker,
choose a brand that is working on
regenerative agriculture,
you will achieve something
that is beyond the product itself,
for the planet...
...for yourself
and for the people trying
to do things differently.
[Moore] Just across the border,
to the south of Colombia,
is one of the most important
ecosystems on Earth...
[Sofi Tukker sings "Drinkee"]
...which has become a battleground
for industrial versus
regenerative agriculture.
[song continues with lyrics in Portuguese]
As of late, the world has watched
while Brazil's beauty is set on fire.
There's a growing number of people
fighting to regenerate
Brazil's biodiversity and its soils.
[song ends]
[birds chirping]
[Porangu plays "Illuminar"]
[Moore] The heart of Brazil's
natural biodiversity lies in the Amazon.
This magnificent rainforest
not only provides habitat
to 40% of Earth's species,
it also does something else.
[thunder rumbling softly]
The scientists call the Amazon,
like, uh, a green ocean.
And it's working like a pump...
...bringing water from the ocean
into the continent.
This is a giant irrigation system.
When you have this process happen,
you have a lot of moisture in the air.
You have flying rivers.
[wind whistling softly]
[Moore] The Amazon works
like the heart of our planet,
pumping water to other continents.
[Moutinho] Its roots distributing water
and rain for different places
beyond the Amazon.
[Txai Suru in Portuguese] The Amazon
is connected with the other biomes.
We are connected to this planet.
Who can live without water?
Who can live without air?
Show me anything here
that does not come from nature.
That's why we Indigenous women
speak a lot about
reforesting the heart and mind.
Because today this is necessary
for the people to understand
the moment which we are living.
[song ends]
[birds chirping]
[mellow music playing]
The Cerrado is the second biggest
ecosystem in Brazil
after the Amazon.
And it's the most biodiverse savannah
in the world.
[Hannah Simmons] Over 50%
of the Cerrado has been deforested
for agricultural use.
[Figueiredo] We are substituting
10,000 species for only one plant:
soybean.
Stopping the advance of soy frontier
is a very difficult task,
because it depends on all those
investments that come from abroad.
[Moore] All told, about 20% of the Cerrado
and Amazon has been deforested.
Because the demand for soy
and corn is growing,
Brazil now makes up one-quarter
of the soy and corn grown globally.
[intriguing music playing]
[Figueiredo] The tipping point
is approaching very fast,
and then all the ecosystem will collapse.
[Moore] If Brazil's soy frontier
keeps expanding...
...deforestation may reach
a critical level.
[in Portuguese] If we continue with
the same model of development...
...we will increase
the vulnerability of Brazil.
That's why we will put in place
a new way of making
our agriculture viable.
[insects chirring]
[Moore] The best way to regenerate
a forest may be to learn from the people
who've lived there for thousands of years.
-[percussive tribal music playing]
-[group singing in native language]
[Hotix Suman in Portuguese] All of
this restoration secures
and preserves our nature.
This is our inspiration.
[music and singing continue]
We also have traditional technology
to protect our territory.
[Barbatuques sing "Baian"]
[song continues with lyrics in Portuguese]
[Moore] The Xavante use
a technique they call muvuca,
which involves mixing native seeds
and throwing them onto the soil.
This creates resilient native forests
that restore biodiversity.
[song ends]
[pensive music playing]
[Moore] The Xavante seeds
are also brought to a seed bank
that sells seeds across Brazil
to help replant forests.
A new model pays farmers
to use those seeds, regrow forests
and safeguard them
from being chopped down.
[intriguing music playing]
[in Portuguese] Thirteen years ago,
this looked the same as this.
We will bring your forest
into the carbon market
and pay you to keep the forest standing.
[Moore] Just like in Australia,
the Brazilian carbon market
pays farmers
to put carbon into the ground.
[Trovo in Portuguese] Today
you can see that we have
a lot of organic material.
We have a lot of native vegetation.
Today there are lots of animals.
There are capybaras.
People don't believe
that this is possible.
It is possible,
and it is lucrative to do this.
[Simmons] The farmer
doesn't have to do anything,
and he's now getting money
from his forest.
From the 400,000 carbon credits
that we've generated,
we've paid farmers four million dollars.
So that's real money in their pockets.
[birds chirping]
[Moore] What if farmers
could get paid to grow their food
and put carbon into the ground
inside the forest?
[hopeful music playing]
[Pedro Diniz] People say
we're never gonna be able
to feed the world with a food forest.
And I ask all the time, why?
[Winowiecki] Agroforestry is
when you incorporate trees
into a farming system.
Agroforestry systems are providing
nutritious food, such as fruits or nuts,
as well as providing shade.
It actually can regulate climate.
[Diniz] The original soil from the farm,
very sandy.
Completely different color.
This is all sand.
This is all organic material.
Probably three times more carbon here
than original soil.
That's nature magic.
[upbeat music playing]
[in Portuguese] My work is
to create abundant systems
through agroforestry.
This is the abundance
we procure and create.
On the farm, we have
banana, mango, avocado,
cupuau, cacao, aa.
A lot of species.
Today I counted 156 species.
[laughs] It's a forest!
[Harrelson] The deforestation
in the Amazon is associated
with one particular food item.
[intriguing music playing]
That's because most of the corn and soy
grown in the world goes to feed animals.
And that corn and soy contains
unhealthy oils
that negatively impact our health.
[Eric Smith] We have been breeding for
the past 80 years for a single outcome.
Yield.
We pay based on the volume of the food.
It's a very simple equation.
Dollar per pound.
So, everything we've done
in animal agriculture
has been for getting big, fat animals.
When you have these animals
that are in confinement
being force-fed grain to fatten them up
as large as possible,
you are getting very unhealthy
fat profiles out of these animals.
[Harrelson] There are
two primary types of fat we eat:
omega-3 and omega-6.
[Smith] The omega-6's
tend to come primarily from seed,
whereas the omega-3's
primarily come from grass.
Omega-3 fatty acids are
typically anti-inflammatory.
Omega-6 fatty acids
can be pro-inflammatory
when we consume them in excess.
In the American diet, we're consuming
way too many omega-6's
and way too few omega-3's.
The fat quality has gotten so far off,
and it's why everyone is inflamed.
We've done that to our animals,
we've done that to our foods,
and we've done it to ourselves.
[Harrelson] Corn and soy grown to feed
animals contributes to deforestation.
Then force-feeding cows
makes the meat unhealthy.
This begs the question:
Does animal farming
always have to be unhealthy?
[Niman] You can't give
a simple answer to the question
"What is animal production's
impact on climate?"
It's really varied.
It depends entirely
on how you're doing it.
The first thing to challenge is this idea
that you have to have
this modern factory farm system
in order to feed the population.
But the truth is we haven't tried,
in the modern era,
producing animals at scale any other way.
We went down this road
of getting farming and agriculture
looking more and more like factories.
[cattle mooing]
We've convinced people
this is the only way to do it,
but there are so many good examples
where it's being done
a very different way.
[Harrelson] And maybe
there is a better way,
one that doesn't involve
deforestation and feedlots
but instead builds soil.
Because maybe it's like
they say in the South.
It ain't the cow, it's the how.
[cattle mooing]
[Creedence Clearwater Revival
sings "Fortunate Son"]
Some folks are born
made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays
"Hail to the Chief"
-Ooh, they point the cannon
at you, Lord...
-[snorting]
How are y'all?
-[woman] Looking good.
-Aw, shucks.
[Will Harris] People say
three kind of people in Bluffton.
There's good people that go to church,
there's bad people
that don't go to church,
and there's the Harrises.
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no
-It ain't me
-[calling]
It ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
[song fades]
All I ever wanted to do was be
an industrial cattleman just like my dad.
[Glenn Sutton and Lloyd Green
play "Green Bluegrass"]
My dad took over the farm
post-World War II, 1945.
And he changed the farm to be
a monoculture of only cattle.
Part of that was getting rid
of anything that was not a cow.
So we started using ammonium nitrate.
We started confinement feeding.
We used growth hormones and steroids,
subtherapeutic antibiotics.
All the tools that science gives you
to make meat production
affordable and efficient,
we subscribed to.
[song ends]
-[cattle mooing]
-[pensive music playing]
[Will Harris] When I was an
industrial monocultural cattle producer,
I thought good animal welfare was
you keep them well-fed,
you keep them well-watered.
And that's-that's good animal welfare.
That's-that's fine.
You can check that box.
But we loaded out
a load of cattle one day,
and I'd done it hundreds of times, so...
A two-level truck, the ones on top
urinating and defecating
on the ones on the bottom.
They'd be on it for 30 hours
going to Nebraska or somewhere.
Didn't bother me a bit.
But that day it did.
And, uh, I didn't want to do it anymore.
[Matthew Sanchez, Matthew James Parker
and Sam Taylor play "On Our Way"]
[Jenni Harris] My dad started
transitioning our farm away from
an industrialized model
that it had been for decades.
That transition led him towards
regenerative agriculture.
He started finding that
the best way to graze pasture
without the use of chemical fertilizers
is a multispecies approach.
And so that led him to integrate
hogs, poultry and rabbits.
And all of a sudden, we just became
this very polycultural production system
that survived in balance.
[faint chatter]
[singers vocalizing]
[Will Harris] These cattle will move
from one paddock to the next every day,
and that has a lot of different benefits.
[Harrelson] In industrial agriculture,
cows are kept in confinement
and fed corn and soy.
In regenerative agriculture,
cows are moved quickly across the land
like herd animals,
and they eat grass.
And that builds soil carbon.
[Brown] A lot of pastures are overgrazed.
In other words, they've left the animals
in a given pasture for too long,
and then the animal has eaten
the plant down to the ground.
Plants have stopped growing.
We're not photosynthesizing anymore.
So they need to move the animals
from one pasture to another
in order to allow those plants to regrow.
[Harrelson] Keeping cows
in smaller paddocks,
moving them often and not letting them
return for six months
ensures that grass isn't eaten down
too much and it has time to regrow.
The plant, the energy from the sun
and the water from the rain,
is breathing in carbon dioxide,
and it's growing foliage.
But there's an equal amount
under the surface of the soil
that is roots that slough off
because the top's been bit off.
Much of that carbon is sequestered
for a long time.
So it's adding carbon every day.
[song ends]
[birds chirping]
This is very flat country here.
We don't get this kind of
severe elevation difference.
[Jenni Harris] Our farm is
literally higher than our neighbor's,
and the only difference is
the type of agriculture
that happens on the soil.
We're putting carbon back, and commodity
agriculture is steady taking away.
[pensive music playing]
[Will Harris] An environmental
consulting group did
an in-depth study here on the farm,
and they found that White Oak Pastures
sequesters three and a half pounds
of carbon dioxide equivalent
to every pound of beef we produce.
[Harrelson] Sequestering carbon into soil
is the basis for the regeneration
of entire ecosystems.
And it turns out that cows
can play a big role in that.
When you get these cycles of nature
operating in a system like
White Oak Pastures,
it spins off an abundance.
[lively music playing]
You know, everything we do here
is an emulation of nature.
It's a very imperfect emulation of nature,
so we strive to do the best we can
to make it as perfect
an emulation as possible.
[Jenni Harris] And so
the looming question is:
Can we feed the population
with these regenerative practices?
People think,
"Well, if we move to regenerative,
we're not gonna have enough food."
I would come right back to them and say,
"If you don't adopt
the regenerative model,
there's no way
you're gonna feed the world."
My neighbor's farm,
they may grow slightly more
bushels of corn per acre than I.
Well, now not only do I produce corn
on those acres,
I can run cows on those acres,
we can have our hogs on those acres,
we can have our sheep,
we can have our laying hens,
our honeybees.
Now who's producing
more nutrient-dense food per acre?
There's no comparison.
[Jenni Harris] There's no reason
that there can't be
a farm in every agricultural county
that feeds their local community.
There's no doubt about it,
there will be no change
until consumers want change.
Without consumers demanding it,
it will not happen.
[Jenni Harris] All farmers need
is support.
[Bicep plays "Glue"]
[Moore] There's one pop star DJ
who's using his fame
to change what we buy
at the grocery store.
[crowd cheering]
[song continues louder]
When I'm alone...
[Andy Cato] I was very lucky
in that I spent 25 years
making music, touring, deejaying.
When I'm alone...
A job that so many people dream of doing.
I'm a very, very lucky man.
When I'm alone...
I substituted playing records
and making music
for the hardest profession in the world.
-[song ends]
-[cheering fades]
Farming.
[gentle music playing]
I was coming back from a gig,
and I picked up an article.
It was talking about the environmental
consequences of food production.
It said, "If you don't like the system,
don't depend on it."
And from the first moment
that I planted seeds
and witnessed that miraculous cycle...
...there was just no turning back for me.
Six weeks of no rain, we can,
uh, still get the spade in the ground.
It's encouraging.
Driest spring for 103 years.
You wouldn't know it
looking at that, would you?
[birds chirping]
It's quite amazing what a bit of plant
diversity can do given half a chance.
[Moore] Andy's journey from DJ to farmer
has given him a chance
to talk about regenerative agriculture
to a prime-time audience.
[lighthearted music playing]
[Cato] Being involved in Clarkson's Farm
happened by accident.
He asked me over for a cup of tea,
and then the cameras were rolling,
and then we were kind of off.
[Jeremy Clarkson] Andy, Kaleb.
-How you doing?
-Kaleb, Andy.
Are you in a band?
-I was in a band.
-I can tell.
Because?
Because you've left your tractor running
at a pound a liter.
-[laughter]
-[upbeat music playing]
[Cato] In 25 years of music,
I occasionally got asked
for the odd selfie.
I got asked for a thousand times
more selfies than the previous 25 years.
People would say,
"The soil guy off Clarkson's."
The fact that those things are being used
as phrases is fantastic, you know.
[Clarkson] I know it's called
regenerative farming,
-isn't it?
-Mm.
But I'd really like to understand
what it is.
Regenerative farming is a way of farming
which tries to copy natural systems.
So what we've got to get away from
is monocultures.
By putting two plant families
in the same field,
we're starting that process
of feeding the soil
with a diversity of plants.
[Moore] It's understood
that pop stars have been known
to make some pretty good bread.
But this guy does it literally.
So, Wildfarmed is a food
and farming business
that grows food in nature-rich landscapes.
Better for you and better for the planet.
-[Groove Armada sings "My Friend"]
-I call on you...
[Moore] The Wildfarmed bread company
pays farmers a premium
to take some of their land
and grow regenerative wheat.
[Cato] This enormous process happened
despite the market
not recognizing any value
in all the things
that those farmers are doing.
[Moore] The best thing
since sliced bread may just be...
...regenerative sliced bread.
[Cato] We can empower customers
with this hopeful message
that your food choices are
your greatest point of agency.
[Brown] We've seen a lot of interest
in the retail space.
You can't hardly pick up
any type of advertisement
without them talking about regenerative.
We're getting momentum
from not only industry
but momentum from farmers.
[song ends]
[wind whistling softly]
[hopeful music playing]
[Harrelson] The U.K. is home
to one of the largest
regenerative agriculture conferences
in the world.
And what do they call this movement
that is wildly gaining momentum?
They call it...
...Groundswell.
The headliners for this event
aren't pop stars or actors.
They're farmers.
The farmers are so important, in fact,
they're now being given a royal welcome.
Please welcome His Royal Highness
to the stage.
[applause]
[Prince William] Good morning, everyone.
There's not many moments
that I'm the warm-up act,
but I'm very happy to be
Gabe Brown's warm-up act today.
[applause]
We come together to reaffirm
our commitment to a brighter,
resilient and regenerative future.
[Brown] I tell you,
it's really good to be here.
I have to be honest with you.
I'm a bit nervous following
that warm-up act, but, uh...
[laughter]
Let's change the production model
into one that is truly regenerative.
And I've been in this
approximately 30 years.
The first 26 years, man, we were pushing
that snowball straight up the hill.
This past year,
I saw more positive movement
than I did the 26 before that combined.
I really think,
in the not too distant future,
we won't even have to talk about
regenerative agriculture
because it'll be the norm.
[Moore] In 2020, when Kiss the Ground,
the first film in this trilogy,
was released,
there was less than five million acres
of land in regenerative agriculture
in the United States.
[Harrelson] I'll make you a deal.
I won't give up, and neither should you.
[Moore] In 2023,
when Common Ground,
the second film in this trilogy, launched,
brands started committing
to going regenerative.
And third-party certifications
began to ensure
that regenerative products mean
that carbon is going into the soil.
[Ian Somerhalder] Within three years,
we transitioned
30 million acres
from conventional to regen.
This is a real movement.
It's happening right now as we speak.
[Moore] Today, regenerative agriculture
has grown to 250 million acres globally.
But to reach the tipping point, where
regenerative agriculture truly takes hold,
we need to regenerate
one billion acres globally.
That's about ten percent
of all agriculture on planet Earth.
It's a big mission,
and it's well underway.
[Cato] All of this stuff is doable.
We don't need any inventions.
We don't need any technology.
And for the movement to build
at the speed and scale
that the ecological reality demands,
we just need to choose to do it.
[Abraha] There's no world
in which I'm living
where this regeneration movement
doesn't work.
This needs to work.
-[Sadhguru] Time is running out.
-[crowd cheering]
Let's stand up and let's make it happen.
[hopeful music swells]
[Coldplay sings "Paradise"]
[Harrelson] Saving our soils,
our climate and our future
begins with the groundswell
of regeneration
that's spreading across the globe.
[Lemayian] I always say
hope is not a plan.
So, to protect and regenerate our land...
...the Samburu people have got a plan.
When she was just a girl...
It is all about tuning our mind
to regeneration.
If you regenerate soil,
you're also regenerating
your own life.
and dreamed of para...
[Khare] Regeneration is not about
just safeguarding what we have.
It's about elevating humanity.
dream of para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
[Harrelson] For most of my adult life,
I've been an advocate
of protecting our environment.
[newswoman] That man scaling
the cables in bright yellow
is Cheers TV star Woody Harrelson.
[newswoman 2] Harrelson was doing it,
he says, for the redwoods.
[Harrelson] My reasons are simple.
I'm a parent.
I have three daughters.
So I'm gonna keep up that fight.
When she was just a girl,
she expected...
[Moore] I love being a mother
and now a grandmother.
When I look into her eyes,
I can see generations into the future.
But what will that future be?
This could be paradise...
[laughing]
We want our children to be healthy
and to thrive.
And the best way to do that
is growing our food
so it regenerates our soil,
our communities and our planet.
The answer to so many of our problems
is in the ground beneath our feet.
Nature has the ability to heal herself.
But she can't do it alone.
set to rise
This could be para, para, paradise
para, para, paradise
This could be para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
This could be para, para, paradise
para, para, paradise
This could be para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
This could be para, para, paradise
para, para, paradise
This could be para, para, paradise
Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh
[song fades]
[music fades]