Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'll make you a deal. I won't give up. And neither should you.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Featuring two documentaries, Common Ground and Kiss the Ground.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: Filmmaker Rebecca Tickell, actor Ian Somerhalder, the.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Stars and executive producers of these movies, and they both join us live in studio this morning.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: We've got some amazing stuff coming up and it's because of you two, my dear brother and sister, who are the directors, writers, producers, the brain trusts of Kiss the Ground, Common Ground, and the third film, Groundswell. But these are going to change the world.
You get to hear from those filmmakers first. Josh and Rebecca Tickell are live in studio with us.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Husband and wife filmmakers Rebecca and Josh Tickell expose personal stories from those on the front lines of the food movie.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to the Dust or Mudd PODC are so honored to have you with us today.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: Thank you, Shelley. Thank you, Rich. I'm so excited to be here with you, too.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: So before we actually start, we need to let you know that the movie Kiss the Ground literally changed our lives. Within six months of watching Kiss the Ground, we owned 160 acres in the middle of the Ozarks, intending on becoming regenerative farmers, and went from Washington D.C.
to farming because of the act of you guys making that movie that changes lives.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: Goosebumps.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Hearing you say, well, it really, really did.
And for you guys, when you take on these, these projects, are there, are there moments or people that you talk to that you hear that? Is that an often said thing to you guys?
[00:01:58] Speaker C: All the time. I mean, I've had King Charles tell me that it changed his life, and he shared Kiss the Ground with over a thousand people.
I've had, you know, presidents of countries and, you know, people who dropped out of college or who, because they saw our film and they wanted a different life and they realized that's how they could best be of service to humanity. Or people who in the movie theater got up and said, I quit. They worked for a weapons company and they're like, from this moment forward, my life is going to be about preserving life.
You know, it's truly, it's like almost hard to take in in so many ways because I hear it and I really try to, like, hear that and feed that into my soul. But it's hard to imagine that something that was an idea and then a promise where we had no evidence that it would work, but so much pressure to make sure and feeling this sense of duty to carry this information out to the world, like, I can't even describe the pressure of that. Back in 2012, 2013, as we were learning about bio sequestration and the power that soil has not only to stabilize communities, but ultimately to stabilize the entire planet.
And as I became a mother of two children in 2014 and 2017, years were ticking by as we were learning more and more and the stakes were getting higher and higher and the news was getting worse and worse, but then the opportunity was growing bigger and bigger.
It's hard to describe that feeling of responsibility and also the risk. Like, what if we fail? What? Like there is no evidence that an environmental documentary about dirt could do anything, that it could change anyone, or that could it even reach 10 people? Nonetheless, hundreds of millions of people.
And then, of course, right as the film was nearing its completion, suddenly we went into lockdown and Covid. And suddenly no one was buying documentaries anymore. So it's like at every step of the way, there seemed to be this blockade. And it was pure faith and devotion to this message that got us here. And so now to be on the other side of that, after over a decade of, we're going to do this, we're going to do this. It's going to work, it's going to work. To see it actually working, it's kind of surreal because for so long it was just faith, it was just a promise. There was no evidence that it would work. And here it is working.
And so, you know, it makes. It's very moving to hear that it's touching people's lives and it's having the profound difference that it's having, because that was what it was all about all along.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: You say that it started with an idea. Can you articulate the idea? What exactly is it?
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Well, I think all of us for the past two decades have been inundated with this idea that we're doomed. And people have various responses to it. Like my dad, he's a conventional conservative farmer in Ohio, and he has a certain idea about what's happening to our climate and what the science is behind that. That looks very different from my view of what that is. And I think all of us are sort of divided around that to some degree.
And I think it's scary no matter what your view of it is.
And so much of the conversation is driven by hopelessness and fear and this idea that if we don't do something now, we are going to destroy everything or simply. That's not true. I'm going to put on these blinders and I'm just going to completely bury my head in the sand and ignore it. And it's really Hard to face some of these conversations around science and what's happening on a climatological level.
And when you look at that as the big picture, it feels like no one can do anything to stop it.
And so, you know, I remember watching An Inconvenient Truth in the theater back in 2006 and being gutted because I was what, 26?
Suddenly I was just told that my future was over. I might as well not have kids. A lot of young people aren't having kids because they feel like, what kind of world am I going to be? It's irresponsible for me to give birth to a child that's going to grow a world that's going to look the way that it's going to look, where we have this sort of climate doom that's so ubiquitous right now.
So when we learned that soil is where the majority of the carbon in the atmosphere came from to begin with, through the way that we've managed our land, through tillage and chemicals and the way that we grow our food, through conventional agriculture, of which I come from a legacy farming family of conventional agriculture.
And then to discover that through shifting some of these farming practices, through how we manage our land, through helping to build back up that soil and help to support life in soil, that when you support life and soil, it has this tremendous power to sequester carbon. So it's like so simple. We learned about this in grade school. Photosynthesis. The plant breathes in the carbon, puts it down into its roots and then it breathes out oxygen. I mean, it's so simple. It's the most simple, elegant solution to this giant catastrophe that we're all running around freaking out about on some level or another. And the truth is, is that the answer is right beneath our feet. And we manage how that looks through the food that we eat and how we grow our food. And that was kind of like, oh, well, this can't be true. This is too good to be true. There's no way that by building healthy soil we can stabilize the climate. But then as we started to interview people all around the world and interview the top scientists and talk to government entities and look at the peer reviewed studies that were starting to emerge, we Learned no, absolutely, 100% yes. We need to do all the other things. We need to reduce emissions.
That's critical. But reducing emissions will do nothing about that legacy load of carbon that we've already emitted into the atmosphere that's wreaking havoc on our climate, that's forcing that carbon to then be absorbed by the oceans. That's creating ocean acidification. I mean, the ripple effect of what we've done by emitting all this carbon into the atmosphere and how it destabilizes our climate and creates these weather events is something that everyone, there's nobody that is protected from that. It's everywhere. And so when you learn that you can take all that carbon and you can put it back in the soil and you can stabilize not just your microclimate but the entire planet this way. And by the way, the farmers who are growing that food are going to make a profit and they're going to start to see other types of benefit like better health. Because the food that they're growing is no longer exposing them to these harmful chemical sprays that are affecting people's well being and their family's well being and the well being of the wildlife and the soil that they, that people feel a great sense of pride and stewardship over and responsibility for.
And not only that, you're creating nutrient dense food and that's how you feed people. You don't feed the world by growing a monocrop that then gets shipped to the other side of the world. I mean, our system is so crazy right now. But when you actually grow food that you can eat and it's biodiverse and it's co evolved to grow in that soil, the abundance that can be grown, I mean that's the way that nature intended it to be and that's the way that we learn how to nourish the soil, which then in turn nourishes us. So many of our problems, health, economic, climate, can be shifted and transformed through implementing regenerative practices.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Beautiful.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Two things it makes me think of one, the name of our farm. We named it Air to Ground Farms. And it's very easy to describe our shifting focus as we transitioned away from the Air Force and into farming. You know, our focus shifted from the air into the ground. But it's also, the dual meaning is exactly what you just described. The, the way that we farm is taking carbon from the air and putting it back in the ground. And so we, we, from the very beginning we had the name of the farm before we ever even moved here. So from the very beginning that was, that was like key to what we were going to do. And then the food, we're with you 100% there too. We think that food is health, food is medicine. And so the type we grow, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, raw dairy, and across the board it's all no chemicals, no sprays, no GMO feed.
It is just as clean as we can make it. So totally resounding with what you're saying right there. But I have to take you back to.
You met King Charles? Is that what you said?
[00:11:01] Speaker C: He reached out to us, actually. We were. I mean, it was so bizarre. It was, like, right after lockdown, and suddenly we get a phone call from some of our executive producers, and they were like, what are you doing tomorrow? We were like, well, why? And they're like, well, we just had somebody show up at our. At our house looking for you. They're representing King Charles. Well, Prince Charles, like, His Royal Highness at the time. We were like, what? They're like, yeah, and they'd like to come and visit with you tomorrow.
Of course. We're like, you know, not at all prepared for that. You know, this is a farm and a film studio, so we had, like, other stuff going on. So it was like, all hands on deck. Turn this place upside down. You know, clean the chicken poop off of everything, and, like, try to create some order out of the chaos that is regenerative farming, as you probably know.
And they showed up here and they said, you know, king Charles wanted us to reach out to you. Kiss the Ground as his favorite film. He's shared it with everybody. In fact, it's kind of annoying to the staff because he won't stop talking about it in every single phone call and every single meeting. And would you be interested in coming out to Scotland to meet him and to potentially film with him? And we were like, let us think about. Yes.
You know, and. And with that also comes a responsibility, because we're not. We're representing a lot of voices in this. And so, you know, coming up with kings that have, you know, interesting histories and backgrounds doesn't always align with some of the other people that we represent. Like, we're also committed to representing indigenous voices. And so it's been quite a journey for us to figure out how to find that common ground, how to find that place where we can speak that everybody will be able to hear isn't polarizing to them and King Charles polarizing for a lot of people. And nonetheless, we went because we thought, you know, what? Every voice in this matters, and anybody who has that kind of reach and that kind of access and that kind of power is somebody that we want to have on our team.
We want to bring everyone. This is. This is a movement for everyone. It's not a political movement. This is a movement about saving soil and preserving Life on Earth, so with human beings as a part of that.
And so we went and it was.
I mean, it was.
I will never forget that experience. It was phenomenal. It was full of highs and lows, and it was everything one might expect and more. But at the end of the day, we filmed him and he is in our new film that we're making. That's the follow up to Kiss the Ground, which then was followed up by Common Ground. So this is called Groundswell. It's the third of our soil documentary trilogy, and it's about the global movement for regeneration. And he's one of those voices and his view and his contribution is that, you know, he is. Represents the head of the Church of England. And for him, he views his job as a sacred job that is ordained by God.
And he says that God speaks to him and tells him that it's his job to protect the soil through these farming practices and that, you know, sacred geometry shows us the way, and then it's through healing soil. I mean, it was a profound interview. I was pretty shocked by the content of it, and I was thrilled to have another person with that kind of reach on our team to help spread this message.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: That's phenomenal. So in the filmmaking process there, we make YouTube videos, so we know not everything goes into every film or every.
The cutting room floor, for sure. Right?
[00:14:52] Speaker C: So that's definitely true. Right here, I'm going to show you something really funny, actually, that's a part of this. Hold on one second.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: Since it is a video, the.
I was pretty demanding on the set, I have to say, because I was like, look, we're not going to get the interview. It's not going to work. We can't do this because we can't do that. And finally they're like, well, His Royal Highness can't wear a microphone. And I'm like, well, then the interview is not going to work. I'm like, he brought us all the way here. And then I was like, okay. Then they're like, okay, you can mic His Royal Highness. And I'm like, hello. And I, like, almost fell on him. And then they're like, all right. I'm like, I'm going to stuff this microphone down your pants.
And apparently pants and like, UK speak is underwear. So he turned bright red. And basically that was how our day started, was just me making him laugh nonstop with every single protocol.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: That is awesome. That. That's so fun.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: We spent five. We spent five years in England.
I was stationed there at RAF Lake and Heath which is not, not too far from Cambridge. So we're, we're quite familiar with the.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: With England.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: But you know, they have a really, they're really into regeneration right now. In fact, I don't know how much King Charles had to do with it. But Kiss the Ground went wild in the uk and so when we go there, you know, it's pretty cool because we get a little bit more, you know, celebrity dumb than I would say we do in other parts of the world. But no, they're really. It's been amazing to go and travel to these different regions and see how regeneration is taking shape in these different environments and these different contexts and with these different communities and these different historical views of what growing food looks like and what that represents. I mean, I've just my mind, every time I think I know something about regenerative agriculture, I realize I know nothing. And I'm truly a student on this learning journey along with everybody else.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Was there a story that didn't make it in that you would want people to hear about?
[00:16:52] Speaker C: Well, let's see. I mean, Kiss the Ground, definitely, which is why we went on to make common ground.
And then same with Common ground, we're like, wow, there's so much more to the stories now. We're making ground swelling. I mean, yes, there's personal stories like my own story with my own family of what this journey has been, certainly stories of people that we've met along the way who have come from nothing and had just totally transformed their lives through regeneration and who are thriving and prosperous now as a result.
I mean, I think for me, the thing that touches most close to home is that I grew up, you know, in this with my dad, telling these stories of, you know, dropping out of school at a young age to drive the family tractor and to pull the plow and standing in huge vats of DDT and 2 4D 5T.
And then to witness my family one by one go through these health issues. You know, my uncle dying of cancer, my aunt having this autoimmune disease, my aunt and my uncle not being able to have children. Just every step along the way, seeing how the farming in my family has affected their health and well being and then just, you know, and I see that out in the world and I talk to scientists and I talk to doctors and I'm learning about this in a very scientific way, but then experiencing it in real life with people that I love and people that I care about, and then trying to figure out how to, like, how do I convey what I'm learning to my own family who've done this forever.
You know, here I am out talking to King Charles and all these fancy people about regenerative agriculture. But when I talk to my dad, he says, well, what do you know about farming, little girl? And I'm like, ah, you know, it's been a. That's been an 11 year journey of learning how to talk to my own family about something where they have the historical knowledge. And I'm coming into this, you know, sort of from a very different place, from a place of wanting to heal the planet. And through the years, my father has never said, you're right, he's never said, you know, thank you. But he did stop spraying and he did stop monoculture on his land, and he now he grows regenerative organic produce. And he sends me photos every year and he'll send me, you know, shipments of it. And he's so proud of it.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: It's so much better than saying thank you. Yeah.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: And I've had the gift along the way of learning through speaking to my family. And also I live in Ventura county in California, which is a huge agricultural community, but we also have some of the worst human rights violations when it comes to agriculture in the world. Between the chemical sprays that are used here on the citrus because of the citrus screening disease.
So there's chemicals right here that are banned, that are allowed because we're facing losing the citrus because of this Asian citrus psyllid. And that's. People around the world with citrus are facing this same fate of like, the more, the more the bug spreads, the more chemicals they use, the more chemicals they use, the more the disease spreads. And it's just this cycle. But in the meantime, all the people and all of the wildlife that live around these monocrop citrus groves are literally living in sacrifice zones in these areas where they're being exposed to high levels of chemical sprays and overdrift.
Because, you know, chemicals don't just stay within a property line. When you spray them up into the air with a World War II fan sprayer, you know, it creates this vapor that then drifts. And so within my own community, I have seen field workers go blind from exposure to this. I've seen dogs and humans die from this.
And, you know, I've been exposed to it. My children have been exposed to it. We've had health consequences as a result of this exposure and documenting it.
So, you know, it's tricky when a lot of the parents of the kids that are friends with my kids are the farmers that are using these chemicals. And here I am out there being so vocal about how we have to stop using these poisons on our food. And that does not go over well.
So between the conversations that I'm having with my neighbors and the conversations that I'm having with my family, I learn something every single day about how to communicate around this in a way that reaches people where they're at. And that has been a learning journey that is hard to describe. And all of that gets infused into our films. That's why the film, the last one is called Common Ground. That's why we take such an effort to make sure that everybody's voices are represented in the film. And we really try to make our films not polarizing. However, in Common Ground, we do pull back the curtain on what's stopping us from making the transition legally, politically, and that's. We have a bunch of whistleblowers in the film. And that was pretty controversial. We thought that was going to be the thing that people came after us for, but we were surprised. It was actually the ultra processed fake meat industry that came after us.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Oh, how fun.
[00:22:13] Speaker C: Yes, I know.
So it's, you know, it doesn't matter. You know the expression, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. So it's like every single film is a learning journey of how to communicate around this.
Every single film I learned something about how to be a good steward of my own land. And every single film, I feel like we get better at articulating in the film the necessity and urgency of making these transitions.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: So is there a biggest challenge or most difficult hurdle you've had to come over in doing this?
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Well, one of the biggest hurdles is the misinformation.
So, you know, there have for decades, since the beginning of the green revolution, which wasn't about making things more beautiful and green, you know, it was about making a profit using war machines and war chemicals.
It's like, oh, you know, we've made these chemicals to kill people and these machines to kill people, but the war is over. What are we going to do? I know, let's bring that back to the US and spray that on our food.
Crazy. You know, this is crazy. This is the madness of how our food system became what it is today. But then because it was so profitable and because yield did increase at first, and because they were able to get, you know, such a huge profit by adding these fertilizers and by controlling the weeds that, you know, all of these peer Reviewed studies, all of these universities, these land grant universities, and then our government became part of this huge agricultural industrial complex. And it's one that looks like other types of industries like that, where you have this sort of echo chamber. And then people who are interested in learning about farming, they go to a land grant university and perhaps they're taking a class in the Monsanto wing where they're learning about what types of chemicals you need to use for which type of pests, and then you're learning about which type of applications and how to grow everything you know. How to control nature and make a profit has been the theme.
And so I think the biggest challenge is reaching people where they're not already indoctrinated with this misinformation and then showing people how actually money has influenced the science. And a lot of what you've learned, whether it was in 4H or whether it was at your land grant university or was funded and paid for by the chemical companies that then want you to become hooked on their chemicals for the rest of your life. And then what happens is farmers become hooked on these chemicals because they believe that that's the way to make a profit. And that's the way that you farm, because that's the way it's always been done. And I promise you that a lot of people will argue about that. That's the way that it's always been done. Very offensive to think that, but you hear that a lot because we have a short ecological memory just like a few generations back, but that's not the way it's always been done. And what you see is that these farmers then have to use more and more chemicals. The chemicals cost more and more. Their profit margins are reduced. They then have to take out bank loans to get more fancy equipment and to keep up the spraying and the tillage and everything that they need to do to grow their monocrop, to keep their commodities flowing, whether they sell anything or not. And then they have these subsidies and crop insurance and the bank loans that require them to spray.
And suddenly you have farmers that are debt serfs to chemical companies and banks. And we have a suicide epidemic in the United States where farmers are five times more likely to commit suicide than any other profession in the United States. And it's because what happens is they literally, they are killing themselves trying to feed the world based on a false premise that how you do that is with these chemicals and with conventional agriculture, when in fact the opposite is true.
So reaching a farmer because to be a farmer, and I can say this because I come from a farming family. Farmers are stubborn. They have to be, they have to be resilient. They have to be the ones that get, they don't work bankers hours, you know, they're up before dawn and they, they are, there's no, you can't like go on vacation and leave the farm. It is 247 when you manage the land. And so there's a type of resilience that's required to be somebody that grows food. But it also can mean, you know, not being necessarily the best at adapting and listening, you know. And so as a result of that, because we've been so enforced and reinforced with this fake science that says that we need these chemicals and that we need to farm in this way, it can be very scary for a farmer to say, I'm stepping out of this system, I'm not going to be a debt serf anymore, I'm going to try something new. I'm going to biodiversify my crops, I'm going to diversify my crops. I'm going to start looking at my soil organic matter.
I don't need to do what my neighbor is doing. I can get off of the fix, I can get off of the drug, of the way that we have been taught that we have to do it. And making that step can be very, very terrifying because you don't know what's going to happen the next year. You don't know who your market's to going, going to be. You don't know if the crop is going to succeed or fail.
And so that has been the biggest obstacle is kind of like allowing oneself to become unbrainwashed from the way that we've been doing it for the last 50 plus years and taking that risk. And the amazing thing is that a study that was done two years ago show, three years ago now shows that farmers within year one, over 90% of them made a profit.
So the opposite of what people think is true. You know, when they, when they able to get themselves unhooked from that chemical dependence, what happens is freedom and this sort of blossoming and regeneration not just of their soil, but of their, their mind and of their family and of their community, of their local water cycle, of, you know, water play such an important role in this. And of their weather. I mean I can't really talk to my dad about climate change, but I can talk to him about the weather and he can see how he manages his land, affects his microclimate. And so that's, that's an access point for people and showing people, others who have done it and who have made a profit and who are being successful. That's another access point.
There's lots of ways to, to talk to people about what the opportunities are around regeneration. And as more and more and more people adopt this practice like you've done, then we reach that tipping point of 10% in the United States. That's 100 million acres of land. We're at 55 million acres right now and transition to regeneration. And that's up from 3 million in 2020.
So we've gone from 3 million acres in transition to regenerative agriculture in 2020 to 3,55 million acres in transition to regeneration in 2025. And once we reach 100 million acres, that's sort of Malcolm Gladwell idea that we've reached that tipping point and it can't be undone. That's the unstoppable avalanche that will help us move towards prioritizing soil organic matter as the number one thing that we can improve to support human life on Earth.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: So we're first generation regenerative farmers. So we didn't, we didn't have to transition. We weren't hooked on anything. We came into this whole deal as this is the way we're going to do it. We took off that direction without the chemical dependence from the beginning. But we talk to people or we get comments often on it's. But it's so hard. Like farming takes a whole lot of grit, you know, and getting the young people to, well, kids or anyone to bite off on this actually works it the challenge for our nation and globe to move forward and in raising more farmers, are you hearing anything about the, the up and comings, the young people?
[00:30:35] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Fighting off your, your generation, the, the younger generation as well.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: 100%. So I think when we started this like, you know, a decade ago that the statistics were like within 10 years. This is not exactly right, but something like, like within 10 years, 80% of farmers are going to retire because there was, there was so many that were sold. That's not the exact statistic, but it was something along those lines.
Now young people, as they learn that through how we manage our land can stabilize the climate change. It's almost like it's a new back to the land movement back to the earth. You know, that happened in the 60s, it's happening again today. Young people are less interested in getting their Harvard Law degree and more interested in learning about how they can manage land in a holistic way and help sequester carbon because young people really feel that pressure that we've handed them this crisis, that they are going to be the ones to most affected by it. And so they feel the burden of having to change it during this very critical period of time right now, where we can massively, within the next five years, draw down carbon stabilize climates. I mean, the reality is damage has been done and we're going to be. Everyone around the world is going to be facing the impact of that. No one is immune to that. Everybody is going to feel what it's like to have this much carbon in the atmosphere and the oceans warmed by this much and the desertification that's happening around the world. I mean, we've desertified one third of our planet through how we manage our land.
And we have lost two thirds of the Earth's topsoil. That's our skin. That's what we need to be able to protect ourselves. That's what prevents these large weather events. So when we learn that we can rebuild that topsoil and we can turn desert back into regenerative oases, oasis oases, then young people feel like that's their. That's their purpose. That's their life's calling. And I've seen it happen over and over and over again. It's young people who are picking up the pitchforks and returning to the land and learning because they don't. They don't have that same indoctrination that we had or that our parents had. They. They are coming at this from a very different place. Like, I'm going to feed the world by feeding my community and by feeding the life of the. In the soil. And so, yeah, young people are. I mean, they're dropping out of college and they're going to volunteer on farms.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: We recently did a podcast where we threw out 10 ideas that, that might help not just a younger generation, but people in general get involved with regenerative farming. And it was things like a GI Bill for farming instead of for college, or instead of a pell grant for a college, maybe the government can have grants for regenerative farming. And like we just threw out like 10 different ideas. Just like, hey, guys, we don't have to just accept this is too hard and nobody's doing it. There are actually things that can happen. And I think Kiss the Ground as a foundation.
Do you do grants and stuff as well? Right.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: So the kiss the ground 501c3 was founded by our friends who. So we don't run the nonprofit of Kiss the Ground nonprofit, but when we moved to Ventura County Back in 2012, our friends moved into our little sort of Venice beach shack where we had been making movies in our garage.
And as they were moving in, they're like, soil, soil, soil. You've got to stop making movies about oil. You've got to start making movies about soil. And they're like, oh, gosh. The only thing more dull and boring that we can make films about other than oil would be soil.
But then we moved on to a farm and we became farmers and we started to see what it took to actually manage this place. It was a monocrop avocado orchard in the middle of a drought in a place that's not really designed to grow avocados. And suddenly we're starting to learn about regenerative agriculture.
And we're learning like no amount of reducing carbon emissions is going to get us to where we need to be.
There's, we have to do something with this carbon. And here we are looking at our own dead dirt and the way that this model was just failing, so dysfunctional. And it hit us like, this is what we have to do.
This was our calling, was to tell this story and to use the skills that we've learned along the way to make sure that everybody learns about the power of soil to stabilize the climate, create a profit, draw down carbon, create microcarbon microclimates, and ultimately feed the world through feeding communities. I forgot what the question was. I get so excited about soil. I go into these rants.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: I was just wondering, I mentioned that the opportunity to do things to help people get involved, like grants or a GI bill that would, instead of taking veterans to college, maybe take veterans to a regenerative farm. My favorite idea was a, you know, bachelor type TV series, a where, you know, you have two or three families and they, they win a farm if they do the best regenerative over farming over a year or something. You know, just like some ideas to, to not just bring awareness, but concrete. Like here's because it is really, you know, we know the, it is financially like intense to get started on a farm. Right. And just the hurdle to overcome to, as a first generation farm, the just the economics of the thing is almost insurmountable. So our thoughts were, is there something, are there ideas? Is there something that we can do to help more people and in the same way that we help people get college educations, maybe just help them to become regenerative farmers instead and incentivize the career?
[00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah, because it isn't the dumb old farmer Anymore. You know, you have highly intelligent, educated people who are out there figuring out this soil, climate, growing food in a way that is more productive, more profitable, more nutritious across the board and to get some of those really bright minds involved in the dirt in our ruminant animals and incentivize it even in a financial way. Do you know of any programs that.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: Maybe the best way to say it was like programs to reduce the barrier of entry, be it financial or the stigma involved with the dumb farmer like that? I think that may be the best.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Way to barrier of entry. That's a good way to put it.
[00:37:25] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, I think what I'm, what I'm learning from. There are so many grants that are now becoming available for people to be able to make that transition or to be able to go and start regenerative farms. I mean, they're everywhere, on state levels, on federal levels. Kiss the ground was shown to the usda, USDA wide, and it was credited as being one of the main reasons that they put $20 billion towards climate change smart agriculture, of which I think at this point they spend over 4 billion of that. It's probably more than that at this point.
So I think people are starting to realize that, that conventional agriculture is going to dust, you know, it's going bankrupt. And where the future lies is within biodiversity and regeneration. I think people are starting to get hip to the idea that soil organic matter is a critical part of the equation. And I love that idea of some type of show of measuring, like who gets to, to the highest level of soil organic matter first, you know, like, that would be so cool. Yes, I think.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: And then the idea was when they, when they get there, they win the farm.
Big thing. You know, like there's a big, at the end of this, it's like, you know, talk about the reveal. The reveal is and you win the farm.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: You know, like a profitable business model. Yeah, I love that idea. I mean, I think all of these ideas are. I think this is where we're moving.
What I've heard from a lot of farmers is that their biggest barrier to entry is having a guaranteed output for their produce. So a lot of people, they're like, okay, well that's great, but how do I, how am I guaranteed that anybody's going to actually buy it? Because now we're talking about something that's more regional, it's seasonal.
How I'm not guaranteed that anybody is going to come out and buy my product anymore. If I make, if I get myself out of this System where I'm guaranteed money whether I produce something or not.
And so one of the models that is really inspiring to me is Alice Waters school supported agriculture model. And so the school supported agriculture model idea is that schools and farmers within their communities link up so that there is a guaranteed output for the food that's being grown locally to the local school children at the school.
And that then prohibits this idea that, okay, well, I'm going to grow this food, but I'm going to have no way to sell it or make a profit from it. You immediately have a buyer, which is the school system and you're suddenly feeding kids nutrient dense food. We've started to dabble with that here in Ventura County. I love this model. Some of the challenges are creating menus that aren't year round menus, like looking at having seasonal menus in a school.
It's going to create such a different world in terms of night and day, in terms of how, as you said, food is medicine. So when kids are getting off of the glyphosate laden breads and oats and garbanzo beans that are just filled with chemicals, part of the dirty dozen, and suddenly they're eating fresh, local, regenerative, organic vegetables and fruit, fruits that are grown within their community.
The health, the well being, the focus, the hormones, the illnesses, like everything that we're seeing with kids, like 1 in 3 kids is sick in the United States because of what we eat, one in three kids is sick. And it doesn't have to be that way. Imagine if those kids instead were supporting the local farmer who's doing the right thing by their community and growing nutrient dense food that then is feeding the very kids that are within that community, while also building a sustainable water cycle that then creates the kind of prevents droughts, it prevents the massive storms that come through. I mean, when you can get that rich topsoil that's the sponge and it infiltrates water and holds it there. You know, you have a whole different climate than the one that's volatile and desertified and, and devoid of nutrition and life because then you end up with people that are experiencing those same things.
So I love this idea of school supported agriculture because it puts a market that's right next to the farm in their lap so that they have a place where they can take the food that they're growing and feed it to their community.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: So if a farmer was right on the edge, they're at that point point in their life where they're making a decision of do I either start A regenerative farm or do I transition to a regenerative farm? What would you say to them?
[00:42:09] Speaker C: That's the future.
That's where the money is. That's where the profit is. That's where everything is going. Regeneration is all about life and abundance.
Conventional agriculture is about death and decay, desertification. So choose. Which one do you want? Do you want the old model model that's ultimately going bankrupt and turning the soil to dust, or do you want the one that's going to build life? It's ultimately about love. It's ultimately about community. It's about health and wealth. I mean, that's where the future is. This is. We're entering into the age of regeneration.
That's where we're at. And the people who adopt this now are going to be the ones who see the biggest benefit.
Wow.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: If I weren't doing it, I'm sold.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
We're sold for sure.
Okay.
Groundswell, the new movie that you guys are working on, we're so excited.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: Actually got to listen to a podcast of Ian talking about Groundswell, and it was. It sounded very interesting.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: When is it coming out?
[00:43:18] Speaker C: We're aiming for January by. By Earth Day of next year. It will be available for Earth Day of next year, hopefully sooner. We're trying to get it done by January, but realistically by Earth Day of next year.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Fantastic. And how are people going to be able to. To. To watch it?
[00:43:34] Speaker C: It will be on Prime. So we had, you know, as environmental documentary filmmakers, we're kind of the lowest rung of the totem pole in Hollywood. You know, it's like we're like the charity case or like, okay, all right. You can come in just because you're Do Gooders, but, you know, when we add things, people like Jason Momoa and Woody Harrelson and Rosario Dawson, like, we get a little bit more street cred, but we're still the sort of lowly environmental documentaries. And so when Amazon came along and they were like, not only do we want to take Kiss the Ground, which had already been on Netflix for four years, not only do we want you to put out the director's cut of that film that included the indigenous people people section that we wanted to include from the beginning, but we also want to make them originals. We want to take common ground. We want to re. We want to release both of them on our platform and make it available throughout the world. And you can keep educational rights so that you can keep giving the educational cuts and curriculum away for free to schools. It's been made available to over 50 million kids in the US for free.
And it continues to grow and be shared in classrooms. I mean, that was. They wanted to take our films and make it their front and center message for the climate pledge.
Love them or hate them, they're actually doing right by us and this message in this moment. And we are so, so grateful to prime, to Amazon prime for picking up these films and then guaranteeing us that Groundswell will come out next year and be available for the world to see and that we'll still be able to continue with our educational work. Thank you, Amazon. Thank you for doing the right thing. Thank you for giving us a platform where people can hear this message.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: That's fantastic. Very cool. Is there a particular story you're most excited for people to hear from Groundswell?
[00:45:16] Speaker C: Oh, God. I mean, I feel like, you know, we complain a lot that it's really hard in the United States to make this transition, but we went to places like northern Uganda, to a refugee settlement where it was mostly women and children who had survived, you know, gunshot wounds and amputations and really bloody, brutal war in South Sudan and northern Uganda. And we took our children there and we went and we saw how the people in these villages, who have nothing and who have so much trauma and little scars on their body from the war that they've been through and what they're doing, they're building regenerative plots of land. They're turning this refugee settlement into a regenerative food forest. And it's working. They're able to store water. They're building soil infiltration. They're able to create low, slow water transfers throughout the land. They're able to grow food that they can eat. You know, we also saw a lot of disturbing things while we were in that part of the world. I mean, we went to Kenya, where they're bringing back the elephant as the megafauna in their environment and bringing back the grass lands and therefore bringing back the rain and bringing back the abundance.
We went to India where we saw in the middle of their hundred year flood, how they were able to use these regenerative practices to hold the water, to move it in a way that is beneficial to the grasses. I mean, places that, like in Rajasthan, where it was already desertified, where now it's totally green. People who have had, who have nothing, who are able to bring their land back to life and feed themselves and feed their community and to create stable climates. I mean, it took my breath away to see the resilience of people who have nothing and their ability to regenerate their land and feed themselves. I mean, it really, really, really works. And it's so moving. But on the flip side, it was also alarming. Like when we went to Kenya and we learned that the government there had made a deal with the chemical companies to.
They made it illegal to, in Kenya, to share with your own family members, heirloom seeds that had been saved for generations. You can't sell seeds, you can't share seeds. It's illegal. Punishable by jail time and a $20,000 fine, which, if you're a poor farmer in Kenya, do you think that you can afford $20,000? I mean, that was totally insane. And so it's, you know, it's the colonization of the seed. So it's happened here in the US and now they're going into these areas where there's such fertile land and where there's such a history of seed saving and of these heritage ways of practicing agriculture that are being currently decimated by these chemical companies who are coming in, making it, making it illegal for them to continue growing the food that they're growing, forcing. They're saying, okay, you can't, it's illegal to do that, but you can take this seed and we're going to give you the chemicals and inputs that you're going to need to be able to grow this GMO seed. And we're going to give this to you for free for two years. So this is what's happening currently in Kenya. We're going to give you these seeds for two years. But then at the end of the two years, what they don't know is then they're going to have to pay for all of the things that they've been given. But suddenly now, like an addict, they're hooked.
They no longer have their heirloom seeds. They're growing one thing, usually maize.
That maize is then sold someplace else. They can't even eat it. So suddenly they're growing food that when things get tough, guess what? You can't grow the food that you're eating. Nor do you have the wisdom and the knowledge that comes from these generations that have been passed down of how to grow food that co evolved with the soil, that co evolved with these people that tells the story of their history.
And so it's, this is what's happening currently in Kenya, is they're slowly going in and doing what we call seed colonization, where they're, they're basically preventing people from continuing to have their way of life.
Yeah. And it doesn't have to be that way. Then you find people that are, that are saving the seeds and fighting these laws and preserving people's right to farm and to have the wisdom that's been passed down for generations. So that's why we wanted to tell the scope of story. Yeah.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: Are they seeing any organizations coming in in their defense?
[00:49:34] Speaker C: Absolutely. There's a Seed Saver Network. I highly recommend them. They're just outside of Nairobi in Kenya. Seed Saver Network. They're doing an incredible job. They're standing up to injustice, facing jail time, speaking out, which is illegal for them to do.
And they're. And they're saving seeds, they're taking seeds and they're collecting every type of heritage seed and they're putting them into deep fragments, freeze. So that when these laws change, people will have access to the seeds that have been carried down through generations.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: People in our country really don't. I know that we, we have been manipulated by Monsanto and the chemical companies, but not by law.
We don't understand oftentimes what it means to actually try to survive in some of these other countries.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: I think it's the difference is probably the carrot or the stick. Right. In our country, it's all the incentives, it's the payment, it's the guaranteed, you know, crop sales in, in their country, it's the law. Right. Like they're making it illegal. I, I don't see it. I mean, obviously it's different because ours isn't faced with jail time, it's just faced with going bankrupt and rise in suicides.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:50:47] Speaker C: You know, and the law, I mean, if you look at our regulatory agencies like the USDA and the epa, for instance, the EPA has. There was this article that came out about how when the 10,000th study was waived that connected the harms of chemical exposure to human health issues.
The 10,000 study was waived. They held a party at the EPA and they served cake. And that's the kind of mentality that has seeped into our government. These are the organizations that are supposed to be protecting us from these very chemicals that are being propped up and supported. And any voice that goes against that is either swept under the rug or, you know, in the United States. I mean, gosh, how many times have I been called hysterical? Hysterical now. And now I wear it like a badge of honor because I'm like, well, Rachel Carson was told that she was hysterical.
Look at what she was able to accomplish. I mean, it ultimately ended up killing her. But if you look at what she did, she was A woman who was concerned about her environment and the way that things are being done and she spoke out about it. And often when you have a strong woman who starts asking questions that are inconvenienced, you start to hear the word hysterical. So fear. And one of the quotes about me within our community was that I was spreading non science backed fear based hysteria and that I was a Hollywood newcomer. Keep in mind I've lived here now for 14 years. I've given birth in my home twice to two children that were born here. And it's their birthright that I'm standing up for and I'm listening to the indigenous people within my community.
So I really have a vested interest in this place. But it's very disruptive. It can be very terrifying. And so even if the government is not saying I'm going to put you in jail, there is a kind of social shunning that can happen when people start to ask questions, when people start to suggest big changes. It can be very threatening to the livelihood of the people who've done it a certain way for a long time, who are already feeling the stress of the system breaking down and who don't want to believe that they're poisoning themselves and their children and their community and their soil. They don't want to believe that because that goes against, you know, the American farmer. We uphold the American farmer as sacred in our country, you know, and the idea that the way that we have forced these farmers to farm is actually harming them, it just completely goes against the entire ethos. And it can create this kind of cognitive dissonance where people can't hear anything except what goes along with that narrative.
So it is a kind of prison in a way. It just looks different than it does in Kenya.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: So as we wrap it up, Rebecca, is there something that we should have asked you that we didn't?
Is there a message that you were hoping to get out today that we didn't allow you to?
[00:53:55] Speaker C: No. I mean, you are both such beautiful people. A for using your voices to share this message, for using your livelihood in this way to be building this regenerative farm and putting your hands out there in the soil. I think the only thing I want to share with people is I spent a lot of time talking about how the soil, how we can save the soil and how important it is that we save the soil.
But I think one other.
It might sound a little woo woo, but the soil can also save us. When you actually put your hands on the earth scientifically, there is an Electron charge that gets flooded into your body. It's called Earthing. It's scientifically proven. There have been all these peer reviewed studies that show that when you touch the Earth that your body gets filled with electrons. Because we are electrical, we have a slightly negative charge like the Earth. We come from the Earth. We need that electron charge to be able to have our organs and our bodies function properly. When you get disconnected from the earth and you cut off that electron charge, you literally are cutting yourself off from that energy that you need to be able to function well. And people start to have inflammation. And so much of the disease that we have is inflammation based. So, yes, you want to eat foods that reduce inflammation. Yes, you want to limit the amount of chemicals that you put in your body. We also have to remember that it's a sacred connection that we have to the Earth and the Earth is what keeps us alive. And when you put your hands on the earth, within 15 minutes, inflammation in your body begins to come down. And there have been all of these studies. I made a film called the Earthing Movie. It's about my personal journey with Earthing, with my family and our healing journey. Because while we were talking about how we can save the soil, we learned that the soil can also save us. And we wanted to share that message with people. So if people want to feel good and they want to have their bodies function well, and you want to reduce inflammation in your body and give your body the optimal opportunity for it to function at its very best, connect with the earth. It's not just good for your soul. It's not just, you know, a nice thing that feels good to do scientifically. You're also healing your body with that electron charge. And we need that. People go months and months and months without actually touching the earth, especially if they're in a cold climate or you just put on your flip flops or your shoes and you never actually touch the ground. Think about how good it feels when you lay your body down in the grass.
It's scientifically proven that you're healing your body when you do so. So it's just a plug to people to touch the Earth, to connect with the earth. And I also believe that when you do that, it awakens something inside of you that brings you into this world of regeneration and helps you to find your place and your voice in it.
[00:56:43] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for your time today. This has been a fantastic conversation.
[00:56:49] Speaker C: Thank you. I feel so honored to get to have this role that I have in the movement. I feel like I'm around people who are smarter than me every single day. But through storytelling, I know that we can transform and heal our world. And I think each one of us are storytellers. And each day as we speak, we're telling stories that are either going to regenerate the planet or degenerate the planet. And you guys are certainly doing your part in regenerating the planet, and I thank you both.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: That's awesome. Thank you. We know we'll be looking for grounds coming out next year. Is there a specific place if people are touched by you and want to follow you personally? Where can we find you?
[00:57:30] Speaker C: You can find me on Instagram. I'm Becca Tickell on Instagram. You can find me on Facebook. I'm Rebecca Tickell on Facebook.
You can also go to Rebecca Tickell.com if you're interested in joining the 100 Million Acres movement. That's 100 Million Acres.org you can sign up to help play a role in transitioning 100 million acres in the United States to regeneration so that we can reach that unstoppable tipping point.
And you can follow our work at bigpictureranch. Com.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: Awesome. This has been a great conversation.
[00:58:04] Speaker B: Yes, it has. Thank you guys for hanging out with us again today and until next time. Bye, y' all.
[00:58:09] Speaker A: Bye, y' all.
[00:58:10] Speaker C: Bye, y' all.
