Kiss the Ground

This is a review and critique of the documentary Kiss the Ground. (warning: there may be snarky remarks at times).

Conclusions

The main points of the documentary is to present the ‘dangers’ of pesticides, fertilizers and GMOs, the increase of CO2 emissions by tilling the land/desertification, and to offer the solution of regenerative farming (and other ways to regenerate the land).

The dangers of pesticides and fertilizers are grossly exaggerated and sensationalized in the documentary.
In reality, the evidence for pesticides being bad for health ranges from null in certain aspects, to weak evidence for other effects--with the most toxic pesticides already banned.
Pesticides and fertilizers are also of paramount importance in the efficiency of farming, and needed for the amount of population present today.
While the writers of the documentary draw comparisons between the present day and the past and the use of pesticides/fertilizers, they fail to understand that the comparison is inherently fallacious: the demand has drastically increased from decades ago because of the drastic increase in population, so a more efficient way of farming is needed--simply using all the land available to continue farming inefficiently just to avoid the usage of pesticides and fertilizers would make no sense.
The documentary also repeatedly drops hints that GMOs are bad and that they should be avoided, without ever explaining why.

CO2 emissions from the land increase by about 20% when tilling compared to no-tilling.
Rather than going back to inefficient methods of farming--that aren’t proven to be able to sustain the entire population--to reduce the amount of CO2 emitted, it’d be better to address the main cause of CO2 soil-related-emissions: animal agriculture.
In fact, animal agriculture is responsible for about 80% of the land usage in agriculture. Therefore, by removing animal agriculture, we would be having not only the biggest impact in reduction of soil-emitted CO2, but also the biggest impact on the reduction of climate change and pollution.
The desertification of land is mainly caused by animal agriculture, and the culprit not being tilling by itself: in fact, if animal agriculture requires so much destruction and deforestation today with farming as efficient as it is, imagine the amount it would require with less efficient farming.

Regenerative farming is presented in an idealistic way, which claims such as ‘regenerative agriculture grows more food per acre’, and that every 1% of organic matter increase, 10 more tons of CO2 are drown down to the soil per acre. Most of the claims are unsubstantiated, based on anecdotes, and have no evidence to support their validity.
Regenerative farming also needs cover crops and doesn’t allow for mono agriculture, making it significantly less efficient than other methods.
They go on to say that cattle can be good and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions if used correctly, which is a ridiculous claim. Not only there are gasses worse than CO2 emitted by animals, like methane and nitrous oxide, but to let the current amount of farmed animals graze free would require such an enormous amount of land that it would mean environmental annihilation, paving over all of our left forests to make space (calculations done below).
There are many gross misrepresentations of numbers and how things actually work, with the documentary being based on sensationalism rather than an honest look at science (more explained below).
Tilling is actually a problem, but it's also been solved by best practice: organic isn't the answer, herbicides are. No till practice relies largely on herbicides to kill off weeds so crops can be sown without disturbing the soil. Organic is opposed to the most helpful change in practice we have. There's organic no till, but relies on covering the ground in plastic or cardboard for weeks or months to kill off the weeds.

Ironically enough, the only redeeming quality of the documentary is to promote recycling of food waste to turn it into compost, something that wouldn’t be used on regenerative farming (which doesn’t use compost, but animals for fertilizers instead), but would instead be useful in veganic farming.

It also shows very briefly plant-based diets and their value on environmental impact, but goes to quickly endorse the oxymoron of humanely-killed animal as a source of meat that would be acceptable.

In-depth criticism

Introduction

In the introduction, one of the companies shown to be in association with the documentary is called ‘Center for food safety’. It’s apparent they are very anti-GMO, as their constant legal actions show [1] [2].
This is indicative of the bias present in the documentary.

The documentary starts in a very sensationalized way, showing what’s probably supposed to be the big bang and the creation of the Earth, followed by happy kids dancing in the rain, all while some sad music plays--at which point it cuts to news about climate change being a problem. It then follows with a fear-mongering narrative, and a sense of ‘giving up’ and everything being lost.

At 1 minute 25 seconds in, the narrator seems to offer a possible solution to ‘heal’ our planet, and to keep *our* species off the extinction list.
This, again, relies on fear-mongering, and at a hinted imminent doom that would involve us all unless we listen to the solution presented--just like other species have gone extinct.
A species itself doesn’t hold moral relevance, rather it’s the sentient individual that does. A species itself is not sentient, nor is it anything concrete.

First part - pesticides and fertilizers, and tilling

At 2 minutes 30 seconds in, a conservation agronomist is presented. He goes on to say he’s been in every state in the US, putting an emphasis on the amount that he has travelled, and that he’s been asked to go speak in Europe and Australia--but he goes on to say ‘I just haven’t had the time’.
All of this is very pointless to the documentary, and is made to give a sense of authority to the person speaking--whose schedule is so full and important, he wouldn’t have the time to go places that ask of his presence.

The argument in favor of soil is then presented, being: healthy soil -> healthy plant, healthy animal, healthy human, healthy water, healthy climate.
This is obviously very generalized and simplistic, presenting a world view that’s not realistic, but that appeals to the average person for it’s simplicity.

The next speech is very much based on an idealistic way of doing things the way ‘nature’ does, falling in the appeal to nature fallacy by proposing that doing things the way nature does would simply be best. Even though it’d be humans farming, and not nature itself.

At 3:25, the documentary goes on to show the person grabbing dirt in a desolate place multiple times, dropping the dirt through his hands, stating that erosion is when ‘soil becomes dirt’. That’s not what erosion is.
It then cuts to black and white filming with sad music, showing dirt being tilled by cows and humans as if it were to be something evil and causing harm.

At 4:05, the narrator says ‘As the soil eroded, those once-great empires vanished into the dust’, suggesting that ‘soil erosion’ would be the cause for old empires falling. This is ridiculous and without evidence, and a well documented history shows how each empire actually fell and why--and they didn’t fall because of ‘soil erosion’.

After some more black and white sensationalized filming with sad music, the documentary states the *the largest man-made environmental disaster in history* was something called the ‘Dust Bowl’--which was a period during which dust storms damaged the ecology and agriculture of North America in the 1930s.
There is no evidence that this is the biggest man-made environmental disaster in history, being an unsubstantiated claim. In fact, many more man-made environmental disasters are magnitudes worse than this. The documentary also fails to mention that this phenomenon was also caused by his winds and long periods of drought--and not just a man-made disaster.
It also refers to cropland being ‘permanently’ damaged--without explaining what exactly would cause what damage to be permanent. Again and again, no evidence is provided to substantiate any of the claims made.

It then goes on to show president Roosevelt appeal-to-nature-fallacy speech, where he says he wants to work out a plan to ‘co-operate with nature’ rather than ‘buck nature’.
Note: concepts of what is natural and unnatural are never clearly defined in the documentary, nor is it ever explained why doing something that would be ‘natural’ should be our priority.

At 6:25, the narrator blatantly implies that industrial chemicals would be bad for the soil.
Apparently, only chemicals that come from an industrial source would be damaging the soil. The single farmer has no faults of course, as everybody knows that it’s the evil industries and their chemicals that are the root cause of all problems.

After which, it states ‘Tillage is one of the most intrusive things we do in modern agriculture. It is not our friend’.
However, it remains unclear who exactly would be the receiver of the intrusion, and why it would be bad.
The documentary so far relies over and over on one-liners that have the same concepts, while presenting no evidence.

In fact, it goes on to say how ‘simple’ the message is, but yet how ‘difficult’ it is to get, and that we have a social and educational issue.
Maybe they should consider the issue in communication being mostly from the educational side, as saying vague sentences with no evidence usually doesn’t prove very convincing.

At 7:54, the documentary tells us how there seems to be a war with carbon right now, while in reality carbon’s the good guy, and CO2 is the problem.
It’s not very clear who he’s actually referring to, as it’s pretty common knowledge that an exaggerated amount of CO2 is the problem, and not the atom carbon by itself is.

It then goes on to say that 40% of the CO2 absorbed by plants, plants put into the soil.
Again, with no evidence and no reference, it’s unclear where this number is coming from.

At 9:20, the narrator states that he didn’t know before studying, but that the soil ‘is alive’.
Note: the soil is neither alive, nor sentient. While there is life *inside* the soil, the soil itself isn’t alive.

It goes on with more sensationalized stuff, like saying that in a handful of soil there are more organisms than the number of people who’ve ever lived, and other similar random things.
One might ask why this would matter.
This is not exactly clear, as there are also more organisms in the human body than handfuls of soil in the world.

At 10:30, they make an incredible scientific discovery: when we eat food, the food isn’t consumed by us, it’s instead consumed by the bacteria, and what we get is what the bacteria gives us.
This is obviously ridiculous, and any studying on how the food gets actually absorbed by our body will show how silly this statement is. It’s unclear how they’re getting away saying objectively incorrect stuff.
While bacteria helps us digest food and plays an important role, saying that the only thing we consume is what’s ‘given’ by the bacteria is incorrect.

At 11:46, it’s stated that ‘It all comes from the Earth. Big Mama.’, followed by what seems like praying, with another following statement being that our health and the health of our planet are connected.
The documentary so far is very much based upon the idea that nature should be sacred and that we should live in a ‘natural’ way, rather than using any science to support any concrete argument.

It goes on to say that toxic chemicals have rendered the soil almost completely devoid of microorganisms--again, another vague unsubstantiated one-liner with no evidence.
It also goes on to say how toxic chemicals kill the microorganisms in the soil--conveniently failing to mention that fertilizers provide nutrients to the soil, that plants need, and that without fertilizers agriculture would be extremely inefficient.
It’s also unclear if and how much fertilizers would kill the microorganisms in the soil.

It then says that the more tilling is done, the weaker the soil gets. And again, it’s another vague statement that doesn’t explain what ‘weaker’ would even refer to.

It continues to show the first invention of a fertilizer by a German scientist, and showing his other invention: e.g. ‘poison’, also known as pesticides.
Note: Pesticides aren’t poison.
While it’s true that most pesticides are toxic if ingested directly, pesticides have been a huge help in agriculture. However, instead of addressing any of this, the documentary goes on to make comparisons with pesticides and the ‘poison’ used in the gas chambers of the holocaust, showing imagery of people oppressed by the Nazi regime.
The amount of sensationalization present in the documentary is ridiculous.

14:20 ‘When the war ended, all the energy that went into fighting the enemies in the world… went into fighting the enemies in the farm’
No comment.

The documentary keeps trying to sensationalize the ‘badness’ of fertilizers over and over, without providing any actual evidence, and without explaining *why* they were used in the first place.
It’s as though they’re trying to paint industries as evil without reason.

At 15:30, the speaker suggests we should have understood and ‘honored’ the natural processes instead of just ‘throwing out these chemicals’.
It would be more useful if the ‘expert’ speaking would explain how and why we should honor the natural processes.

The documentary shows how much glyphosate is used on corn, ‘a chemical suspected to cause cancer’. The evidence for glyphosate to be a carcinogen is weak at best. [3] [4]

"Our critical analysis of the commentaries published by Samsel and Seneff reveals that their conclusions are not substantiated by experimental evidence but are based on a type of failed logic known as syllogism fallacies. As Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman famously said, “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” In this regard, the mechanisms and vast range of conditions proposed to result from glyphosate toxicity presented by Samsel and Seneff in their commentaries are at best unsubstantiated theories or speculations that are not supported by experimental observation and thus are likely to be wrong. This misrepresentation of glyphosate’s toxicity could waste a large amount of time on the part of regulators, industry, and the concerned public, tying up resources that should be used to follow up more solidly based lines of investigation as previously suggested." [5]

More worrying music is used in the background, as the narrator says (16:30): ‘These chemicals, which were considered dangerous to begin with, are now being used at rates that would have been inconceivable twenty years ago’.
Something being conceivable or not 20 years ago is irrelevant. 20 years ago it was also inconceivable that the internet would be so expanded by now, and that so much of our world would rely on it. However, the simply fact that something was conceivable or not in the past is irrelevant to whether it’s a good or a bad thing today. And clearly, scientific studies don’t support this level of antagonism against pesticides/fertilizers.

The documentary continues to show random numbers and statements, without actually addressing if, why and how such things would be problematic.

The documentary goes on to say that ‘That are over 200 peer-reviewed studies that correlate the spraying of these toxic chemicals to effects like ADD in children, pediatric cancers, and birth defects’.
While it’s true that some pesticides are worse than others, classifying them all under the umbrella of ‘these toxic chemicals’ doesn’t help. Different pesticides vary in degree of toxicity.
Meta-analyses and scientific studies show that pesticides are somewhat correlated with certain health problems, while finding no evidence for others. (i.e. [6])
While it’s good that pesticides are kept under control, it’s pointless and harmful sensationalism to classify them all as evil, since pesticides are needed.

Then, the situation of chronically ingesting pesticides as a comparison to chronic stress is presented--without taking into consideration that if ‘chronic ingestion of pesticides’ is kept within safe levels, it would be safe.
The writers fail to understand that a lot of the chemicals that are considered toxic have no actual effect on our body, or a negligible one, if ingested in small/tolerable quantities.

If the problems that the documentary suggest exist, and they exist because of the way crops are farmed, then this begs the question: wouldn’t the crops that are farmed for animal agriculture, which far outweigh the ones farmed for us by multiple magnitudes, be the main cause of these problems?
However, they fail to address this.

While it’s true that tilling releases more CO2 than no tilling (by about 20% more than tilling [7]), it’s unlikely that the benefit of the reduction in CO2 emissions from the land would outweigh the negatives of a significantly less efficient farming by not tilling the land.
An obvious solution is to remove animal agriculture from the picture, at which point we’d save 80% of our farmed land, therefore reducing the CO2 emissions from the land by 4/5.

This is also a valid argument considering their next point: that razing land to the ground has macro-climate effects.
They don’t seem to realize that desertification of land is mainly caused by animal agriculture, and the culprit not being tilling by itself: in fact, if animal agriculture requires so much destruction and deforestation today with farming as efficient as it is, imagine the amount it would require with less efficient farming.

At 23:34, it states that ‘poor land leads to poor people’, implying that a poor land would be one of the main, if not the main, factor leading to poverty.
There is no evidence of this, and many examples of the contrary. Poverty is caused by a different number of factors.
In fact, ironically enough, Africa’s land is rich of minerals and natural reserves, and they choose to show Africa as the main example while saying that poor land leads to poverty.

They continue to sensationalize by saying that poor land is pretty much the root cause of all evil in the planet, even going as far as showing terrorism.
Of course, all the while providing no evidence to back up their claims.

24:14 is another example of sensationalization, where another vague sentence is given, and after the person speaking looks concerned for about 5-6 seconds, without anything being said.

At 28:55, it states that regenerative farming could *reverse* global warming.
There is no evidence for this, and it’s counter-intuitive, considering that the main factors behind climate change have nothing to do with tilling the land. This is another ridiculous and unsubstantiated claim.

Second part - politics

The documentary goes then into politics, first addressing the Paris agreement on climate change.
It condescendingly dismisses it all as just ‘speeches, speeches, and then speeches’, implying that nothing worthwhile was actually being achieved. This is obviously not true, as the Paris agreement is one of the most impactful steps ever taken towards preventing further climate change.
Then it goes on to say that there was *one* proposal that offered hope, and yes, it was the only proposal in favor of their argument, with the goal being the increase of the carbon content of the world’s soil.

It’s explained how important it would be to store carbon in the land--with no evidence provided on how feasible such a thing would be.
Instead, (34:01) it states that ‘doing agriculture in a way that sequesters carbon requires a radical reduction in toxic pesticides, GMO’s and synthetic chemicals.’
First of all, again, no numbers or evidence of any sort are being shown to substantiate this claim.
Secondarily, including GMOs and synthetic chemicals in this statement shows their ignorance and bias. Just because something is man-made, doesn’t mean it’s bad or has any bad effects. The two are not inclusive.
GMOs play no role in climate change, as they simply modify the genes of the plants to be more resistant/more productive--it’s silly to claim otherwise. GMOs may actually help climate change, in giving a bigger production to plants, and therefore less land being paved over to be used for additional crops that would otherwise be needed.
The term ‘synthetic chemicals’ is also being used loosely, as synthetic simply means man-made. Why should we avoid using all man-made chemicals? Not all of them are bad, and some of them are at the core of our society and development. But the documentary is so deep down the rabbit hole of an enormous appeal to nature fallacy, that it dogmatically categorizes everything that’s not ‘natural’ as bad.

It goes on to say that electric cars and solar panels aren’t enough, asking what the solution is--completing ignoring animal agriculture.

At 36:30, they say that if we want to reduce the amount of CO2, we need to ‘thank the Earth’. This kind of woo arguments with no logical sense only serve to push the rational minded people further away.

They state that by planting trees in a different way, you’d dramatically reduce the amount of CO2 emitted, and then bring back the CO2 into the soil, so much so that in 20 years we would have cooling from global warming.
These are enormous of unsubstantiated claims, with no evidence supporting that if we changed the way we grow plants we’d have cooling from global warming in 20 years.

Third part - regenerative farming

They start showing off regenerative farming by showing a farmer in a field that uses this farming method, and showing that the field is diversified with different fruit trees.
This has no bearing on how viable and efficient this method would be on a global scale, seeming especially unfeasible for intensive farming.

At 38:40, it asks the question ‘What is something we buy every day at the grocery store, that instead of waiting for it to be shipped around the world to me, what can I put in my own back yard that I can do myself?’.
As if everyone had a backyard (most people don’t).
As if all the food bought at the grocery store has been shipped around the world.
As if people that have a backyard available and big enough don’t already use it for some fruit trees/kitchen garden.

It then goes on to say ‘regenerative agriculture grows more food per acre.’
Assuming that they’re comparing it to traditional farming, it’s false, as no studies are present at the moment to attest to the validity of such a statement.

After that, an anecdote of a farmer, or rather a rancher as he defines himself, losing 100% of his crops (a very dubious number) to hailstorm for two years, and then having a dry-out the next year, and then losing 80% of crops the year after, is used in support of the argument of no synthetic chemicals and of no-tilling.
Which is pointless, because the same thing could’ve happened regardless.

Another dubious claim is presented at 42:55, stating that for every 1% increase in organic matter, 10 more tons of CO2 are drown down to the soil per acre of land.
No validity of this can be found.

It then goes off to show the main drawback of regenerative agriculture: the need for cover crops, and the lack of being to do a mono agriculture.

The farmer--err, rancher, then goes on to say ‘I’m growing 10 species here. We’re accelerating biological time. We’re feeding the soil biology what it would take a conventional farmer 19 years to do. I’m doing it in one year.’
This is an offensively stupid statement. Not only feeling the soil biology is unclear, it’s evident that it’s completely untrue with basic math.
Let’s take into consideration one acre of land per year.
By planting 19 different crops in one acre, you’d be feeding 19 different plant root exudates to the land. So 1/19 for each exudate, because there are 19 different crops. Which would mean 1/19 (root exudate units of each crop per acre) * 19 different plants * 19 years = 19 total different root exudate units..
Let’s look at a monoculture now, changing crop every year. By planting 1 crop in one acre, you’d be feeding only 1 plant root exudate to the soil, and a lot of it at the same time--not 1/19 per plant type, but an entire unit. Which would mean 1 (root exudate units of each crop per acre) * 1 plant type * 19 years = 19 total different root exudates units.
The amount of exudates is the same, because while in the first scenario there is a bigger variety of plants per year, it’s also true that the coverage of each plant type is less, while in the second scenario there is a lower amount of plant types, but a bigger amount of coverage per plant type--so with some easy first grader math that the writers weren’t able to do (or were too dishonest to represent), you can easily see the amount of exudates results the same in a 19 year span, and not one of them being 19 times higher.

After, it shows the usage of animals in regenerative farming, with them grazing the soil and speeding up the regeneration process.
Farmed animals are responsible for an enormous amount of greenhouse gasses emissions, including methane and nitrous oxide--the latter being about 300 times more potent than CO2.
Of course, the documentary conveniently forgets about this fact.

At 45:23, it shows how most of the agricultural land is used to grow crops to feed animals, who then produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas emissions. However, unfortunately, it then goes on to say more unsubstantiated nonsense, such as the claim that more greenhouse gasses are sequestered in the soil than emitted in a grazing situation.
‘The problem isn’t the animal. The problem is where the animals are at.’ is used as the main argument to support animal agriculture in the way they prefer. Unfortunately, an animal produces the same amount of greenhouse gas emission where it’s in the middle of a jungle or in a cemented slaughterhouse.

The main point they present is to let cattle graze and roam in the fields, without realizing that such a thing would require an absurd amount of land so sustain animal agriculture.
With some basic math, giving an estimate of 1.8 acres of grazing land per cow (which seems a common rule of thumb), multiplied by 1 billion (which is the number of bovines present at any given moment in the planet) = 1.8 billion acres of land. That’s a lot of land.
In fact, 1.5 billion acres is estimated to be the current land usage for *total agriculture*, while grazing would require *1.8 billion acres ‘’’just for the cows’’’*. This shows how environmentally destructive grazing would be on a global scale, and how unfeasible it would be.
However, the writers of the documentary seem unfamiliar with math, as if they did any of it, they would understand how moronic their ‘solutions’ would be.

‘Conservation was always a very serious part of my life’ (46:45) is a very dubious claim, as one would expect a serious conservationist to not promote the most unsustainable way imaginable to go forward.

The documentary goes on to show animals grazing to make land ‘de-desertified’, as if that was the only way to have grass grow again on desertified land.
And there is: it’s called veganic farming.
Vegetable composts, crop rotations, and mulches, is all that it takes.

It goes on to show how plants would do what we so desperately need: keep the CO2 out of the air, and helping climate change.
Unfortunately, what they suggest would lead to the opposite, with environmental destruction to give an absurd amount of land to all the animals that are now in factory farming, and as such reduction of plants, and no reduction into even more problematic gasses than CO2: methane and nitrous oxide.

After the 50 minute mark, animal products are presented in favorable light, making another appeal to nature fallacy in the way things are presented to be peaceful while following what nature gives us. It’s hypocritical how they earlier talked about humans’ health as an argument for soil depletion, and now show a basket of eggs and a glass of milk as something nice.

Once more a statement is given about cows helping lower greenhouse gas emissions at 51:55, however this has already been addressed.
If anything, the sequence of filming following it, shows how much land is actually required for this farming, and how inefficient it is. The land requirements to keep this way of farming going on a global scale would be unfeasible, as stated before. If there are space problems *now* with factory farming, imagine dedicating numerous acres per handful of cows.

They argue that cows’ poop is ‘powerful stuff’ for the land (53:40).
They talk about it as if it’s exclusive to cows, while in reality any kind of poop, and any kind of compost for that matter, is ‘powerful stuff’ for the land. For the exception that compost doesn’t require animals and their greenhouse gas emissions, nor the enormous space required to make them live. You can have a perfectly healthy soil with just composting and mulching when needed.

At 53:50, they show the roots existing under the soil by pulling out a bunch of grass from the ground, implying that it’s an exceptional amount. This is a very unscientific method, and presents no solid argument.
The amount of roots depends by many things beside soil health, one of them simply being the type of plant and the root system that it grows. Even in depleted soils, plants can grow a very dense root system. It’s this type of stuff that makes this documentary so painful to watch.

They then explain how the cows eating the grass would leave the roots behind, which would contain carbon they had from the atmosphere, and leave it in the ground.
All of this can simply be done by composting instead--composting plants that got carbon from the atmosphere, putting them into the soil, and leaving them in the ground.
It can also, surprisingly, simply be done by leaving the grass be--yes, cows are not required for this. The roots will stay in the ground regardless. Simply take the cows out of the equation.

At 55:16, the person goes on to say ‘The form of agriculture that we use creates billions of lives in the form of soil microbes,…’. All of that ‘created life’ could simply be done by composting, or just by leaving the land be by reducing the amount of existing animals, and actually letting the climate stabilize itself.

Ironically enough, it shows immediately after a completely empty piece of land as far as the eye can see, all razed to the ground to make space for pastures, commentating ‘All of that wildlife is flourishing’. No, there isn’t much left in the scenery that I presented. Not much at all. And this goes back to the point of an absurd amount of land and forests having to be paved over to make space for empty grazing land.

And of course, it then compares it to a tilled soil field, showing a similar amount of land displayed, failing to mention that with the same amount of land magnitudes of different amount of food are produced--and therefore leaving much more space in the farmed land scenario for more forests to not be paved over.

After that, it explains that the majority of farmed land crops are fed to the animals, and that it’s subsidized by tax payers--failing to realize that all of the animals needing such an inconceivable amount of crops, would then have to be made space for in grazing land with their suggestion.

At 57:35, they showing the difference between a normal profit from an acre, and ‘Brown’s ranch acre’ profit.
This grossly lies about actual profits, being significantly more than less than 3 dollars per acre, with the average farms making between 50 dollars to 3-digits net income per acre, and some being to make even tens of thousands of profit per acre. This is because it depends what type of culture is done, and how intensive of labour it is. Growing corn and wheat may not represent the biggest profit per acre, but intense vegetables operations being able to net thousands per acre.
The amount of net income per acre isn’t the only thing to be looked at, but rather it’s the amount of acres * net income per acre--which, again, mostly depends on how much labour the crop presents.

At 58:45, this absurd misrepresentation of net income, leads them to say that switching to regenerative farming could increase profits of farmers by over 100 billion dollars per year. Not only is this number absurd, but it begs the question: if it were to produce these many more crops, wouldn’t the demand then be lower than the offer?
How exactly would they earn so much more, when the demand is the same regardless?
The dishonesty in presenting these arguments by the documentary is insufferable.

Other ways - composting and plant-based

The next segment presents the initiative to gather food waste from restaurants and such, and other types of waste in poor countries, and to turn it into compost to put back into the farms. This is the first solid and logical proposition in the documentary, and it’s one of its two redeeming qualities.
Ironically, this wouldn’t even be used in regenerative farming, which would use animals to fertilize the land instead, but it would instead be useful for veganic farming.

The other redeeming quality is showing how a plant-rich diet is an effective method to reduce carbon emissions. This is uplifting after a series of very hard segments to sit through.
It unfortunately goes quickly to suggest that if you’re eating meat, you could still eat it from ‘a lot more correct high-level farms’. And then goes on to say that if we eat meat, we need to eat meat from humanely-killed animals--without realizing there is no human way of forcefully taking a life of a sentient being that doesn’t want to die, let alone on a mass scale.

The segment after goes on to put on a favorable light eggs and other animal products that gotten from free-range animals, again without realizing the absurdity of such a way of animal farming on a global scale.

At 1:11:30, it shows another anecdotal sensationalized example of why regenerative farming would seem better, mainly basing itself off of showing more green.
This is irrelevant to crop production, and the efficiency of it.

At 1:13:14, it uses the example of the Loess Plateau and how deserted it looked, to make a point of how destructive agriculture would be for the soil, since it was one of the first places where settled agriculture was first done.
It’s not clear that the lack of nature present in the area is due to only settled agriculture once being there, especially since it’s been thousands of years.
Climate change is one of the main factors.
The area is then shown to be restored thanks to people working the land--however, this is not due to regenerative agriculture, but people themselves working the land.

The last segment is simply music while showcasing some nice shots of nature, with some vague sentences, such as that regenerating the land is the meaning of our lives.
This part relies heavily on emotional appeal, saying either vague or unrelated stuff, with a few shots of people almost breaking down in tears, suggesting that microorganisms and bacteria should be taken care of because of love (even though they’re non-sentient).

If only they would apply the same amount of love towards the actual sentient animals themselves, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this situation.