2024 April 22 Earth Day Common Ground Movie Review

Farmer and Regenerative Activist Gabe Brown shows the difference between his regenerative farm and his neighbor’s conventional farm

For Earth Day, Lorain County Community College’s Sustainable Agriculture Program premiered Common Ground, the sequel to Kiss the Ground (2020). Rightfully so, the movie hit the extremely scary consequences of modern agricultural practices, such as the high use of tillage, fertilizers, pesticides and the ways farmers are roped into the system through subsidies and companies that profit off destroying the Earth. The movie showed examples of how these companies like Monsanto (Bayer) put money into quieting anyone who shows the problems they are causing.  References to America’s Dust Bowl in which dust storms clouded the skies from Arkansas to Tennessee in the 1930’s, connected those practices to today. A connection was even made to farm debt and farmer suicide rates at the darkest point. 

Luckily, the movie also highlighted the regenerative side of agriculture. The side by side views of fields using regenerative agricultural practices, such as no till, cover crops, no spray were striking. Gabe Brown, an agricultural revolutionary, highlighted both the ecological and economical gains to regenerative agriculture. Farmer Leah Penniman highlighted the racial inequities in modern farming and showed a beautiful example of a small regenerative farm. 

Overall, I hope this movie stirs up the right people who can make better decisions literally from the ground up. Individual farmers can make the choice to switch from spraying the life out of soils to actually helping the ecosystem. Politicians can revise farm bills and incentivize regenerative agriculture, small farms and minority farmers. 

While I have dreams of a beautiful permaculture farm someday, I am not a farmer and I never have worked on a large scale. This movie was eye-opening, but I’m left feeling powerless. I wish there was a little more “punch” to get us non-farmers involved in the movement. I am going to join a CSA this summer and try to buy from small farms. I’m going to buy organic. I’m still left with that feeling, but how can I influence this change on a larger scale? So many of us would do things right if we only had land. 

After the movie showing, our State Conservationist John Wilson, led a presentation on the USDA and NRCS. It’s exciting to see that there is a focus on Regenerative Agriculture at the governmental level and with some funding! I will definitely be looking into the grant opportunities he mentioned as I move forward in my new sustainable agriculture career!

From State Conservationist John Wilson’s presentation. Forest farming is on my mind. 

There are grants available for urban agriculture through NRCS!