Transcript:
Regen Ray: Hello, soil lovers, and welcome to another episode of Secrets of the Soil. Are you ready to get your hands dirty? Recently, I discovered a documentary to which we belong and it blew me away. In fact, I’m going to throw you a little clip of it so you can get a firsthand experience of what that sounds like.
Lindsay: Called Modern Farm Paradigm is put farmers into an arms race
Pamela: in our soils are tired, they’re naked, they’re thirsty, and they’re hungry. We now know that if we optimize the life under the ground, we’ll optimize life above ground. Oh, degradation of the soil is more serious than all the wars
Regen Ray: ever fought, if you thought that was magical, you’re going to be blown away when you hear and watch the full documentary. I can’t recommend this documentary more than enough. We ran a special screening with our soil pro members, and today I’m really delighted to dig deeper with Pamela and Lindsay, who are part of the film crew and creators and executive director directors. Welcome to our soil-loving
Pamela: Thank you. Thank you.
Regen Ray: ExxonMobil, I know that in our community, we left a lot of people really inspired from your documentary. Pamela, I want to ask you what? What was your involvement in this documentary and why did you create it?
Pamela: I was the person who came up with the idea and did most of the initial research, which took a number of years to sort of to give myself plenty of understanding of this field and why it mattered. And Lindsay and I have worked before together, and I talked to her a lot during this period and she talked to me. And then eventually I said, I think I need to make this movie. I’ve made several others. Lindsay’s been part of that along the way. It actually came about that I felt I needed to make it because of a dream that I had, right?
Regen Ray: So super personal and powerful was it wasn’t something that like you woke up and just said, I need to do this or is it like I was
Pamela: dreaming about it for a while? But you know, films are very hard to make and they take a lot of time and money and all of that. So I was not sure I wanted to get back into a new film yet, but I had a dream where I couldn’t breathe and I was outside and I was walking up a very rocky mountainside. And essentially the dream was I couldn’t get my breath. Everything was dry. Desiccated. Wow. And it was scary, and I woke up actually needing to take some deep breaths. Wow. And I had that dream and I had another one where it’s more complicated, but I won’t go into it. But the point is it was visceral well, and I felt like there has to be a new message about what we can do with this climate crisis. And all that I had been reading was giving me the hope. So I thought I got a with, I have to do it.
Regen Ray: That’s yeah. And Lindsay, what was your kind of thought when Pamela said, Let’s do this, I’ve had a dream. Did you have any experiences like that or what? And what’s your involvement in the in the movie?
Lindsay: I definitely was Pam, and I had sort of talked about these ideas, but I remember the first time that I sort of fell in love with the idea of thinking about sort of started with ranching. I think for the conversation Pam and I were having and we were on horseback in Wyoming, and Pam was talking about how she was just so in love with the regenerative agriculture because it brought environmentalists and ranchers and farmers together in a way she had never seen before. And I think we’re both very drawn to stories like that and the sort of Win-Win-Win of it. And I at the same time was very enamored of Bren Smith’s work greenway, of which I was really excited that we were able to bring into the film because I think that it takes these ideas out into the ocean and also sort of expands the footprint of where where we can be doing this great work. And so, yeah, that was I remember that the horseback ride and then just personally getting really excited about Bren Smith’s work. I live in Rhode Island now and on an island right by the ocean. So the ocean is very much in my mind at all. And agricultural lands around here, too.
Regen Ray: But I love that, and I do think that was a great quote where they said, if we can regenerate the soils, why can’t we take those principles and do it out in the oceans and the amount of carbon? And, you know, the business ventures that can occur and especially in Australia, where Big Island, there’s a lot of coastline that we have access to, you know, not having a coastline is almost weird for us. And I find that we that in America, there are states that have no coastline because here it’s we all have. So we are definitely under utilizing our waterways and our oceans for for sequestering carbon and doing some really great initiatives, which was highlighted in the in the documentary. Pamela, how did you find all the talent for the documentary? Was that easy? Did you have a long list of people or did you put a call out and have to sift through lots?
Pamela: I didn’t put a call out. I have a few talents in filmmaking. I can’t, according to my son. I can’t turn on a camera, which is absolutely true. They’re all filmmakers. I I don’t do a lot of the technical. But here’s what I can do. I can conceive of a project, and I’m kind of intuitive about who to find for stories. And, you know, I read books. And so some of the things that I read were Judith Schwartz, the cows will save us Yeah, I think that’s what it’s called. Another one was the soil will say this. Like Chris Watts. I forget her last name. It’s a brilliant, wonderful book. I saw the TED talk by Allan Savory back in 2013 about how we needed livestock to save civilization. And I was. I love people who are working with ideas and overturning common, you know, common thinking. And so I’m very attracted to that kind of self. So I’m a big reader, a big researcher. And gee, I don’t know, just found people along the way. It was really easy. But that’s that’s one thing that’s easy for me.
Regen Ray: But what am I
Pamela: going to have to say? Lindsay told me about Brent Smith five years ago, and she said probably six or seven at this point. I’m like, What’s she doing something with the ocean? But she was so right. So she and I worked together a long time. She brought Brent. Yeah, and he’s really important.
Regen Ray: Yeah, you did an amazing job of storyboarding different types of growers, providers, ranchers that really gave me the experience of like I almost felt transformed onto the farm onto the paddock and I was walking with with everyone. And so I really, you know, kudos to you for creating that kind of, you know, in real life experience, especially when we’re going through COVID. And for me, the movie was a little bit of an escapism. It’s like, let me lose myself in this, you know, 90 minute documentary of talking about soil and farming, but it was so much more than that. One of the stories that really hit home to me was the family that, you know, let all their kids go off and then come back when they were ready. And so they could go out and experience the world and then really come back. And the way that that family all worked together in one enterprise’s waste was another enterprise’s input. It was just so holistic. Lindsay, can you talk to that experience of that farm family and you know, the impact that that had when you were putting it together because I’m assuming a lot of stuff had to get cut out? So what made that, you know, a story? Stay in?
Lindsay: So actually, we were very lucky. We didn’t film with anyone that we we ended up cutting. We did do pre interviews with people, but we kept all of our stories. Obviously, you can’t keep everything that you shoot with the family, but the James Ranch was one of those early families that fell in love with. She initially met them at a Kabera conference, which is a ranching coalition out based out of Albuquerque or Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sorry. And the James family was just this wonderful. It was our first shoot that we did. And it was very it was great because it was kind of where we wanted to get it. The viewer, in some ways like this is 30 years down the road, multigenerational different enterprises working together. And so the challenge of capturing that it’s a film maker is, OK, how do you invite people in to all of these pieces of it without that being just the whole film itself? So it was sort of a way of getting those textural elements that you were talking about and making it feel connected, but also we needed to build history into that piece of it. So, you know, we worked with the family to collect archival photos from them so that we were able to build that story backwards. And you could feel, OK, this is where this family came from, when things didn’t look as great as they are now, and it was a bit of a struggle. And then coming to where where you saw them in the film. And, you know, I think had the pandemic not happened, we would have probably returned to see their restaurant open, which was their kind of like pinnacle moment. And we were able to talk about it in the film. But because of not being able to travel, we didn’t get to return to see. And I think Pam and I are probably still hoping to get back there. Pam, especially to eat their delicious burger and I love their cheese
Pamela: hamburgers I’ve ever tasted in my life. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Raised on high mountain grasses. Really amazing. Yeah.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I think that’s a, you know, a great. Example of what everyone aspires, and I think what you did a great job of is that it’s not an overnight success. Some people feel like they buy something and it’s magical the next day and there is a lot of hard work. There’s a lot of effort, there’s a lot of possibly, you know, not seen eye to eye and having to prove, especially in the regenerative space. You know, someone who’s farmed for many generations can be like, Well, my grandfather did it this way and my father did it this way, and we’re going to keep doing it this way, you know, so being able to really show a family that has gone, you know, pivoted a little bit and changed the way, but just so magical, bringing all the children back onto the farm at their own will, you know, it wasn’t any kind of like, well, you know, forced succession planning, like, you have to take over this farm. You could just tell that everyone wanted to be there and was so excited about their little mini enterprise that they were doing on the farm. And it just so, so great to say and very inspiring. And that’s what I felt the movie did a great job of is feeling you like there is hope I could do this. What’s next for me where there is a lot of documentaries that are a bit doom and gloom? And if we don’t change, are all hitting a brick wall? Pam, how did you help that narrative to not be doom and gloom and really stick on that positive
Pamela: when I am so tired of films that give you all the bad news and they do it with this notion that they’re informing us, OK? It’s a kind of solace. I think it’s false to do that because here’s the thing. Yeah, we’re in a sort of situation right now that we need to get out of quickly. But what is the point of just going on and on and on about how bad it is? I don’t. I don’t want to watch that. So when I began to see that there are solutions that can be applied around the world and already, even though regenerative farming is only five percent, I think of the world’s farming at this point. It’s just taking off. In the last few years, it’s gone, you know, even more so. So it is a way for us to actually address climate crises. So I had to make, you know, I want to I can’t. I make cultural films. What can I say? But the other thing is we have a narrative that is doom and gloom, and it’s just half the story. There are things that have been happening for 30 years that are miraculous and wonderful, but we don’t see them. So I was intent on that. I was also intent on not having a tiny little farm that’s pristine and beautiful because a lot of people seem to think that you can do regenerative on a plot of land that so few hectares or a few acres, but not on large scale. And I wanted to make this film to show all that’s not true. It can happen on five acres or an acre in Kenya or on 10000 acres, and you get soy, corn and wheat, which is the most common in, you know, large scale farms in this country. It works wherever you are, and it works whether you’re a traditional quote unquote conventional farmer or one who’s, you know, trying some experimental things.
Regen Ray: I love that it’s such a big misconception, and I agree that, you know, it’s, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, that’s cute, it’s for the little hobbyist farmer. And then you started to see so many more case studies. And here in Australia, we have a company called Soils for Life, and a whole purpose is to document and create case studies from people who are repairing and healing the soils. And so I still meet people who like, show me, tell me the proof. And that’s why I got really excited about the documentary because I was like, Go watch this. This will give you the proof. If you’re not inspired after this movie, then it’s you, not us. You know, it’s because this just takes you through that paradigm shift. I remember in our classroom one of the responses from our members was, this is just common sense. It’s a no brainer. Like, why are we not all farming this way? Like, it feels like it’s a no brainer. And so we’ve thrown the word around about regenerative Lindsay. I want to know what your kind of definition. And it doesn’t have to be the official one. But what is regenerative mean to you when you hear the word?
Lindsay: I mean, I think I’m going to borrow from Judith here, where, you know, it’s repairing cycles, it’s repairing nutrient cycles, carbon cycles and water cycles that have been thrown out of whack by things we’ve done. So I feel like regeneration is is that it’s repairing those cycles and the way you do that is working with nature rather than against it.
Regen Ray: Yeah. Get out of the way, Pamela. Do you want to add anything to that or echo it?
Pamela: Yes. We have a mindset that we’ve been we think if we break things down, that we can understand a problem and work that way. This regenerative practices are a little bit more complex because everything is interconnected. So if you get it, but if you start with the soil and feed the microbial life of the soil by drawing down more carbon through photosynthesis, by having more diverse plants on the ground. And that requires cattle moving across the, you know, the grasslands very quickly. It requires certain things. We do not think of the soil in this country, and I think it’s probably the same in Australia as a living medium in the last 60 70 years. So we’ve been under a different mindset. The mindset was add chemicals, stir and grow food now. So it’s a new way of looking at things. But it does echo a an older way, and we can even say we owe a lot to the indigenous populations around the world for farming and looking at their ways of doing things. But now the science backs that up. So that’s what this film is really about. So it’s regenerating the Earth.
Regen Ray: Yeah, and definitely my biggest thing is that we need to regenerate the soul and spirit in the mind, and then everything on the field becomes a lot easier because the paradigm shift changes. And your documentary just really highlights sort of like putting a new lens on and going, Wow, I didn’t know that this could be an outcome of the way that these farmers are farming. Lindsay, when you were watching the content, was there something that you just saw in you like this needs to stay in the field like it is such a big aha moment? Do you have any of those kind of those feelings?
Lindsay: I mean, I’m really in the film, I mean, I’m going to pass that on to Pam because they don’t have an immediate one on the top of my story, one for you,
Pamela: Lindsey and I and our editor, who is Nancy C. Kennedy? And she’s quite brilliant at storytelling, big stories, big ideas out of mind. What’s your what’s yours?
Lindsay: Oh, I just thought of one that I really thought to keep in the film, which is a very quiet moment. But Malloy, at the end of the film, is working with her dad to move. She she heard she . She learned how to move cattle with her dad and her pet projects. Pet Farm Project is a ranch project, is having her own sheep, and he’s teaching her how to move the sheep. And I, you know, there’s this quiet moment where she’s like, So what do I do now, dad? And he asks, What do you do now? And she’s like, Do we push him through? And he’s like, No, we wait. And just the quietude in that moment and that kind of transfer of knowledge between generations and I think there is that for me is quite a metaphor for a little bit for what regenerative AG is, which is this waiting not not in a passive way, but allowing nature to help you do the repair that’s needed to her soils. And so that moment, while it’s quiet and like where our wonderful composer helped us, you know, have the viewers sort of be there with Malloy and Nancy’s editing getting the clothes off? Like there’s ways we brought the viewer in to feeling that moment, but that definitely for me, I remember that happening. And just like it took my breath away. I was like, This is this is what we need to try to get people to understand about how this is a different way of practicing agriculture than, you know, cowboys whipping their animals and, you know, huge tractors wrecking You know, it’s a different thing.
Pamela: And yeah, yeah, we Lindsay and I talk a lot about what we’re doing, of course. And both of us are we’re trying to get a a movie that was more or less about man against nature. And let’s fight the big fight and all of these things, which is hard because that’s what all of our dramas are about. You know, we’re all going to win, who’s going to lose? So this film is trying to give you a different view of life, which is less push, more weight with an understanding that nature has the ability to regenerate. It’s not all on us. It’s actually a very if you can embrace it, it’s an easier way to farm and to ranch. Yeah, yeah.
Regen Ray: Move out of the way.
Lindsay: I think there’s one other moment that I really felt like was important to understand. It’s like the question of like why people change their mind to do this. And I, you know, Alejandro and mentorship like the importance of mentorship. And so Alejandro and also made us standing at the fence kind of like talking about how he is like the person that made it possible for Alejandro to do this. And he is the person who can always call on the phone and then sort of talking about like, what? Why do you make this change? And it’s because you’re like, is broken and there’s from that from that need to repair really beautiful things can happen. And so like I remember when I was actually at a dinner with shoes, Olmedo, when he told that story, the first like the being broken piece and it broke like I teared up. It’s like it’s very emotional for me that that sense of where, where do we, as humans decide to make a change from? And it’s kind of like a universal, but it obviously relates to the agenda that I wasn’t 100 percent.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I had that same moment and I wrote down notes when we’re watching it. And the word broken is here on my notes and circle because it just hit me. It’s like, we don’t need to wait until we are broken to make change. You know, we can be preventative. And the documentary started with a word was like, I’m tired, you know, the father was tired running it that way. And you know, we there was this sense of like everyone doing it non-regeneratively was exhausted and tired, and the dirt was tired, dusty and hungry. Like these, with some of the key words that really stood out to me and I went, That is the depiction that we need to show through voice and through imagery. Because what happens in Old MacDonald’s farm, in the kids book where everything’s green and lush and nice work in tractors isn’t the reality, you know? And to your point, before as well, Pamela is like, We are in a system where. We graded against each other, you either pass or you fail, you do good and there’s a scale and in rigidity, I find that that’s less. It’s like if we’re moving in the right step, whether it be spiritually, you know, mentally on the farm, off the farm, that is all positive signs, you know? So working together and being connected is just searher you know, it’s why we wake up every morning because this year we changed our avatar in the business to say we don’t wake up for the farmer or the food provider or the grower. We wake up for the soil. It’s a living organism, and there’s no reason why it can’t be our avatar and why we wake up every day to make soil better today than it was yesterday.
Lindsay: Yeah. And just just a shout out to, you know, films get made with teams. And I think part of what lets the viewer for this film into connecting with the soil and connecting with nature is our amazing crew. Mike Jones did our sound and we did a lot of field recordings, so it just made me think of it like tired soils and like hearing dry earth has its own feel. And then Jerry Risius are two amazing drone operators visually allowed you into these landscapes and into these people’s homes and into, you know, Jerry Recesses grew up on a farm in Iowa is one of the reasons we wanted to work with them as our cinematographer and also shot all of Anthony Bourdain shows, so has lots of experience shooting all over the world. Beautiful things, but he is completely at peace in a herd of a thousand animals. And like, there’s not a lot of like you as a viewer, get to have that texture and that intimacy with families, with the livestock, with the land, with the dung beetle. And that’s all because of, you know, the amazing crew that we got to work with on this project.
Pamela: So it’s really amazing. Yeah, yeah.
Regen Ray: And one of the principles of regenerative is biodiversity. You know, it’s just as much as biodiversity of people, the team, the talent, the mindset, the thinking, the ideas, the brainstorming that all matters, you know, and so many farms operate in silo, you know, they just do their thing. And I think everyone’s on the same page and it’s not enough talking and collaborating. And that’s why we were running this podcast to give the, you know this our soil lovers a voice for our soil. And so we’re going to take a quick break. But when we get back, I want to know where the name of the documentary came from. So if you’re joining us at the moment, we’re talking about the documentary to which we belong. We’ll be right back after this break. Alright, soil lovers, you’re hanging out with regen ray Pamela and Lindsay, we’re talking about the amazing documentary to which we belong. I’m super curious, where did the name come from? And I know the answer. This is a little bit of a loaded question, so I I’d love to hear what the story behind it, Pamela, over to you first.
Pamela: All right. Well, I had name this film Land Water Sky. I thought that was very concrete, very visual on and on. Lindsay said. So late in the day, actually, she came across the quote It’s by Aldo Leopold, who is an early 20th-century agronomist. I guess you’d call him an environmentalist. He’s still red. He’s brilliant, but she came across that and it encapsulated the relationship that we were really trying to show in this film much more deeply. And I cannot for the life of me, remember the whole quote, Lin Lindsay? I just I just looked it
Lindsay: up because I know I can never remember.
Pamela: So I can’t either. I don’t know why
Lindsay: we abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us when we see land as a community to which we belong. We may begin to use it with love and respect. And so for me, what I did, I liked land, water, and I think it’s a beautiful title. But I think what this film is about is about people reconnecting to the land and that there is a role for us in doing that. And so we need to both remember our connection to the land, but also like be be part of the ecosystem rather than like this totalitarian force imposing our will upon it. And so that’s the feeling I was trying to find in a new title where we were in it. But it was it was about a relationship rather than so. And that same phrase actually comes up in another quote that I love as well. So it was also one of those things. When I saw it twice, I was like, That might be the winner. But the
Regen Ray: song lovely. And I do admit that throughout the documentary it was. I believe it’s at the end, and that’s like a little like a ha moment. It’s like comes up and you’re like, That’s where it comes from. As a market, I was a little bit honestly confused about it. But then it. Penny dropped and I went, awesome, this is, you know, why we need to make content like this is, you know, one the soul lovers listening to like piqued the interest and go, this is a documentary that is on the top of my bucket list, you know, and we felt so connected with that. As a community, we made it home, work for our members to watch it and then come back and talk about our key learnings. And there are a lot of tears in that room because it just hit hard to what people want to see the world as a better place and as a more wholesome, connected understanding. And one of the things that I took from David Edinburgh’s witness statement on Netflix was the fact that when humans left Chernobyl, even though it was so toxic for humans to go there, nature came back, its wildlife was there. Trees were growing through the building. And that just proves to the point that if we get out of the way and work with nature and stop controlling it, it will heal, you know, and it will repair in your your, you know, your storytelling of all these farmers who had all different types of land, which is what really, you know, sometimes we share case studies now all that’s OK for them there in tropical. Oh, that’s OK for them. They got their land handed to them. Oh, that’s OK for them. They got a, you know, a funding to buy the land and your documents. You just said it doesn’t matter whether you’re a first nation indigenous, whether you’re, you know, family run business or whether you’re a solo piano or you’re going to go and farm the waterways and the oceans, there is a story that can hit your heart from a regenerative point of view.
Pamela: Yeah, that was actually a very important piece of the documentary. I wanted to show that you can do regenerative ranching in the Chihuahuan desert, which is dry, doesn’t get any rain passed two months a year. You have to grow grasses for the rest of the year. And he was Alejandro Carrillo who we’d met at a conference early on. Is an amazing guy, kind of magical. He’s beautifully spoken, but he increases herd size three times in nine years. He’s growing, you know, he’s running three times more cattle. So that’s a desert. And then you have high mountain, you know, like Paradise Valley in Montana, that’s pretty dry. Also very high. And then you have Kenya. You have the small plot farmers at the head of the waterway. That’s wet, wet, wet. So, you know, we we wanted I wanted to make sure people aren’t going to give me that argument or they weren’t going to be able to take make that argument. You know, and I feel and then, you know, Nebraska’s one of my favorite stories the two brothers to have the cover seed business on green cover seeds. They’re just regular farmers, this third fourth generation. And they grow corn, soybeans and wheat. And yet they are 100 percent behind regenerative practices. And they actually have a seed business of cover crops. And they’re doing really well with that and they’re spreading the word. So we got all types.
Regen Ray: Yeah, and I love that, you know, the fact that the farming enterprise that maybe was doing cattle is now doing a seed business. And what I loved about that story was the fact that they were doing bespoke seed mixes that were really understanding the soil profile your climate, you know, your goals for the business, like what are you trying to achieve? And so this is the seed mix. It’s not off the shelf, one size fits all. You know, again, it’s an attention to detail that being still observing seeding with nature. What is the business out goals? What’s the land out in outcomes? And let’s build a bespoke seed mix. It’s going to work for your enterprise. And that’s you know what I see over and over in this regenerative space. And that’s why I keep getting more excited to dig deeper into our soils and give it a voice. You know, Lindsay, did you want to say something about what we were just talking about?
Lindsay: It just occurred to me that we wanted to include some. Obviously, we have Nicole Masters from New Zealand, but I know most of your audience is in Australia, and I just wanted to have her talk about Charles Massey and also Pam, and for getting that wonderful gentleman’s name who has passed away. But had he really spoke about like the emotional connection to it and we watched this YouTube video he did, and I was actually going to take me, if I can, to keep Q level.
Pamela: But he did a video five billion hectares and helped wonderful India, and he died unexpectedly about two years ago. He was part of the Savory Institute family and Tony Lovell. Was it
Lindsay: Tony level? Yeah, Tony Lovell. So yeah, that’s his name. He my brother lives in Australia. There’s part of me that wishes for the pandemic. We could have come. Wanted to go because I know you guys are you have a huge need to do repair to your soil, so get de certified rather rapidly. But also there’s some very inventive thinkers in your country, obviously, and we like Tony Lovell was doing a sort of slow money and figuring out how to support ranchers that were transitioning to regenerative AG and had a slightly longer timeline for capital. And I don’t know. Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of amazing innovation in Australia. You know, we can’t put everything in stone, but there’s part of me that wishes we could have that.
Pamela: We also I personally love Charles Moss Massey. I’ve only, you know, I’ve got his towel. I will read every single bit of it, even though I’m a pretty big reader. But it’s again what we were trying to do in this film is show how you can actually do this no matter what. Very science based. But let’s not forget that this is really about the interconnection of humans to the land and to each other. Also, and respect, it’s about respect and fun. People have fun doing this, but that’s
Regen Ray: the thing that I see so often is when people go down these regenerative spaces like I’m getting time back and I’m getting clarity and I’m getting, you know, they’re around less inputs that are causing other health issues. And it’s just so pure and and it’s a school full of light and clean energy. And I just, you know, I said, you going, What are we doing? Why are we waiting for the science to catch up when it feels like the right thing to do, it makes common sense. Or it’s like. Of course, we’d want our land to look green, lush and, you know, full of life as opposed to a desert dust bowl. And Lindsay, I’m glad you can see that our land is degraded because a lot of the farmers here in Australia are turning a blind eye to it. And you know, I think unfortunately, sometimes we live in a system where we need droughts to exist. So that way there is a drought relief fund, you know, and there’s no drought prevention fund. And you know, sometimes you know, those things are stuck between red tape and bureaucracy and feeding the system. So that way, you know, flood, you know, relief funds are existing. And I always question whether sometimes these grants are motivated in keeping the problem going so they can renew their funding. And that’s a topic on it on its own. So I’m glad you can say that our our land is degrading and we very much feel the same as well. I want to know if there was anything you, Lindsay really touched on this that you would maybe like to add a bit more of an Australian voice on to the documentary. Pamela, is there anything that you would have liked to add, edit, delete or modify? Not saying that it’s not perfect already, but you know, in hindsight or feedback from the audience, has it been anything?
Pamela: No, actually, no. I’m really happy with this. You know, it would be interesting. Now the only thing I could say, and I’m going to shoot myself for even saying it, but it’s a very dense film. It’s about, you know, many different themes. If you’re not, if you’re not a rancher or a farmer, it can be done. So to do shorts, you know, to do a series on people who are doing this kind of ranching so that people can see a little bit at a time could be really interesting. And at the same time, I am a real science geek, I think, and I’d like to have had a few more charts in there to show how successful this is, and I would have had a number of cattle now running or X instead of Y, and I would have had a lot more of the numbers. I like numbers. But you know, there’s only so much you can do now, and I love it.
Regen Ray: Lindsay, did you have an idea?
Lindsay: Yeah, I. Another piece that I would have loved to get in on the film. But again, we were speaking to a brilliant woman and her father in I think it was North Dakota. I can’t remember whose North or South Dakota, but she was part of the Lakota tribe and was doing great work with the Bison. And I think for me, it was wonderful to get the Maasai and sort of the indigenous knowledge into this. But I think a lot of regenerative agriculture is really just a return
Pamela: to
Lindsay: a knowledge that that is stored in maybe alternative archives. But I think for me, that’s a piece that if we had had more flexibility to travel and more time to unpack, and maybe it’s another film, but that that connection to indigenous knowledge being the root of all of this in some ways, is something that I would like to honor and wish we could have. It’s in the film, but it’s not that I would have loved to have more of it. And so my guess is all I’m saying.
Regen Ray: Yeah, and I was going to bring that. Also, Pam, you
Pamela: know, I was I we felt that we both wanted that very much one of the bison. We wanted the indigenous populations who were working with bison, it was a big thing that we wanted to have in the film. The unfortunate thing was the it was difficult and we had to cope. We couldn’t travel and it was, you know, it was a little bit difficult because of culture clash. I think just slightly there was more and more people we would have to go through to work with that population and we wanted to do that. But we well, we when we began to go down the path, then cocaine we didn’t have, we couldn’t do it.
Regen Ray: Yeah, just an extra
Lindsay: and just a shout out. I know you do screening of other films. I don’t know if you’ve screened together as part of your. But that’s a that’s a nice film that speaks to that.
Regen Ray: I’ve actually had all been mentioned before. It’s yeah. Is that following a female character? And that’s kind of going from community.
Lindsay: There’s sort of three different stories, but there is like a leading female.
Regen Ray: Yeah, yeah. And I’ve heard
Lindsay: it could be an interesting thing to share with your audience.
Regen Ray: Yeah, lovely. So I just want to know what’s next. Is there a another part of this? Is it getting it on Netflix? Is that part of the goal or are you wanting to distribute it more in the community? So two questions there.
Pamela: Well, two things. One is right now we’re doing festivals, which is always the first step. Festivals, unfortunately, are difficult because they’re they’re they’re on, they’re off. Nobody goes whatever is just covid, that’s difficult. And by the way, this film is really part of the reason we have COVID is because we’ve entered too many wilderness areas with our farming and our technology. So excuse me, let’s bring that to the fore also. I agree. But the thing that’s going on were we have a distributor and a sales agent. We were trying to get it onto various platforms to they. I’d love to be on Netflix, Netflix and Amazon are where people go to to watch things. The interesting thing is, in the last year, their policies have changed so that they’re not that interested in individual independent films. Hmm. So a little blip there. We’re not sure what we’ll do, but it will. It’s getting out. People are hearing about it. I think it will have a very good run stupidly.
Regen Ray: Lindsay, Part two Any thoughts on you kind of alluded that maybe there’s another part. Is that just an idea? Or would you have the energy to do another one?
Lindsay: I think we are in this. It’s a lot more exhausting than people know to actually get a film out into the world. So I’ve know Pam is percolating on a film about trees. We do love trees. I think there’s a film maybe I would like to think about. You know, it may not be another film. It may be a physical place to gather people around these ideas. I don’t know. Yeah.
Regen Ray: Well, I love the idea of having two shorts and like, you know, mini mini movies. And you know, yeah, I think, you know, sometimes even with the amount of attention span that people have or time that they have, you know, a 15 minute bite size could be the punch that I need to get thinking a bit differently. That opens the door to, you know, going down that path through that rabbit hole deeper.
Lindsay: And I’m really excited right now and thinking about how do you get young people engaged with these? And I’ve just been going on like a thought journey about what what would a camp look like that involves, you know, not only climate activism? And is it teaching kids about like what they can be doing in their schools, but also exposing them to these types of agriculture or these types of practices, young and maybe kids, not from farming communities, but urban kids who are seeing, OK, what is ocean farming look like? What does regenerative agriculture look like on the farm or ranch? Or, you know, also solar panel? And so like keeping young people in conversation with these things that are going to save our planet in a in a kind of hands-on way, something that appeals to me, but I don’t. But I’m obviously a filmmaker at heart, so I want to be a film or a campfoot .
Pamela: Both Lindsay and i are quiet activists. And one thing that concerns me is so much of our work is divorced from our life. You know, we do a lot of things on the computers, and it’s all electronic all the time. So getting people outside, not just for recreation. Up for work is, for me, something that I’d like to see happen more. But I’m not sure if that’s a film or what. Yeah.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I think Covid’s definitely shaken that whole nine to five sitting in an office in a major city regime. And maybe that is the start of something like you said before. You know, COVID may be the, you know, wakeup call that we need it and we need to not point the finger and say, it’s this. It’s all of us that have kind of contributed to where we are today. I want to ask our signature question Are you ready to become the voice of our soils?
Pamela: That’s excellent.
Regen Ray: I’ll go with Lindsay first. I know you’re going to have some time to think. If you were the voice of our soils, I want you to embody yourself as the soil and and the soil now has a mouth. What would you say to us on Earth?
Lindsay: I think you would say, you know, connect with me in in in the way that you’re able to in your life. And so I’m thinking of my soils that are right outside my window here. And for me, I’m rewilding my yard and basically moving away from a lawn and planting perennials. And that’s I’m trying to connect with my soil and understand that diversity in the soil means diversity in what I see above ground. And you know, since this project that looks pretty crazy above ground, you know, I had hundreds of dragonflies come through as part of their migration, and I’ve had snakes and turtles and deer and bunnies and just the abundance of wildlife that has come into my yard in my small way of connecting to my soils and caring for them. And, you know, doing my version of a cover up, which is my I needed to fix some nitrogen in an area that had grasses. So I planted a diversity of grasses that I brought in micro clover. And so I think just listening, listening to me, I should find the soil. And, you know, getting your hands be like finding a connection, a physical connection
Regen Ray: of that,
Pamela: Pamela feed me. Just please feed me, give me all kinds of different root systems delivering carbon in different ways. Feed me, plant. Let the dandelions grow, let the clover grow, let the tall grass grow. Just the more the more diverse your plants on the ground, the more diverse you’re what Alejandro calls the micro underground, and the more diverse that is, the richer the soil, the healthier plants that are grown and the healthier that they will feed. It’s a it’s a feed me I’m starving
Lindsay: Things feed me, but not chemicals
Pamela: feed me with plant
Lindsay: diversity.
Pamela: Yeah, of plant matter and growing plants. The more roots you have on the ground from different plants, the more. And also what I think is a miracle. Oh, I’m so dry. I’m not kidding. I’m not able to hold the water. Please put more. If the more different plants you have on, the more carbon gets into the soil and then the more you’re able to hold the water and that’s going to repair the water cycle that is broken. There you go.
Regen Ray: Yeah, lovely. And that’s why when we watched it, everyone was like, This is a no brainer. Why would we not do this? So, you know, I really love that, you know, listen to me, connect with me and feed me, and I love that. So, so lovers, the documentary we’re talking about is called to which we belong. Pamela, how can people hang around with you more and watch a trailer and watch this wonderful movie?
Pamela: Well, we have a website that is also pretty informative. We put a lot of articles from all over the world on that, and that is ah, to which we belong dot com. And our trailer is also on that website. So it’s to which we belong. com. If you want to have a screening with your community, you can buy a license and it’s fairly simple. You just buy a license from our distributor, which is, you know, you contact us on the website and we hope that’s how people are going to see the film in community with each other farm communities, ranching, communities, virtual communities right now around the world so that they can get inspired, ask questions, learn from the film and be able to discuss it. So those are two ways right now. Awesome.
Lindsay: Also on our website, you can or we have Instagram, Facebook and Twitter that you can connect with and. And also, for people who are looking for even more stuff, there is in the about section at the bottom, there’s a dropdown for short videos that were sort of you were asking what are some of the things that didn’t make it into the film? There’s just four shorts that are just like a little bit more on some of these important topics. And also on our website, you can sign up for our newsletter, which we tell people once a month. You know, we we have different themes each month, and for anyone that’s interested in this topic, that’s a great resource to stay connected with what the film’s doing. But more than anything, we’re trying
Pamela: to
Lindsay: add, like your podcast will be featured on it once once this podcast is released. So things like that kind of aggregate aggregating knowledge and the generative ag and what we’re reading, what podcasts we’re into, what we’re watching.
Pamela: So what’s happening? So you in pop 26 what kind of COP? I’m sorry. Not I’m tired. See sticks in Scotland, you know, things like that.
Regen Ray: Yeah, awesome. Well, it sounds like you definitely got your finger on the pulse and kudos to you. I know I’ve been through that buying a license process, and I really encourage soul lovers out there. One. Watch the documentary Secondly, think about how you can make an impact in your community and host a screening. I know it’s hard with COVID, but we can all be clever and we can all do virtual stuff. We can, you know, we’re starting to come out of lockdown and so forth. So hopefully by the time you listen to this, we’re already out of it. All that. And we’re back into the physical world and running events. I really encourage you to be the impact and be the change that you want to want to see. Pamela and Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on to the show today and hanging out with our soul lovers and talking about the magical movie and documentary that you’ve put together to which we belong.
Pamela: Thank you
Lindsay: so much. Yeah, thank you so much, Ray. Really appreciate it.
Pamela: Thank you all your soul. You’re all you saw there. It’s a good community that you’re in.
Regen Ray: Yeah, I love it.
Lindsay: I feel I just have to say it was such a joy. Pam and I both we live in different states, but we both watched the soil lovers classroom that you did. And you know, it’s it’s a time when we don’t get to be in community with their audience as much as we’d like. And so hearing their responses and what they connected to was really meaningful to me and to Pam and all our other producers. So thank you, soil lovers for connecting with our film and for what you were doing out there in the world.
Regen Ray: Excellent. There you go. soil lovers , if you want to watch that replay of our virtual classroom, it’s on the Saw Learning Center dot com. And throughout this podcast, we mentioned links and books. They will all be around the audio experience. Or if you’re watching on the Saw Lovers Learning Center, then you will see us and see all the nods of heads that we’re going by. I want to finish off with a little quote that I got from the documentary, which was cows will save the world, but it’s because of the grass, you know? And I think that really just turns the paradigm to not blame the cow so that you guys, all of us get on to the documentary. It’s a hoot and a half and you will love it. You’ll be inspired. And that was as soon as I watched this, we had to buy a license. We had to get everyone on the show, and I sent that email out so quickly to say, Hey, we just did this and was so magical. And if you want to relive that, it’s on the soil learning dot com. I’m region, right? Get outside, get your hands dirty. Start listening to the soil. Start connecting with it and feed it until next time. Stay curious.
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