'Common Ground' Is A Fascinating Solution To A Global Problem
A refreshing documentary. Common Ground tackles an ongoing problem with our environment in a movie that provides solutions to climate change. The world is ending because our soil is dying thanks to poisoning our fields with glyphosate, also known as Roundup. By using Roundup, our crops are suppressed from the very nutrients they need to keep our farms healthy. Without soil, our environment continues to move toward climate change, which will spell doom for the human race.
That's where Regenerative Farming comes in. With regenerative agriculture, carbon is put in the ground, keeping our soil alive and mitigating climate change. It's an old practice that dates back to the Native American era but was replaced with slavery and destructive farming practices by the colonists. There was a man who gave birth to regenerative farming for the Americans. His name was George Washington Carver, an African-American farmer who discovered a way to get large quantities of nitrogen from the air and return it to the soil. After he died, America used the nitrogen technology of bombs to produce massive amounts of fertilizer into fossil fuels. The way we farm now uses egregious amounts of pesticide to keep the bugs away from farmers' crops, causing our soil to die. We have to care for our environment, or the environment will not care for us.
Shining a beacon of hope, Common Ground provides the information we need to keep our planet alive. The film is a call to action that isn't just telling us we're all going to die but rather how we can survive. The film is like An Inconvenient Truth, except it's not a hopeless PowerPoint presentation. Instead, it's a hopeful, uplifting piece of filmmaking that will leave you angry, fascinated, and optimistic for the future. By practicing regenerative farming, we could help save our species.
The film examines regenerative farming by taking a look at the farmers who have followed the regenerative process. Farmers like Gabe Brown practice regenerative farming, and the results don't lie. When we see how healthy his crops are compared to the farmland just across from him, the results are stunning. Gabe's fields are bright with healthy soil growing green grass, while the farm across from him looks like a desert wasteland.
The film also follows other farmers in America and Mexico who are champions of regenerative farming. By utilizing this system of farming, America puts itself out of debt. $85 billion a year is put towards the farm bill. A huge chunk of that money goes towards agricultural farming corporations while the average farmer struggles to afford their poisonous products. Regenerative farming takes that money away from large corporations and puts $126 billion back into the American's pockets.
Common Ground will leave you enraged, moved, and hopeful. Directors Joshua and Rebecca Harrell Tickell weave an enthusiastic tale that doesn't spell doom and gloom like most environmental documentaries do. The editing brought to the table for the documentary is slick. The film cuts from interviews to Cinéma vérité footage and celebrities narrating the film in their recording booths at a pace that keeps the film feeling fast and electric.
Sometimes, the film can hit the audience too much over the head with star power. The movie utilizes the appearance of Jason Momoa, Laura Dern, Rosario Dawson, and Woody Harrelson to push the movie's agenda. The usage of star power is corny. Do we need to see Laura Dern and Rosario Dawson writing a letter to the audience or Jason Momoa telling the viewer "I love you" while looking directly into the camera? The celebrities make the movie look like a commercial for regenerative farming. Given how it could save us, I have no problem with that.
Some advertisements can be healthy ones that inspire the viewer to do something positive for their community. Common Ground is one of those films that will leave you motivated. It's a film that reaches across the political aisle, showing Democrats and Republicans supporting regenerative farming. The real heroes of the film are the farmers. They're the ones who feed us every day while keeping our environment alive. Common Ground reaches toward the common person, where you don't have to be a die-hard liberal to support the film's cause. All you need to have is a heart, which Common Ground has plenty of.
