June 2, 2024 • 14 mins
Original Air Date: June 2, 2024
Are you sick of cows getting much of the blame for climate change? You gotta check out “Roots So Deep” at Rootssodeep.org to learn about how cows can be part of the climate change solution. Peter Byck of “Carbon Nation” fame directed this series, which is so revealing!
Are you sick of cows getting much of the blame for climate change? You gotta check out “Roots So Deep” at Rootssodeep.org to learn about how cows can be part of the climate change solution. Peter Byck of “Carbon Nation” fame directed this series, which is so revealing!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Peter Vick, who isthe director of Ruthso Deep. And let
me just tell you, I happento love cows, and I am so
(00:23):
sick of cows being demonized, asyou know, the enemies of our climate,
right Peter, Peter's Ruthso Deep,which is a four parter, actually
shows the cows could be the heroesof climate change. I can't tell you,
Peter how much I love this.So explain I mean, because it's
(00:48):
it's kind of complicated and it hasto do with farming, but it is
absolutely fascinating and by the way,you can see it now at ruthsodeep dot
org. And I'm going to repeatthat several times during this conversation because this
is something you have to see ifyou're concerned about the environment, or if
(01:08):
like me, you love cows.Yeah, and so if you think about
the bison, they covered North Americabefore the Spanish came over in fourteen ninety
two, and there was no methanespike. There was no climate change problem
back then because of all those animalsburping methane, because it was in a
natural balance. And so what thesefarmers that were finding are doing is they're
(01:32):
taking their cattle and replicating the waythe bison moved across the Great Plains,
but doing it in a much muchsmaller space. So the bison all moved
and a herd, they would eathalf the forage, stomp the rest down,
cools, the cools the soil keepsthe soil moist, and they moved
(01:52):
on. And so the farmers aremoving their animals quickly, so they only
get time to eat half, theystomp the rest down, and they move
on. So the farms, mostof the farms are resting most of the
time. So it's bison biomemicry isthe fun name that I've heard. So
what you did with this four parterwas basically compare conventional farming and this other
(02:17):
type of farming that's called AMP.So that's adaptive multi paddock YEP, adapting
multi paddock farming. So those paddocks, So if you imagine a field,
say a farm's one thousand acres,you break your farm down with these little
electric wires they're super easy to moveinto an acre size paddock. And you
(02:39):
do that over the whole growing season, your animals moved two, three,
four times a day. They're gettingfresh food all the time. Much healthier
for the animals, much healthier forthe grasslands, which co evolved with grazing
animals, and so it's using natureat its best. And really what happens
is when the animals eat half theforage and then they leave, that plant
(03:04):
wants to grow. And when thatplant grows back, it shoots roots really
deep into the soil because it's likea mirror. And then it's just sucking
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere andthe plant takes in the carbon dioxide,
burps out the oxygen for us,and sends the carbon down into the soil
where it is the food for allthe microbes down there. And that's the
(03:28):
engine for a healthy grassland is arich microbial community, and that microbial community
is made of carbon. It's eatingcarbon, it's feeding the plant nutrients,
it's making sure the plant can't getsick. And it's that balance of what's
happening above ground with the manure fromthe animals, the urine from the animals
(03:49):
and then the photosynthesis from the plantssucking down CO two, giving us oxygen
given the microbes or carbon. That'sthe cycle. And the way we've been
grazing the last hundreds of years iswe put a fence around a big area,
we let the animals eat wherever theywant, and we've broken that cycle
completely. And so these farmers realize, hey, guess what we can We
(04:11):
can actually do this. We canactually go back to like the oldest way
of grazing and get this going andsave our farms, save our farms,
save our soil, produce wildlife habitat, get ourselves out of debt. It's
it's pretty remarkable with this type offarming. You don't the farmers don't need
fertilizer. They don't. The animalsare the fertilizer. So yes, they
(04:32):
do need fertilizer. It's called poopand urine. That's the natural and they're
not paying for it. So howmany farmers are what percentage of farmers would
you say, are using this?And then I'm sure other farmers are going
to be highly skeptical. It takesa lot to get someone to change,
(04:53):
right, and farmers are conservative andthey've got generations of knowledge being passed down.
So yeah, it's a big dealto change. But what we're realizing
now with the risks of where oursoils are at right now, which is
in really bad shape. Whether you'reworried about climate change or not, you're
certainly seeing big raine events next tobig droughts. You can have a flood
(05:14):
and the drought almost in the sameweek these days. And so it's what
we're saying to farmers is we thinkit's riskier not to change than it is
to change. Like risk change isa risk, right, but we're saying
we think it's riskier if you don'tchange, and we're using science. So
we have this whole project is aboutscience. It's about measuring both sides of
(05:36):
the fence, the adaptive side,the conventional side, measuring all these metrics
carbon, nitrogen, bugs, birds, Are the animals healthier or the farmers
healthier? All greenhouse gases? Sothen we just show the farmers here's what's
happening on that side of the fence, and here's what's happening on your side
(05:56):
of the fence. And that's thebig question for our series is can we
help create change that's a big questionfor a whole project. And again you
can see Ruth so deep at ruthsodeepdot org. That's ruthsodep dot org.
If you care about the environment,if you care about animals, I mean,
(06:18):
if you care about the earth,and if you're interested in farming,
I mean I have my own little, you know, farm going. I
mean it's not a farm farm,but I have nine beds and so yeah,
I'm very very interested in you know, growing my own and growing my
(06:40):
own organically. And like I said, so what is it about cows.
I don't think we know enough aboutcows Peter Bick because to me, they
seem so intelligent. There is intelligence. Yeah. I had a farmer tell
me that when storms like, thefarmers know who's the mom, who's the
(07:02):
children of the mom, and who'sthe grandmom of the mom. You know,
you know the lineage, that thecattle will will actually organize themselves in
family units when a big storm comes. That was one thing a farmer showed
me. And another thing that theanimals know what to do, Like if
a good healthy pasture will have onehundred different plants growing in it, fifty
(07:27):
different types of plants, growing init. And what another mistake we've made
over the years is we have thesefields of one or two different types of
grasses and that's it. It's likea monoculture or just two things growing.
But on these healthy systems, withall these different things growing, the animals
will pick and choose exactly what theyneed. The science on that is very
(07:48):
clear. There's a guy named FredPravenza who's done work for decades, so
he shows that the animals know exactlywhat they need to eat that day at
that time to balance out their needsof protein and all the other stuff they
want. It's they know what toeat. He says that we should have
that in our instinct. But ifwe're only given processed foods all the time,
(08:11):
we can't even express that. Andso do we as humans? Have
we cut that cord of knowledge ofwhat's best for us? And that's a
that's a big question. So it'sinteresting in the in part one, you're
looking at two neighbors. I mean, you know, virtually their land could
(08:33):
be the same, but you haveone who is the amp farmer, and
then the other the traditional farmer.And even the farmer who's the amp farmer,
he doesn't believe in climate change.So you said, I don't care
if you don't care about climate change, because this is just this is saving
money, and this is increasing productivity, and this is so doesn't and Shelley,
(09:01):
he is solving climate change whether hecares about it or not. But
it was just interesting to me thathe just very skeptical. Yeah, very
skeptical. A lot of farmers I'vemet. We probably vote differently, right,
but we can spend all day longand all week long talking about soil
health. And that really is whatI've noticed being out in the country,
(09:22):
the US specifically for a decade anda half. Now, I think there's
a lot more common ground amongst people'sopinions of everything then we even know.
Because the political industrial complex is soentrenched and creating hate and creating division and
creating news programs that sell soap andall that stuff. I'm out there with
(09:46):
farmers. Listen, in the UnitedStates, if you win an election sixty
percent to forty percent, that's alandslide. And so if I can agree
on six out of ten things withpeople, that's a landslide. So I'm
focusing on those six. There willbe four things we don't agree on that's
okay, that's okay. But ifwe can agree on those six things we
(10:07):
can get, we can change theworld. So how is this going to
become a mass movement? Well,there's a lot of people who've been working
on this for decades before I showedup with my camera to film what these
folks are doing. Folks like GabeBrown and Alan Williams and Alan Savory and
this guy vois song from way backwhen they've been doing it for a long
(10:28):
time. It's building now because everyoneis concerned about climate change, or they're
concerned about what they're eating, orthey're realizing that our soils are in bad
shape. So this thing is building. And what's really cool with our projects
specifically, we've been working on oursocial media campaign for this release, So
Roots So Deep is coming out.May twenty eighth is the day it becomes
(10:50):
available. And you know that's passedfrom where we're from what we're talking now,
But since last August we've been sendingout little clips of farmers reactions at
screenings. We've been on the roadfor a year showing the film and barns
and churches and anywhere that people wantto throw up a sheet and a projector
we're showing it and we get thisfeedback from the farmers and it's a community
(11:15):
that's building. We have comments onour social media. People aren't hating on
each other. We have people saying, you know, I don't believe in
climate change, but this makes sense. I'm a vegan and this makes sense.
I'm a Republican and I don't thinkthat the whole climate change thing is
real. But boy, oh boy, now I'm looking at differently by what
you've presented. So we're finding commonground where it feels good. It feels
(11:43):
good to know that you can bein agreement with people. It actually increases
the positive energy to get things done. And so when we look at our
social media campaign, we've been puttingout these little clips since last August and
we're almost up to fifty million viewsof those little clips and we've we've gotten
over three hundred and forty mili I'msorry, three hundred and forty thousand followers
(12:07):
have come on board since August.And so this is, like I said,
there's lots of people been working onthis, but I feel like our
positive, science based, factual,farmer centric, heartfelt storytelling can be a
real aid to building this thing up. But you're even a renegade when it
(12:28):
comes to movie making, because Imean, you could have sold this four
parter to some something like HBO orNetflix, and instead you're going indie.
Why. I mean you to seeroots so deep, you have to go
to routsodep dot org. You're notgoing to go to one of the streaming
(12:50):
services. Well, to date,over the last three or four years,
the streaming services have basically contracted theirbuying of documentaries. They've just almost dried
up as an option for independent peopledocumentaries. I know. It's a it's
a real head scratcher, and sowe haven't gone to them because we've been
(13:13):
reading the trades. We can seewhat's going on. So we decided let's
do it ourselves. What's really coolis then if we do well, then
the money we make from renting it, we make more movies, do more
science. Right, it's a cycle, and we get to have everyone's contact
information, so we can send outinformation and we can you know, we
(13:33):
could sell t shirts if we chose, so choose rights a T shirt,
Thank you very much. And it'sit's it's a way for an independent film
group to just be more hands on, right, more hands on, and
we feel like we're making the casethat this is of interest. We're making
(13:54):
the case that this particular series shouldbe seen by everybody, right, certainly
every farmer, every consumer. Andso we'll see, we'll see if we
do a big thing. Maybe wedo go to a streamer at some point.
You know, we're we're we're takingthings. We're taking the bull by
the horns at this point and stillloving the cows, loving the cows absolutely,
(14:18):
they're not to blame. They couldbe the solution to climate change.
I just I just love this.Okay, we're basically out of time.
Roots so deep. Director Peter Bick, it's so nice to see you again,
and he did an awesome job.I just I just love this series.
But again, if you want tosee it, you have to go
(14:41):
to rootsodeep dot org. You've beenlistening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio. The
production of New York's classic rock Qone oh four point three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,Conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to Peter Vick, who isthe director of Ruthso Deep. And let
me just tell you, I happento love cows, and I am so
(00:23):
sick of cows being demonized, asyou know, the enemies of our climate,
right Peter, Peter's Ruthso Deep,which is a four parter, actually
shows the cows could be the heroesof climate change. I can't tell you,
Peter how much I love this.So explain I mean, because it's
(00:48):
it's kind of complicated and it hasto do with farming, but it is
absolutely fascinating and by the way,you can see it now at ruthsodeep dot
org. And I'm going to repeatthat several times during this conversation because this
is something you have to see ifyou're concerned about the environment, or if
(01:08):
like me, you love cows.Yeah, and so if you think about
the bison, they covered North Americabefore the Spanish came over in fourteen ninety
two, and there was no methanespike. There was no climate change problem
back then because of all those animalsburping methane, because it was in a
natural balance. And so what thesefarmers that were finding are doing is they're
(01:32):
taking their cattle and replicating the waythe bison moved across the Great Plains,
but doing it in a much muchsmaller space. So the bison all moved
and a herd, they would eathalf the forage, stomp the rest down,
cools, the cools the soil keepsthe soil moist, and they moved
(01:52):
on. And so the farmers aremoving their animals quickly, so they only
get time to eat half, theystomp the rest down, and they move
on. So the farms, mostof the farms are resting most of the
time. So it's bison biomemicry isthe fun name that I've heard. So
what you did with this four parterwas basically compare conventional farming and this other
(02:17):
type of farming that's called AMP.So that's adaptive multi paddock YEP, adapting
multi paddock farming. So those paddocks, So if you imagine a field,
say a farm's one thousand acres,you break your farm down with these little
electric wires they're super easy to moveinto an acre size paddock. And you
(02:39):
do that over the whole growing season, your animals moved two, three,
four times a day. They're gettingfresh food all the time. Much healthier
for the animals, much healthier forthe grasslands, which co evolved with grazing
animals, and so it's using natureat its best. And really what happens
is when the animals eat half theforage and then they leave, that plant
(03:04):
wants to grow. And when thatplant grows back, it shoots roots really
deep into the soil because it's likea mirror. And then it's just sucking
carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere andthe plant takes in the carbon dioxide,
burps out the oxygen for us,and sends the carbon down into the soil
where it is the food for allthe microbes down there. And that's the
(03:28):
engine for a healthy grassland is arich microbial community, and that microbial community
is made of carbon. It's eatingcarbon, it's feeding the plant nutrients,
it's making sure the plant can't getsick. And it's that balance of what's
happening above ground with the manure fromthe animals, the urine from the animals
(03:49):
and then the photosynthesis from the plantssucking down CO two, giving us oxygen
given the microbes or carbon. That'sthe cycle. And the way we've been
grazing the last hundreds of years iswe put a fence around a big area,
we let the animals eat wherever theywant, and we've broken that cycle
completely. And so these farmers realize, hey, guess what we can We
(04:11):
can actually do this. We canactually go back to like the oldest way
of grazing and get this going andsave our farms, save our farms,
save our soil, produce wildlife habitat, get ourselves out of debt. It's
it's pretty remarkable with this type offarming. You don't the farmers don't need
fertilizer. They don't. The animalsare the fertilizer. So yes, they
(04:32):
do need fertilizer. It's called poopand urine. That's the natural and they're
not paying for it. So howmany farmers are what percentage of farmers would
you say, are using this?And then I'm sure other farmers are going
to be highly skeptical. It takesa lot to get someone to change,
(04:53):
right, and farmers are conservative andthey've got generations of knowledge being passed down.
So yeah, it's a big dealto change. But what we're realizing
now with the risks of where oursoils are at right now, which is
in really bad shape. Whether you'reworried about climate change or not, you're
certainly seeing big raine events next tobig droughts. You can have a flood
(05:14):
and the drought almost in the sameweek these days. And so it's what
we're saying to farmers is we thinkit's riskier not to change than it is
to change. Like risk change isa risk, right, but we're saying
we think it's riskier if you don'tchange, and we're using science. So
we have this whole project is aboutscience. It's about measuring both sides of
(05:36):
the fence, the adaptive side,the conventional side, measuring all these metrics
carbon, nitrogen, bugs, birds, Are the animals healthier or the farmers
healthier? All greenhouse gases? Sothen we just show the farmers here's what's
happening on that side of the fence, and here's what's happening on your side
(05:56):
of the fence. And that's thebig question for our series is can we
help create change that's a big questionfor a whole project. And again you
can see Ruth so deep at ruthsodeepdot org. That's ruthsodep dot org.
If you care about the environment,if you care about animals, I mean,
(06:18):
if you care about the earth,and if you're interested in farming,
I mean I have my own little, you know, farm going. I
mean it's not a farm farm,but I have nine beds and so yeah,
I'm very very interested in you know, growing my own and growing my
(06:40):
own organically. And like I said, so what is it about cows.
I don't think we know enough aboutcows Peter Bick because to me, they
seem so intelligent. There is intelligence. Yeah. I had a farmer tell
me that when storms like, thefarmers know who's the mom, who's the
(07:02):
children of the mom, and who'sthe grandmom of the mom. You know,
you know the lineage, that thecattle will will actually organize themselves in
family units when a big storm comes. That was one thing a farmer showed
me. And another thing that theanimals know what to do, Like if
a good healthy pasture will have onehundred different plants growing in it, fifty
(07:27):
different types of plants, growing init. And what another mistake we've made
over the years is we have thesefields of one or two different types of
grasses and that's it. It's likea monoculture or just two things growing.
But on these healthy systems, withall these different things growing, the animals
will pick and choose exactly what theyneed. The science on that is very
(07:48):
clear. There's a guy named FredPravenza who's done work for decades, so
he shows that the animals know exactlywhat they need to eat that day at
that time to balance out their needsof protein and all the other stuff they
want. It's they know what toeat. He says that we should have
that in our instinct. But ifwe're only given processed foods all the time,
(08:11):
we can't even express that. Andso do we as humans? Have
we cut that cord of knowledge ofwhat's best for us? And that's a
that's a big question. So it'sinteresting in the in part one, you're
looking at two neighbors. I mean, you know, virtually their land could
(08:33):
be the same, but you haveone who is the amp farmer, and
then the other the traditional farmer.And even the farmer who's the amp farmer,
he doesn't believe in climate change.So you said, I don't care
if you don't care about climate change, because this is just this is saving
money, and this is increasing productivity, and this is so doesn't and Shelley,
(09:01):
he is solving climate change whether hecares about it or not. But
it was just interesting to me thathe just very skeptical. Yeah, very
skeptical. A lot of farmers I'vemet. We probably vote differently, right,
but we can spend all day longand all week long talking about soil
health. And that really is whatI've noticed being out in the country,
(09:22):
the US specifically for a decade anda half. Now, I think there's
a lot more common ground amongst people'sopinions of everything then we even know.
Because the political industrial complex is soentrenched and creating hate and creating division and
creating news programs that sell soap andall that stuff. I'm out there with
(09:46):
farmers. Listen, in the UnitedStates, if you win an election sixty
percent to forty percent, that's alandslide. And so if I can agree
on six out of ten things withpeople, that's a landslide. So I'm
focusing on those six. There willbe four things we don't agree on that's
okay, that's okay. But ifwe can agree on those six things we
(10:07):
can get, we can change theworld. So how is this going to
become a mass movement? Well,there's a lot of people who've been working
on this for decades before I showedup with my camera to film what these
folks are doing. Folks like GabeBrown and Alan Williams and Alan Savory and
this guy vois song from way backwhen they've been doing it for a long
(10:28):
time. It's building now because everyoneis concerned about climate change, or they're
concerned about what they're eating, orthey're realizing that our soils are in bad
shape. So this thing is building. And what's really cool with our projects
specifically, we've been working on oursocial media campaign for this release, So
Roots So Deep is coming out.May twenty eighth is the day it becomes
(10:50):
available. And you know that's passedfrom where we're from what we're talking now,
But since last August we've been sendingout little clips of farmers reactions at
screenings. We've been on the roadfor a year showing the film and barns
and churches and anywhere that people wantto throw up a sheet and a projector
we're showing it and we get thisfeedback from the farmers and it's a community
(11:15):
that's building. We have comments onour social media. People aren't hating on
each other. We have people saying, you know, I don't believe in
climate change, but this makes sense. I'm a vegan and this makes sense.
I'm a Republican and I don't thinkthat the whole climate change thing is
real. But boy, oh boy, now I'm looking at differently by what
you've presented. So we're finding commonground where it feels good. It feels
(11:43):
good to know that you can bein agreement with people. It actually increases
the positive energy to get things done. And so when we look at our
social media campaign, we've been puttingout these little clips since last August and
we're almost up to fifty million viewsof those little clips and we've we've gotten
over three hundred and forty mili I'msorry, three hundred and forty thousand followers
(12:07):
have come on board since August.And so this is, like I said,
there's lots of people been working onthis, but I feel like our
positive, science based, factual,farmer centric, heartfelt storytelling can be a
real aid to building this thing up. But you're even a renegade when it
(12:28):
comes to movie making, because Imean, you could have sold this four
parter to some something like HBO orNetflix, and instead you're going indie.
Why. I mean you to seeroots so deep, you have to go
to routsodep dot org. You're notgoing to go to one of the streaming
(12:50):
services. Well, to date,over the last three or four years,
the streaming services have basically contracted theirbuying of documentaries. They've just almost dried
up as an option for independent peopledocumentaries. I know. It's a it's
a real head scratcher, and sowe haven't gone to them because we've been
(13:13):
reading the trades. We can seewhat's going on. So we decided let's
do it ourselves. What's really coolis then if we do well, then
the money we make from renting it, we make more movies, do more
science. Right, it's a cycle, and we get to have everyone's contact
information, so we can send outinformation and we can you know, we
(13:33):
could sell t shirts if we chose, so choose rights a T shirt,
Thank you very much. And it'sit's it's a way for an independent film
group to just be more hands on, right, more hands on, and
we feel like we're making the casethat this is of interest. We're making
(13:54):
the case that this particular series shouldbe seen by everybody, right, certainly
every farmer, every consumer. Andso we'll see, we'll see if we
do a big thing. Maybe wedo go to a streamer at some point.
You know, we're we're we're takingthings. We're taking the bull by
the horns at this point and stillloving the cows, loving the cows absolutely,
(14:18):
they're not to blame. They couldbe the solution to climate change.
I just I just love this.Okay, we're basically out of time.
Roots so deep. Director Peter Bick, it's so nice to see you again,
and he did an awesome job.I just I just love this series.
But again, if you want tosee it, you have to go
(14:41):
to rootsodeep dot org. You've beenlistening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio. The
production of New York's classic rock Qone oh four point three
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