Docs Offer a Guide to Regenerative Agriculture

 

by Eric Diekhans

I grew up in the Midwest, surrounded by farms. Cornfields and pastures framed my neighborhood, and my grandparents had a small farm in southern Illinois—much of it leased from a coal company. Driving down country roads in winter and early spring, I never thought twice about the long rows of barren earth left after the corn or soybeans were harvested.

Then I watched the twin documentaries *Kiss the Ground* and *Common Ground*, and my eyes were opened to the powerful forces shaping modern farming—and to the possibility that those same fields could help save the planet.

Both films center on regenerative agriculture, a set of practices rooted in Indigenous traditions that focus on restoring soil health rather than extracting from it. What makes these documentaries compelling is not just the science but the people.

In *Common Ground*, we meet farmers who took enormous financial risks to abandon conventional methods. One farmer describes watching his soil turn to dust after years of chemical use, then slowly come back to life after he introduced cover crops and stopped tilling. Within a few seasons, earthworms returned, water soaked into the ground instead of running off, and his yields stabilized without expensive synthetic inputs. Another story follows a rancher who shifted to rotational grazing—moving cattle frequently to mimic natural herd movements. Instead of degrading the land, the animals helped restore it, with their hooves aerating the soil and their manure feeding the microorganisms below the surface.

These stories highlight something easy to miss when we look at farmland from the road: soil is not just dirt. It’s a living ecosystem.

Modern industrial agriculture, built around monocrops such as corn and soybeans, relies heavily on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds. These inputs can boost short-term yields, but they carry a cost. Tilling breaks apart soil structure, leaving it vulnerable to erosion. Chemicals kill not only pests but also beneficial microbes and insects. Over time, the soil loses its ability to retain water and nutrients, creating a cycle of increasing dependence on more inputs.

Regenerative agriculture flips that model. Practices such as cover cropping, composting, no-till farming, and diverse crop rotations rebuild soil organic matter. This organic matter acts like a sponge, holding water during droughts and reducing runoff during heavy rains. Healthy soil also fosters a vast underground network of fungi and microbes that exchange nutrients with plant roots, making crops more resilient and reducing the need for fertilizers.

Perhaps most striking is the role soil can play in combating climate change.

Both films argue that regenerative agriculture is not just about sustainability—it’s about reversal. Through photosynthesis, plants draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil as organic carbon. When soil is healthy and undisturbed, that carbon can remain locked underground for decades or even centuries. But when soil is tilled and degraded, much of it is released back into the atmosphere.

Regenerative practices increase the soil’s capacity to store carbon, effectively turning farmland into a carbon sink. Some scientists and advocates in the films suggest that, if adopted widely, these methods could draw down a significant share of excess atmospheric carbon. While that claim is debated, there is broad agreement that healthier soils mean less carbon in the air and greater resilience in our food systems.

The films also challenge a common assumption: that livestock is inherently harmful to the environment. While cattle do produce methane, regenerative grazing can offset some of that impact by sequestering carbon in soil and restoring grasslands. The key is not eliminating animals but managing them differently.

Still, the documentaries only briefly touch on the barriers to change. Transitioning to regenerative agriculture can be costly and risky. Farmers may face several years of lower yields as their soil recovers. It requires new knowledge and equipment, and often a willingness to go against decades of conventional wisdom.

Which brings us to a broader question: why does our system make it so hard to do the right thing?

Today’s agricultural economy is shaped by powerful agribusiness interests and government subsidies that favor large-scale monocropping. Farmers are often locked into a system in which growing corn and soybeans is the safest financial choice, even though it degrades their land over time.

Here’s a not-so-crazy idea: what if even a fraction of the billions of dollars in federal farm subsidies were redirected to support regenerative practices? What if farmers were rewarded not only for what they produce but also for how they care for the land?

The fields I grew up seeing as empty during the off-season are anything but. Beneath the surface lies one of our most powerful tools for healing the planet. The question is whether we’re willing to invest in it.

Eric Diekhans’ fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and the anthology Uncensored Ink. He is the recipient of a local Emmy for Children’s Television and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in screenwriting. He is a member of Lake View Presbyterian Church in Chicago. (www.ericdiekhans.com)