>> today on "earth focus," food heroes. a new w film looks at wy combat veteran friends turned to farmingng. america's organic pioneers, and newew models fofor food product. coming up on " "earth focus." [mususic] > it's important t to me that war doesn't define who i am.

i don't want to spend the rest of my life just being a guy who fought in the war in iraq. >> > in novemember we were orded to o once again hitit falluja. and that was just complete chaos. most reporters caught, you know, six days in falluja. for most of us it was more more like 3 to 4 weeks of intense combat. and by the time we were done, we hahad lost 3 33 marines and the city y was in bad shape. it was pretty much destroyed. >> we have a film. we like to say that in a world full of problems, "ground operations" is a story about solutions. we have a lot of veterans coming back from both h from iraq, who hahave been here for a while, ad from afafghanistan,n, who are cg home e now. ptsd d often doesn't show up rihtht away. it can be a yeaor twor morere bore it really srts s to sw up. >> y're aays on art. younow, yo're tnking of t worsscenariothat areonna happen.

[exososion] whoa!a! >> we w were going through ththe town, , and we had snipers on te buildingngs. they were firiring at us. bombs werere blowing u up everywywhere. [gugunshots] anand a mortar came in, and it blew up thehe same side f the door ththat i was on, and i was injureded. from that i i took shrapnel to y head and t to my legs.s. i was scared like anybody would be. you know, , i didn't want t to e there. ii hadn't seen my y family for , 16 months. anand i looked up and i started praying. i said, lord, if you geget me he to see my family at least just one more timeme, i told d him, i promise i will make my life worth saving. i'll back and i'll createe something so great that helps so many other people, and to give back to other people. >> so many people get disgusted with this system and say the heckk with it. i i can get a any help from the v.a. andnd that's how they end up homeless, or thatat's how they d of suicidal, or alall of these negativive things that happen to these e folks becacause the sysm

is s so broken. >> i know a hanandful of guys wo survived the war only to shoot themselves in the head since they've been back. veteterans need real optioions n they're coming back. theyey don't just neneed a progm and some pamphlets, or, you knowow, a little bit off counseliling. they need options thatat are goa allow thehem to take e care of r families, toto pay their bilill, and to start a new life. >> veterans affairs isis suppod to pick up where the defensee depapartment leaeaves off. but thehere's no transitition program really y within the veteterans affafairs. >> e ofof t things at' the hardest for the vetshen ty cocomeack is ty'y' been a part of unitt, really tht it, all on thsameme mison. an when n ey come me, and ty dodon't have missisi, and ty dodon't have anit, tt't's lo w whaleads to t isosotion, whicicthen canead to t the dg and alhol

abuse, which then very often leads to suicide. and whahat i have foundnd from e vveterans i've interviviewed is that theyey really hahad to seek their own salalvation and find their own way back into what we would call civilizationon-- that, youou know, the civiliaian world. there's something about farming, and working with the soil, and wworking w with livingng plantsd with livestock ananimals that after you've been n in a culture of death and war, to bee in a culture of life and sustaining and d creating life, isis deeply hehealing. > you know, i'm m not ashamef my service or what happened in iraq, , but i learned that i ifu know, when working with living things you become a nurturer instead of a destroyer. and t that was rereally--that ws a really significant realizazatn for me. >> the thing about it is we come

out here and work outside in fresh air. you know, i don't care how i felt last night or how good i didn't sleep last night because of issues that i have. and, you know, i i come here,e, work all day, i feel like a a million dollarars. >> i was on m medications, so my mededications, but i was able to come ofoff. likblblood pressusure medicatats and somome of the ptsd meds,, i could lower some those meds. i actually sasaw my cognitive skills getting better.. and so, for me, itit was a no-brainer. this is working fofor me, and so many guys come baback, why can't this work for them? and d this s where we e get the first farm started with the veterans farm. >> and we can have guys out here in a wheelchair picking. i mean, we set it up perfect so that disabled veterans can work on t this farm,m, and theyn fefeel like they'rere part of te communinity againin. and that r right therere makes h a a differencnce to peoplple's .

>> you know, what's really healing is number onene, a job, but number twtwo, doing s sometg that's s needed, doing something thatat's nececessary, doing something thahat--having a new mmission, having a newew purpos. >> your service doesn't have to end when you leave the militaryry. that serving--ther's ways to serve other than the militaryry. i thinink if you d don't t carrt forward, it seeeems that those e tthe people who weren't satisfied with what their transition, and weren't happy with what they picked next. >> y you know, we are, um, headd toward a time when we will have cloose to 9 billion peopople lig on this earth. at the same time, we know that the resources for producing food are dwindling as we're developing areas and taking them out of agriculture. this is going to o be the defing issue of this centy is how w we are gonna figure out how to feed ourselves with so many people. >> in america, only 1% of peoeople farm, , and only 1% of pepeople go into the mililitary. so m most of us really donon't w vetera, , and mostf usus don't really know farmerers.

> we both wanted to start farmrms, and we e decided wewe d just try t to start a a farm togetherer. and, , you know, , people kininf cautioned us against, you know, being busineness partners and beininin a relatioionship together. but so far so good, so you know-- it ended u up being really wonderful. > we're a small fararm, which means that we can reallyly put n a lot of thought into the quality of our produce, morere so than--more so than grocery stores or a lot of other farms out there. >> you know, farming's not for the faint of heart. we're lucky that they're steppiping up t to take o over r food sysystem, those whwho are, because thehey just don't tatako for a an answer. tthey are mission driven people. and so if therere are o obstacls that c come up, well, ththose ae justst obstacleses to overcome n the mission. so an example of thahat would be a young man i in los a angeles, d'artagnan scorzaza. >> the e military helped me b bd

i b belive the e skills that wee necessary to b be effective. when i r returned fromhehe military, i recognized ththat i had the ability to create change in my own community. we have 25 fast food restaurants in a square mile right here on crenshaw and century, which is just three blocks from this high school. but very few supermarkets and throughout the city, and i think were e seeing that trend around the country in multiple communinities. >> and when he came home, he got his phd at ucla. he went back to the high school that he had attended in inglewewood and started working wiwith the yououng stududents therere. and said, "wewell, whatat do you u want to inhe communityty?" and they all said, "we e want to grow food."" >> as an organization, we created an initiative called 100 seeds of change, which is our commitment to building 100 community school and home gardens and throughout the city of inglewood and south bay. the goal of that is to build a local food sysystem and to build local production. what are we doing today to, kia? >> i don't know. were giving away fruit trees to the community. >> today were giving a thousand

trees t to 1,000 families. we're here here committed to eliminating our community's designation as a food desert, and it's important that we provide these e fruit treeees as food assets so people can grow food for themselves. the community y can begin to f d itself. say "trees." >> trees. >> all right, high five. >> we're just darn lucky we've got somebody who's ststepping up. were losingg half of ouour farmerss in the next 10 yearsrs to retirement. we n need someone toto step upud there are verery few people, especiaially in this countrtry,o are wililling to really do o tht kind of hard work. but veteterans are, and so the tagline for r our film is ameria needs a a million new farmerers. veteranan want the j job, so let's s help them. >> the health of human beieings has to be part t of our national securityty. we can empmpower vets to be in organic,, sustainable agriculture, whwhat a great wayo dodo something that's very worthwhilile, to be in a markett

thahat is growing. i i mean, you can be s successfl in thisis. >> i think it's an incredible marriage of a need for veteraras to be continuing to improrove amererican natioional securirit, and a need for americaca to develop a nationalllly secure food sysyst. so marrying those two together is j just an unbelievablyly brilllliant double solution to two very disparate problems. >> the vets that are coming back turning their sworords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, they are showing us, along with many others, that it is p possible to create a a r food system. and they're doing it. >> i really see in these veterans not just farmers but leaders of the farmemers, leades of this next generation of farmers. they're articulate, they're focused, they're extremely entrepreneurial. they've taken on the mimilitary, and theyey're takiking on agagriculture. the'e taking on the two harardest things inin our society, and tthey'rere not even 3030 years .

they're amazing young men a and womemen. >> i'm in such a better m mood. i feel as though i i have a goa. therere's l light at the end ofe tunnel.. i'veve come to the conclusion tt ththat'ss exactly i it. i've sort of found sosome peace and contenentment, and it's s be so long since i've h had it that itit felt forereign to me, you ? and a hundred yearars from , we e look back at these times, there'ss gonna be e some profofd thingsgs that are e said aboutut americicans livingng right nowo. andd hopefully they say good thingngs. and thahat's--- i wanant to be part o of that.. >> at this point, maybe i've brainwashed myself, but at this point, i can't even imagine anything more important than growing food. >> this is it. teach these guysys how to farm. ththey can fefeed themselves. they can n feed the community. theey can feed their family. they can have sustainable life through sustainable agriculture. >> to transition from m a battlefield to a farm field is

almomost makes m more sense e tn transisitioning ininto, like,, dilbert's cubicle or a classroom of 18-year-old kids who have never seen anything but, you know, reality tv, you know? and when you've gone out and seen the world and had your friends die in your arms, you're coming home and you're 26 years old, and you're looking for where's my place in this life? wewe feel l like this is a plac, you know, where you can take a l those things that you brorought into the military-- your strength, your bravery, your ability to stand up when you're knockeked down, your sense of servicece, your sense of sacrifice, and your just willingness to carrry thehe world on your shoulders.

>> as c combat veteterans take p farming, s some farmerers are finding healthihier ways of producing food by going organic. >> the way we eat has to change. we see the eaasy way of doing things, yet we go the harder rroad. it's very y rewarding.g. my name e is ross nelson. this is nelson's organic dadairy in southeast minnesota. this is my family farm. i farm herere with my f folks lavernrne and arlene. >> we have 365 acres. we milk araround 80, 8 85 cows. >> g growi up, it was hahard. farmrming was kind of tough because we were conventional. there were fluctuating prices on a day-to-day basis. aand then ororganic cameme alon,

and they y find a pririce that s to work k for everyoyone, and it stays there.e. we're part of organic valley, which is one of the largest organicic co-ops in the natioio. >> because we're set up organic, we try to o be as sustaiainables wewe can. >> the cattle have to be fed certified organic feed with no gmos, no o hormones, no antibiotics, no pesticide, herbicide, or insecticide. 3030% of all that ththey eat in day has to come from grazing. >> this is where they prey much stay all summer, in pasture land, and then we'll be working them back up, plowing it up, putttting in corn one year, and then we'll put it right back into pasture again. what's good for the soil is good for us. >> in the conventional side of it, everyonene's so focused on how much can we get out of ththis cow? ad i think on n the organic side of it it's, you know, how healthy can i get this cow? >> > for us, there was jujust health issueues.

my parerents had both been taken n ill with i insecticided. and then laverne was sickened two years right in the row. you start to pay attention to what you're using, what you're doing, how was that affecting g your healtlth? >> conventional farming it's so eaeasy to go put in a crop of corn, come out and spray it with a cancer causining ingredidient. i meanan, it's not t rocket scie to know it--it i isn't good. >> when we went organic, the first year it was such a good feeling. >> to knknow that yyou did it without poisoning the ground or hurting anyone gives a a sense of satisfaioion. i would likike to see the whole country go orgaganic. i know whwhen i consume what wee

produce, or consume anything off of our land, i'm not subjecting them m to toxic mataterials. an that sure helps me with peace of m mind. >> we e abuse land because we regard it as a commodity that t belings to us. when we see it as a community to which we belong, we can treat it with h love and respect. >> i think we're doing, you know, really well for our size. supporting two families. and i wish everyryone could experience it. it's hard work, long hours, but it's very rewararding. [music] >> i never r thought i w would be a farmer. three years ago, i did an apprenticeship with a local

organic farmer. and now i run radix farm. i use natural growing meththods, following organic standarards, o grow a diveerse array y of vegetableles, over 4545 differet kinds and varieties. i lease ththree acres s from a larger r farm that does industrial corn and soy production. i keep a buffer zone between my farm and the corn and soy. if the herbicide sprayed on that part of the farm gets onto my vegetables, they'll die just like that. most of the farming in the chesapeake bay is large monococulture crorops of cornrnd soy.y. they're sprayining a lot of synthetic herbicides and fertilizer, and it affects the soil quality, and it ruins the biodiversity of the land. instead of pesticides, i use a lot of different things. grow cover is one. just putut it over t the crops,d

it keeps t the pests o out. i grow a diverse landscape of flowers, diverse crops, so that i'm encouraging beneficial insects to o be in n my farm. and they can take care of the bad insects. when people say y you c't grow large amounts of food without cchemicals, i say you u definity can. i'm on only about an acre or two, and i'm feeding well over 200 people harvesting 15 to 20 thousand pounds of vegetables each year. over timeme, using organic practices, the soil quality improves so that you can grow more and become more efficient and increase your yield. in the three years that i've been on this land, i've already noticed the soil quality is improving bit by bit. things are starting to fall into babalance. through farmer training programs in the region, morere people are not o only wanting to learnrn at

farming, but they're staying committed to farming, and they're really getting out t the and doing it. it's so inspiring to see the growining movement of new farmes in this region. i get more out of one acre too feed a family than industrial monoculture farming can. with the growth of morere sustainable farms in the reon, we are able to feed more and more people more efficiently, and it's more nutritious food. i sell directly to families in d.c. through a csa program.. i'm able to provide the majority of vegetable needs for the families in the csa. what i love about beingng part f this movement of sustainable farmers in the chesapeake region is revitalizing the environment and bringing fresh, healthy, nutritious food right to people's plates.

>> pescadero california based pie ranch builds innovative partnerships to cultivate healthy food systems. one partnership saved a family farm while providing a high-tech company with hehealthy, localaly grownwn food. >> there's this beautiful tradition of family farming on the coast. it's quietly and rapidly disappearing. and we don't want to see that happen. there's all this knowledge of the soils, the water, climate, what it takes to produce crops. we don't see that disappear. >> the garabaldi family came over from italy in 1892. i'm the fofourth genereratio my sonon and daughghter are thte fifth. our family came to pescadero to grow on this nice ranch 44 years ago.

>> the flower market was good in the early days, and we did it for 40-something years and were successful at it. >> at one time, there were 48 vendors that grew their own stuff. then it started changing. south america got involved. >> > everything we grerew, they grew, and thehey grew it better and cheaper. in the last 10 years, when the business kind of started going south, and then the decision was made a year ago to call it quits. and it was pretty heart-wrenchining. >> 68 years going to the market, and you just cold-turkey quit. when five generations have been doing this, that was hard to take. >> over the last 10 years, we at pie ranch have developed a diverse opeperation andnd educational farm. we had been looking for a

partner to scale what we've lelearned to a a sustainabable workingng farm. the ano nuevo site offered the perfect venue to do this. > out ofowowhere, ththis nice genentleman liviving across the street from us s came in toto vt us. we start talking, and immediaiately we hit itit off. we said, this is gonna workrk. >> we're not jusust looking g at creatiting a sustatainable fara, but we're rereally wantiting to have from production all the way through to consumption be sustainable. we needed the up-front operating capital and customer base to make this idea reality. >> one of the unique aspects of google being located in mountain n view is wewe're s soe to so many grgreat farmsms. one of my duties is to provide google with delicious, nutritious, local food. but we make the connection with food as well.. as a large organization, we have committed that we're gonna buy y this year and over e years to come a lalarge part of his farm m productionon up fron.

so we are provividing with the cash flowow so that h he doesn't haveve to rry about willll he be ablle to pay t the bills a as 's waititing for his crops to o gr. >> this project is giving us the opportunity to devevelop an innovative csa. in a traditional csa, you have a grgroup of cucustomers inin a ccommunity who support a a farm financncially throroughout the season.n. and in return, get a share of the harvest. google is committtting in advdve likeke a csa member would. this not t only allowows uso tae the b best care of the la, but also the people who are working the land. >> i get to keep mymy crew, and that meant a lot. i told jared i'm on board and only if you keep these guys. because if not, i d't wantnt to stay, you know? witithout them, we're nothining. >> they know ththe soil. they knonow the systems. if it weren't for ththem, we wod not bebe able to h hithe ground runnnning and growing a didivery of crops that we wanted.

>> it helps the local community pescadero to remain viable. it helelps us to connect thehe googlerers with thehe originall food of farmers. >> we''re gogonna be ablble tto integratate what''s being eaten in the cafeteria during the day coming from the farm with what can be taken home by an employee over the weekekend. >> the schmidt family foundation missionon is to support programs that are environmentally and economically vviable, a support l local communities. which is why we arare workingg closely with the two partners, pipie ranch a and google,e, t prototype a new financing model that enables smaller farms to sell their produce upfront and directly to large organizationss and stabililize the cacash flow. >> so the schmidt fafamily foundationon played a a critical role b by providining us finana. and that h helps us tatake caref some of the immediate needs of getting started, like buying equipment. but beyond that, this allows us to develop a whole new supply chain

option for farmers. we're excitted we've got ourur first planting of wheat t and barley d vevegetable crops, likeke peas d fava beans anand chard anand ka. so wewere rollingng. >> now ththe ranch, i i look, 's like, ok, wewe got wheat growing out there. and it's like, ok, that's a first. i've never seen it. we're gonna eventually have animals and pastures. it's, like wow, bui'm exexcited about it. it's a change in the righght direction. >> wewere gonna continue e on ar as we can go. >> we're just superer excited about the potential of having this m model move e us from anan anonymymous food s systeto o one whwhere relatationships h help o drdrive sustainabilility. >> so success for me would be if large organizations over in the bay area, in the u.s., or aroundnd the worldld would actuy lelearn from t this model l andy and p probably dodo it even b br than we e can imaggine as of to.

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06/27/16 06/27/16 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is demomocracy now! >> what is going to o happen is there going to be pretty damaging and painful conseqequences of f the processf trent extricate u.k. from the eu. i want to try to protect scotland from that. amy: britain is in a state of political crisis as scotland the house to do whatever it takes to stay in the european union following the brexit vote. could this lead to the breakup of the united kingdom? meanwhile, as british prime minister david cameron prepares to step down, ththe opposition