tv Earth Focus LINKTV July 24, 2017 7:30am-8:01am PDT
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>> today on "earth focus," food heroes. a a new film looks at wy combat veteran friends turned to fararming. america's organanic pioneerers,d new models s for food productio. coming up p on "earth focus." [music] >> it's importrtant to me that war doesn't define who i am. i don't want to spend the rest
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of my life just being a guy who fought in the war in iraq. >> in n november wewe were orded to once again hit falluluja. 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 had lost 33 mamarines and thehe city was in bad shaha. it was pretty much destroyed. >> we have a film. . we like to say that in a a world full of problems, "ground operations" is a story about solutions. we have a lot of veterans coming back fromom both from iraq, whoo have b been here for a whilele,d ffrom afghananistan, who are cog home now. ptsd often doesn't show u up right away. it t can be a year or two o or e before e it really s starts to show up. >> you're always on alert. you know, you're thinking of the worst scenarios that are gonna happen.
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[explplosion] whoa! >> we were gogoing rough the town, and we had snipers o on te bubuildings. they werere firing at us. bombmbs were blolowing up everywherere. [gunsnshots] and a mortar came in, and it blelew up the same side f the d door that i was on, a andi wwas injureded. from m that i took shrapnelel ty headad and to mymy ls. i was scared like anybodyy would be.. you know, i dididn't want to die ththere. i hadn't seseen my family for 1, 16 months.s. and i looked up and i stararted praying. i said, lord, if f you get me he to see my family at least just one morere time, i told him,m, i promise i will make my life worth saving. i'll back and d i'll c create 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 heck with it. i canan get any help from the v.a. and that's how they endnd up homeless, o or that's how they d of suicidal, or all of thehese nnegative things that happen too these folklks because e the sysm
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is so broken. >> i knowow a handful of guys wo survived the war only to shoot themselves in the head since they've been back. veterans need realal options whn they'reooming back. they don't j just need a program and some papamphlets, or, you know, a little b bit of counseseling. theyeyeed optionons that are goa allllow them toto take carere or famililies, to pay theheir bill, and to start a new life. >> veteerans affafairs is supupd tpick up whwhere the defense departmement leaves s off. bbut there's no o transition program r really within the veteranans affairs.. >> one of t things at' e hardest for thvets wn tthecome bacisis ty've been a pparof a ut, a rely tight unit,,ll on the sameission andd wn they ce homeand tthedon'have a a msion, and tthedon'have a unit, thas a lo what t ads to t isolatiti, which en can l ld tohe drug d alcoho abuse, which then very oftenn
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leads to suicide. anand what i haveve found from e veterans i've i interviewed is thahat they reaeally had to seek their o own salvation and finind their own way back into w what e would call civililization-- tthat, you know, the c civilian world. ththere's something about farming, and working with the soil, and wororking with h living plalantd with liveststock animals that after you'veve been in a culture of death and war,r, to e in a culture of life and sustainining and creating le,e, is deeply healing.g. >> you know, i''m not ashamed of my servicce or what happened d n iraq, but t i learned that if, u know, when working with living things you become a nurturer instead of a destroyeyer. and that t was really--that was a a really sigignificant r realn for me. >> the thing about it is we come
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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 comeme here, work all day,y, i feel like a million dollars. >> i wawas on medications, sosoy medications, but i was ablble to ccome off. like blood d pressure m medicats aand some of the ptsd d meds, i could lower some thohose meds. i actuaually saw my cognitive skills getting bebetter. and so, for r me, it was a no-brainer. this is workrking for me, and so many guys c come back, why can't this work for them? and thisis s where we get t 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 worork on this s farm, and theyn feel like they''re parart of the cocommunity y again. and d that rightht there makakeh a dififference toto people's li.
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>> you know, what's really healing is numbmber one, a job, but numumber two, d doing sometg that''s needed,d, doing sometetg that's necessary, doining somethining that--having a a new mission, havingng a new pururpo. >> your service doesn't have to end when you leave the mimilitary. that servingng--th's ways to serve other than the mililitary. i think ifif you don''t carrrryt forward, , it seems that those e the people who weren't satisfied with what their transition, and weren't happy with what they picked next. >> you know, we are, um, heheadd toward a time when we will have close to 9 billion people living 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 agririculture.. this is goioing to be the defing issue of thisentury isis how we are gonna figure out how to feed ourselves with so many people. >> in america, only 1% ofof people e farm, and only 1% of people go into ththe military. so most of us realally don't t w veteterans, and most of us don't really know w farmers.
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>> we e both wanteted to startrt farms, a and we decicided we shd justst try to ststart a farmrm totogether. and, you u know, peopople kind f cautioned us against, you know, being g business partners s and being in a r relationship togetherer. but so far so good, so you know-- itit ended up being reallyly wonderful. >> we'e're a small farm,m, which means that we can n really putun a lot of thought into the quality of our produce, more 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 ssteppingng up to o take over or ffood system, ththose who are, because thehey just don't tatako for an answerer. they are mission driven peoeopl. and so if therere are obstatacls that come up, wewell, those are just obsbstacles to overercome n the mission. so an example e of that wowoulde a y young man i in los angeles, d'artagnan n scorza. > the military helpeped me bd
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i belivive the skills that were necessarary to be effectctive. whwhen i returnefrfrom the military, i recogninized that 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 i thk were seeing that trend around the country in multiple ccommunities. >> and when he came home, he got his phd at ucla. he went back to the high school that he had attended in inglewood and started workrking with the you studentsts there. and sasaid, "well, , what do you want to o o in the comommunity?" and thehey all saidid, "we want to grow f 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 f food system 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
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trees 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 e these fruiuit trees as food assets so people can grow food for themselves. the community can begigin to fed itself. say "trees." >> trees. >> all right, high five. >> we're just darn lucky we've got somebody who's stepping up. were losining halflf of our fafarmers in the next 1010 years too retirementnt. we need sommeone to s step , and there a are very few peoeople, esespecially in this s country,o aare willing to realally do that kind of hard work. bubut veterans are, and so thehe taglinine for our film is amamea needs a millllion new farmer veveerans wantnt the jobob, so let't's help them. >> the h health of human beingns has to bebe part of our national sesecurity. we can empowerer vets to be in orgaganic, sustainable agriculturere, what a greatat wo do something ththat's very wororthwhile, to be in a a markt
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thahat is growing. i mean, you cacan be successful in thisis. >> i think it's anan incredible marriagage of a need for r vetes to be conontinuing toto improve amamerican natational security, and a need foror america to develop a nattionally secure f food syste. so marrying those two together is just an unbelilievably brilliant double solution t to two very disparate problems. >> the vets that are coming back tuturning their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, they are showing us, along with many others, that it is possible to create a fairr food system. and they're doing it. >> i really see in these veterans not just farmers but leaders of thehe farmers, leades of this next generation of farmers. they're articulate, they're focused, they're extremely entrepreneurial. they've taken on the mimilitary, anand they're taking g on agriculture. ththe'e taking on the two hardedest things in o our societyty, and they'y're not even 30 y years o.
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thehey're a amazing yououng mend women. >> i'm in such a bebetter mood. i f feel as thohough i have a g. there's light at the enend of te tutunnel. i've come to the conclusion that that''s exaxact it. i've sort of fofound some p peae and d contentment, a and it's en so long since i've had it that it felelt foreign to me, youou ? >> and a hundrered years from n, we look back at these times, there's gonna be someme profound things thahat are saidid about americans s living rigight now. and hopefully they say good things. a and that's-- i want to be e part of f that. >> at this point, maybe i've brainwashed myself, but at this point, i can't even imagine anything more important than growing fofood. >> this is itit. teach these guys howow to farm.. they y can feed themselves.s. they can feeded the community. they can feed their family. they can have sustainable life through sustainable agriculture. >> to transitionon from a battlefield to a farm field is
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almost makes more e sense than transitiononing into, , like, dilbert's cubicle or a classroom of 18-year-old kids who haveve 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? we feel like this is a place, you know, where you can take all those things that y you brought into the military-- your strength, your bravery, your ability to stand up when you're knocked down, your sense of service, your sense of sacrifice, and your just willingness to carrry the world o on yourur shohoulders.
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as combabat veteransns takep farmrming, some e farmers arare finding h healthier ways of producing food by going organic. >> the way we eat has to change. we see ththe easy way of doining things, yet we go the harder road.d. it's s very rewawarding. mymy name is ross nelson. this is nelson's organic dairy in southeaeast minnesota. this is my family farm. i fararm here witith my folks lalaverne and arlene. >> we have 365 acres. we m milk aroundnd 80, 85 cows. >> gwing up, it t was hard.. farming was kind of tough because we were conventional. there were fluctuating prices on a day-to-day basis. and then organinic came alolong,
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andnd they findnd a price that s toto work for r everyo, , and it stays s there. we're part of organic valley, which is one of the largest oorganic co-ops in thehe nation. >> because we're set up organic, we t try to be a as sustainanabs we can. >> the cattle have to be fed certified organic feed with no gmomos, no hormones, no antibiotics, no pesticide, herbicide, or insecticide. 30% of all t that they eatn aa day has to come from grazing. >> this is where th pretty much stay all summer, in pasture land, and then we'll be working them back up, plowing it up, putting 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, eveveryone's so focused on how much can we get outut of this cow? ad i thihink on the e organic sidef it it's, you know, how healthy can i get this cow? >> for us, there e was just healthth issues.
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mmy parents had both b been taken ill l with insececticide. and then laverne was sickened two years right in the row. youou start to pay attention to what you're using, what you're doing, how was that affefecting yourur health? >> conventional farming it's so easy to go put in a crop of corn, come out and spray it with a cancer r causing i ingredient. i mean, it's not rockcket sciene to o know it--it isn't goodod. >> when we went organic, the first year it was such a good feelingng. >> to knknow that you d did it without poisoning the ground or hurting anyone gives a sensnse of satisfaction. i wouould like to see the w whoe countryry go organinic. i k know when i consume w what e
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produce, or consume anything off of our land, i'm not subjecting them to toxoxic materials. and that sure helps me with peace of mind. >> we abususe land bececause we regardrd it as a c commodity that belings to us.s. when we see it as a community to which we belong, we can treat it with loveve and respspect. >> i think we're doing, you know, really well for our size. supporting two families. and i wishsh everyone couldd experience itit. it's hard work, long hours, but it't's veryry rewardingng. [music] >> i i never thought i would be a farmer. three years ago, i did an apenticeshipip with a local
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organic farmer. and now i run radix farm. i use natural growining methods, following organic s standards, o grow a a diverse e array of vegegetables, o over 45 dififfet kkinds and varieties. i lease three e acres fromom a larger 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 thehe farm gets oo o my vegetatables, they'll dieie just like that. most of the farming in the chesapeake bay is large monocultuture crops of f corn ad soy. they're s spraying 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. jujust put it t over the c cropd
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it k keeps the p pests out. i grow a diverse landscape of flowers, diverse crops, so that i'm encouraging beneficial insecects to o be in my f farm. and they c t take care o of the bad insects. when peoplple say you can't t gw large amous of food without chemicals, i sasay you defifiniy 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. ovever time, 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 balanance. through farmer training programs in the regionon, more peoeople e not only wanting toto learn abot
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farming, but they're staying committed to farming, and they're really gettingng out the and doing it. it's so inspiring to see the growing movement ofof new farmes in this region. i get more o of one acacre to feed a family than industrial monoculture farming can. with the growth o of more sustainable farms in e region,, 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 prorogram. i'm able to provide the majority of vegetable needs for the families in the csa. what i love aboutut being 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.
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>> pescadero california based pie ranch builds innovative partnerships to cultivate healthy food systems. one partnership saved a family farm while providing a high-h-th company with healthy, l locally grown fooood. >> 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 m the fourthth genation. my son andnd daughter r are the fifth. our family came to pescadero to grow on this nice ranch 44 years ago.
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>> 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 grew, they grew, a and they 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-wrerenching. >> 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 operatition and educational farm. we had been looking for a
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partner to scale what wewe've learnened to a susustainable wororking farm. the ano n nuevo site offered the perfect venue to do this. >> out t of nowhere, this n nice gentlememan living across thehe street frfrom us cameme in to vt us. we start talking, and immediatelyly we hit itit off. we said, this is gonnnna work. >> w we're n not just lolookingt creating a a sustainabable farm, bubut we're reallyly wanting 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 moununtain viewew is we're so ce to so m many greatat farms. one of my duties is to provide google with delicious, nutritious, local food. but we make the connection with food as s well. as a large organization, we have committed that we're gonna buy thisis year and over e years to comome a large part of hiss farm production up p front.
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so we arere providing with thee casash flow so o that he doesn't haveo worry abouout will he e be able toto pay the b bills as h's waiting for his crorops to grow. >> this project is giving us the opportunity t to develop an innovative csa. in a traditional csa, you have a groupup of customers in a community who supupport a f farm financialllly throughout the seseason. and in return, get a sharare of the harvestst. google is c committing g in adve like a csa member would. thihis not onlyly allows usus te the best care of the land, butt also the people who are working the land. >> i get to k keep my crew, and that meant a lot. i told jared i'm on board and only if you keep these guys. because if not, i don't want too stay, you knonow? without them, wewe're e nothing. >> they k know the sosoil. ththey know ththe systems.s. if it weren't t for them, we wod not be ablble toit the groundd running and growining a diversry of crops that we wanted.
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>> it helps the local community pescadero to remain viable. it helps us to connenect the ggooglers wiwith the oririginal food of farmers. we're gonna a be able to inintegrate what's being eaten in the cafeteria during the day coming from the farm with what can be taken home by an employee over thehe weekend.. >> the schmidt family foundation mmission is to support programs that a environmentally and economically viae, and supupport localal communitities. which is whyhy we are woworking closely with the two partners, pie r ranch and g google, too prototype a new financing model that enables smaller farms to sell their produce upfront and directly to large organinizatios and d stabilize e the cash f fl. >> so ththe schmhmidt familyly founundation plalayed a crcritil role by prproviding usus financ. and d that helpsps us take c caf some of the immediate needs of getting started, like buying equipment. but beyond thatat, this allows us to develop a whole new supply chain
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option for farmers. we're excited w we've g got our firirt planting of f wheat and barley d vegetable cropsps, like peas and fava bebeans and chchard and ka. so were r rolling. >> > now the raranch, i looook's like, , ok, we got wheat grorowg out there. and it's like, ok, that's a first. i've never seen it. we're gonna eventually have animals anand pastures. it's, like wow, but i'm excited about i it. iit's a change in ththe right direction. >> were gonna conontinue on as r as we can go. >> we're just super excited about thee potentialal of having this modelel movus f from an anonymous s food stetem to one wherere relationsnships help p o drive sustaiainability.. >> so success for me would be if large organizations over in the bay area, in the u.s., or around thehe world would actualy learn n from this s model and dy and probabably do it t even betr ththan we canan imagine as of t.
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07/24/17 07/24/17 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy nonow! >> we don't want you as our mayor of minneapolis anymore. your leadership has been very ineffective. amy: as protesters shout down the mayor of minneapolis following the recent fatal police shooting of an australian woman who called
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