Peter Byck has managed to do the seemingly impossible.

In a world where opinions about climate change can sometimes be polarizing, the Arizona State University professor of practice has produced a film that features farmers and scientists, with different viewpoints, discussing the carbon footprint of both conventional and regenerative cattle grazing.

(Spoiler alert: Studies show that regenerative grazing pulls down up to four times more carbon from the atmosphere than conventional grazing.)

The Arizona premiere of “Roots So Deep (You Can See the Devil Down There)” took place Thursday at the Marston Exploration Theater in ASU’s Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV to a full audience and included a Q&A with Byck after the screening.

Surpreendentemente, grande parte da agroindústria americana foi dizimada pela pandemia do coronavírus. Eles foram obrigados a realizarem abates até desperdiçando animais, inclusive destruindo culturas saudáveis. Veio à tona a fragilidade do sistema alimentar industrializado e centralizado nos EUA, aonde as principais “fábricas” de processamento de carne emergiram como pontos de acesso para a transmissão da Covid-19.

While much of the farming industry has been decimated by the global coronavirus pandemic – forced to wastefully slaughter livestock, abort piglets, crush food and pummel perfectly healthy crops – one group spawning America’s heartland claims that its method has actually seen sales soaring.

The so-called Carbon Cowboys are the subject of a new 10-part documentary series detailing the farming technique known as regenerative grazing, which seemingly is saving them from a sales' drought.

The series, directed by Peter Byck, was filmed over six years in various rural communities across the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

Film Promotes Environmental Benefits of Raising Cattle

Adaptive grazing is different for every operation. On the Gabe Brown family ranch in North Dakota it normally takes about a year for a paddock to recover enough to be grazed again. (Photo courtesy Browns Ranch website)To Gabe Brown, it was just another film crew when Peter Byck's group showed up at the family's North Dakota ranch to work on a project about adaptive grazing. It's turned into something much larger.

Today Brown travels the world to share how adaptive grazing, also known as regenerative grazing, is a science-based approach that has helped his operation become more profitable, and more productive. It's all thanks to the carbon, which has improved soil quality and greatly increased water infiltration.

Brown says: "Those of us using adaptive grazing practices have known for a long time that the bad rap beef is given is only based on one model of production and it's not ours. All beef production is lumped together in the eyes of the public. Yet there are many ways to produce beef. This film shows that. It explains how what we do mimics nature. And that is the difference."

Neil Dennis, Saskatchewan cattle rancher and carbon cowboy.

When I began filming "Soil Carbon Cowboys" in the summer of 2013, I had one intention: to inspire McDonald’s and Walmart to incentivize their farmers to produce beef in a regenerative way. I hoped the short film would do that.

The premise was simple: Show three ranchers’ positive experience of transitioning from industrial to regenerative agriculture, getting themselves out of debt by working with nature instead of fighting it. I wanted to make the case that rancher wealth was tied directly to soil health.

Peter Byck is a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University, in both the School of Sustainability and the Cronkite School of Journalism. He is the director, producer and writer of carbon nation. He is currently helping to lead a $6.3 million research project focused on Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing; collaborating with 20 scientists and 10 farmers, focused on soil health and soil carbon storage; microbial, bug and bird biodiversity; water cycling and much more. Byck has currently completed carbon cowboys, a feature-length documentary (in ten parts) focused on regenerative grazing: www.carboncowboys.org and is in production on a long-form documentary on the AMP grazing research project.

A North Dakota farmer appears in a newly released documentary Carbon Cowboys, a series of short films by award winning filmmaker Peter Byck about how some farmers are breaking new ground with regenerative grazing.

While touted as a “new” way to graze livestock, North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown, said it is actually more of a return to old ways — Mother Nature’s ways.

“We need to try to mimic nature,” Brown says.