Documentary filmmaker Rebecca Harrell Tickell shares her journey in environmental activism through her impactful films, with her latest project, “Groundswell.”
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Healing the Earth: The Power of Regenerative Agriculture
In this episode, we are joined by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Rebecca Harrell Tickell, who shares her journey in environmental activism through her impactful films. We discuss her latest project, “Groundswell,” which focuses on regenerative agriculture and the importance of healing our planet. Rebecca dives into her personal experiences with environmental challenges and her theory of change, emphasizing the need for collective action and storytelling to inspire hope and drive change. Join us as we explore the intersection of filmmaking, activism, and the urgent need for sustainable practices.
So, what is regenerative agriculture, you ask? Rebecca defines it in many different ways and from alternative perspectives. Yes, it is an overused buzzword, but we agree it still has meaning.
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To me, regenerative agriculture practices combine Indigenous knowledge with western science and technology to enhance life/ecosystem/soil while producing food and products. It is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It should eschew the use of petroleum fertilizers, noxious/poisonous herbicides and insecticides, unsafe genetically modified organisms and expensive single-use seeds.
I wanted to give these details first because some entities push for a fake regenerative farming using all the same industrial monocrop, till-spray-feed-cut-spray-more-harvest model that results in depleted (dead, eroded) soils, contaminated (or absent) water, accelerated greenhouse gas emissions (and reflected heat in a bare-soil world), viral and bacterial outbreaks, farm bankruptcies, enormous wealth disparities, and increasing hunger.
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Rebecca Harrell Tickell is a documentary filmmaker (director, producer, writer) whose award winning short and feature films have made a critical impact in environmental activism domestically and globally. With her partner Josh Tickell, they have collaborated with actors, politicians and environmental leaders over the past several decades to create films that have been seen by millions of people and have raised significant money for environmental and social change. Groundswell [https://groundswellfilm.org/] is the final chapter of a groundbreaking documentary trilogy following Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, a sweeping cinematic journey across five continents narrated by Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson.
Jack Eidt is an urban planner, environmental journalist, and climate organizer, as well as award-winning fiction writer. He is Co-Founder of SoCal 350 Climate Action and Executive Producer of EcoJustice Radio. He writes for a PBS SoCal Artbound project called High & Dry [https://www.pbssocal.org/people/high-dry]. He is also Founder and Publisher of WilderUtopia [https://wilderutopia.com], a website dedicated to the question of Earth sustainability, finding society-level solutions to environmental, community, economic, transportation and energy needs. He also publishes articles and podcasts on Substack [https://jackeidt.substack.com/].
Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/
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Executive Producer and Host: Jack Eidt
Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats
Episode 287
Photo credit: Rebecca Harrell Tickell
Updated 21 September 2026
