Rachel’s Farm is a bubbly, intriguing documentary by Rachel Ward, film star and wife of iconic Aussie actor, Bryan Brown, about her discovery of regenerative farming and a three-to-four-year push to switch over to no-fertilizer, no-herbicides farming rotating cattle around partitioned fields. The idea is to bring the soil back to its proper state, full of life and fungi. Ward is an engaging storyteller, frank and open, and with a sure touch with staging and plotting. A picture of obsessive work and deep love for a project comes through, in a style that is neither pompous nor didactic. One can query the very foundations of such regenerative farming as a means of overcoming the carbon contributions of the meat and food giants to global warming (some say regeneration does not come close to redressing the climate crisis imposts, others say that it cannot be efficient enough in delivering protein to eight billion humans), but I recommend Rachel’s Farm as a passionate (and surprisingly reflective) look at one regen attempt.
Book, movie/show, and album reviews
