The team behind the documentary Groundswell launched One Billion Acres during New York Climate Week, with new pledges covering 66 million acres
Rebecca and Josh Tickell have spent years making films about soil. On September 23, during New York Climate Week, they set out to show that a film can do more than leave an audience feeling hopeful.
At WHY REGENERATIVE in New York City, the Tickells and their collaborators launched One Billion Acres, a campaign to move one billion acres of the world’s farmland and rangeland to regenerative agriculture by 2030. The press conference was followed by the New York premiere of Groundswell, the documentary the campaign grew out of.
On launch day, the campaign announced commitments covering 66 million new acres, more than 40 million of them in the United States.
“This is how systemic change happens: top down, bottom up, and middle out,” Rebecca Tickell told the audience. “Today’s announcement is the beginning of a new age of regeneration.”
Groundswell is the last film in the Tickells’ soil trilogy, which began with Kiss the Ground (2020) and continued with Common Ground (2023). It was an Official Selection at the Festival de Cannes and won the Golden Globe Documentary Prize. Narrated by Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, it is now streaming on Prime Video. The film presents the problems facing climate, water, biodiversity and human health as something people can act on, rather than as reasons to give up.
One Billion Acres turns that message into a scoreboard. Governments, brands, farmers, investors and nonprofits make pledges through the campaign, and it tracks their progress publicly. The idea behind it is that regenerative practices, which restore the natural cycles of carbon, water and nutrients in soil, lead to healthier land, cleaner water and air, and more stable incomes for farmers.
Most of the 66 million acres came from two groups. Grassroots Carbon pledged 40 million acres, and the Regenerative Organic Alliance pledged 8 million, both by 2030.
“The path to one billion acres runs through America’s ranches,” said Brad Tipper, CEO of Grassroots Carbon. He noted that the company already works with hundreds of ranching families across nearly 3 million acres in 22 states. “Now we are raising our ambition.”
Christopher Gergen, CEO of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, put it more bluntly. “We can’t afford to wait,” he said. “We must farm like the world depends on it.”
Food and beverage brands also signed on, including Nespresso, Maker’s Mark, Applegate, Serenity Kids, Maison Mirabeau, White Oak Pastures, Yerba Madre and Wildfarmed. Lisa K. Gibby, chief communications officer at Nespresso’s parent company Nestlé, said the industry has moved beyond asking whether regenerative farming works. “The challenge now is not proving it works,” she said, “but scaling it across millions of hectares, thousands of suppliers, and entire value chains.”
The campaign is co-led by Finian Makepeace and Ryland Englehart, who co-founded Kiss the Ground. Makepeace said he has spent 15 years working toward this point. “I believe we’re now at the moment when we can truly reach a tipping point,” he said.
Laura Turner Seydel, chair of the Turner Foundation and an executive producer of Groundswell, spoke about practical benefits. She said healthy soils help farms hold up against flooding, heat and drought, and keep harmful chemicals out of drinking water.
The most personal remarks came from Will Harris, owner of White Oak Pastures in Georgia, who has farmed regeneratively for three decades.
“For the last thirty years, I’ve wondered whether I was a niche marketer or an early innovator in an emerging movement,” Harris said. “Seeing films like Groundswell and an effort like One Billion Acres makes me believe the answer is becoming clear: this is a global movement.”
Farmers, brands and individuals can take the pledge at OneBillionAcres.org.
