What is the film about?
Six Inches of Soil, tells the story of remarkable farmers, communities, small businesses, chefs and entrepreneurs who are leading the way to transform how our food is produced and consumed. It is a story of courage, vision and hope. 

Who is in the film?
The film follows three new farmers on the first year of their regenerative journey to heal the soil and help transform the food system - Anna Jackson, a Lincolnshire 11th generation arable and sheep farmer; Adrienne Gordon, a Cambridgeshire small-scale vegetable farmer; and Ben Thomas, who rears pasture fed beef cattle in Cornwall. They are joined by other experts providing wisdom and solutions from a growing movement of people who are dedicated to changing the trajectory for food, farming and the planet. There is a list of cast on ‘Story of the film’.

Who made the film?
Director Colin Ramsay and Producer Claire Mackenzie have made the film with a small committed team around them and vast amounts of input and help from individuals and organisations around the world.

How long is the film?
1hr36min

What is regenerative agriculture?
Take a look at our glossary of terms

Where can I see the film?
We are currently running a community screening programme across the UK - research shows that bringing people together with common purpose is much more successful at driving system change. Find your nearest showing of the film

Can I watch the film online?
Not yet - we are running our community screenings programme first. We expect to make it available online later in 2024.

Can I show the film?
Yes - find out more at our Host a Screening page

Some more technical FAQs about the data points presented in the film

In the sequence about chickens on Nic Renison’s farm, is there any ecological damage from the chickens and are they subsisting largely on grain or just the bugs from the cow pats?

We asked Nic Renison about the possible ecological damage caused by pastured laying hens, as well as the wider point about animal feed. She responds:

“Our chickens have a soya-free/palm-free feed. In an ideal world we would buy local grains and mill them, but this is not possible currently. We estimate that up to 30% of their diet comes from forage.

The egg mobiles follow the cows four days later, this is typically 240 head of cattle (with an average of 8-12 pats a day) with all their dung and then 600 hens, so there is plenty of dung for the mini beasts and the chickens.

The four days between the cows and chickens are crucial (see Richard Perkins), the swoop of swallows who follow the herd are testament to a thriving ecosystem that I think at this scale is in balance.

We have a thriving dung beetle, bat and owl population which is monitored and after 8 years of no fertiliser/sprays, is increasing every year.

Our herd is mob grazed over 360 acres, with long rest periods (85 days), thereby increasing biodiversity and allowing natural processes to thrive, holding on to water like a sponge and releasing it slowly.”

Nic adds, “it really is a question of balance and the extremes of the current industrial paradigm … I truly believe this is a fantastic system and a whole world away from how 90-odd percent of our eggs are produced today in the UK”.

When it comes to cattle and carbon in the film, you say nothing about the alternative: if the land were not being farmed and was ‘wild’, it would store more carbon. Your film creates the impression that carbon gains from hedgerows and woodland will be sustained: what happens when the hedges are trimmed, or as we saw in the film, the woods are coppiced?

Here is some more information about Ben Thomas’s farm that is relevant s about potential carbon emissions from his regenerative management but not all of this material made it into the film.

• The hedges are cut every 3-4 years and he leaves them thick and tall - he has a whopping 9km of hedges!

• He only grazes 0.5 hectares a day out of a total 30 hectares of pasture

• He manages 20 acres of mature woodland in addition to the pasture

The 9km of hedgerows, 20 acres of woodland and hectares of pasture that Ben is managing, are not significantly disturbed over time, and that increases biodiversity and offsets the carbon produced by his cattle herd. The film also shows how this increases biodiversity as well as increases water retention in the soil. Where Ben does manage the land, this is explicitly to increase biodiversity, such as coppicing.

We of course recognise that the figures Farm Carbon Toolkit (FCT) shows are just a snapshot in time of the carbon sequestration at Treveddoe farm.

The film creates the strong impression that the soil carbon figures being discussed by Ben Thomas and Hannah Jones relate to the actual soil carbon figures for Treveddoe Farm, but it appears they are using a model and not real-world data?

We have 20 mins’ worth of additional footage of the discussion between Hannah and Ben about his farm’s carbon footprint, which we had to trim in the final cut to keep the film to time. This includes Hannah and Ben reviewing the 2022 figures from Treveddoe which showed that just his hedgerows were sequestering more carbon than his cattle had emitted in equivalent terms.

It also highlights that Ben does not use any feed, fertiliser, seeds his pasture with herbal leys and uses very little fuel, which further reduces his emissions. The calculator also includes his emissions from the bit of silage he uses and his pigs. Again, this had to be cut due to time constraints.

No actual soil improvement data was included because none was available at the time. We only had the first year’s data, since we only followed Ben in the first year of his tenure (and the first year of the FCT study). There isn’t data available as yet that shows any potential extra carbon sequestration because of Ben’s regenerative management.

For this reason, Hannah inputted a “conservative estimate” for an increase of Soil Organic Matter to model an example of how powerful soils can be in sequestering carbon. That shot, does actually show the item 'model' alongside that potential increase in carbon. In the full interview, Hannah says the following: "This is an annual estimated storage of carbon...". Another quote from Hannah "Shall we model it and see what we get...”. We recognise however that our editing cuts out Hannah clarifying that these figures for increased SOM are an estimate, based on modelling but are based on data points from Ben’s farm.

We completely trust that FCT uses an approach to sampling and analysis that provides robust data, which is why we collaborated with them in the film. FCT follows an agreed protocol for soil sampling and analysis, which was arrived at with assistance from UK expert soil scientists. This is shared in their Monitoring soil carbon: a practical field, farm and lab guide.

Given that soil carbon has become the major thrust of the beef industry's greenwashing, how would you respond to the idea that you are, albeit unwittingly, assisting its efforts to mislead people about its impacts?

We are certainly no friends of the industrial beef industry. In our film, we sought to directly challenge the environmental and animal welfare impacts of factory farming, including large livestock feedlots, which are increasing in the UK.

Ben is a small-scale beef producer who sells directly to his consumers. He is shown throughout the film criticising corporate-controlled industrialised beef production and instead advocating building direct 'agroecological' relationships between food producers and consumers. He is not only farming livestock, but using his herd in a multi-dimensional way to manage the land sustainably, improve biodiversity and soil health. We wanted to challenge existing livestock farmers to consider how they produce meat. A quote often used by regenerative livestock farmers is “It's not the cow, it’s the how”.

We also actively hope that our film challenges our meat-eating audiences who have never questioned their meat consumption to rethink how they consume meat – for the climate, for biodiversity, for animal welfare, and to support smaller producers. This was one of the reasons for including the abattoir sequence - we know this has become a major talking point for our audiences.

Additionally, in the film, Professor Mike Berners-Lee highlights the land use and climate implications of growing animal feed on land that could instead be used to grow crops for human consumption.

Several of our experts emphasised that we need to eat a great deal less meat. We may not spell this out explicitly, but we hope this message comes across more subtly in the film. In fact, the UK Government's National Food Strategy recommends a 30% reduction for meat by 2030.

To explore soil carbon sequestration further please read this article on the ERAMMP website, written in October 2023.