Transcriber: Aya Ashraf Reviewer: Amanda Zhu
Do you want to find an actionable solution to climate change?
I believe we all do, pretty desperately.
And this is why we need to understand the problem a bit better
to find the right solution.
Global greenhouse gases come from a few major sources,
and one of them is agriculture.
Under the management of humanity for the last 2,000 years,
this industry has contributed to climate change
rather than to nurturing and healing the planet.
I know it sounds like a paradox.
But ...
the way we have been farming is bad for the planet.
Agriculture contributes 11% of the world’s greenhouse gases.
In fact, in 2018 alone, the top 10 emitting countries
have contributed 7.7 tonnes on greenhouse gases per capita.
That is the weight of an orca whale per person.
If you multiply that by the combined population of those countries,
4.7 billion people,
that is a lot of greenhouse gases.
To make matters worse, in 2019,
World Resources Institute estimated that if our population continues to grow
and our eating habits do not change
but agricultural productivity fails to increase,
we will have to clear most of the world’s forests
just to feed ourselves.
And that’s just one of the aspects of the crisis we’re in.
How can we avoid it?
The answer may be hiding right under our feet.
It’s the soil.
When we treat the soil poorly,
plough frequently and grow the same crops on it over and over again,
it loses its function.
It is not able to hold as many nutrients,
such as carbon and nitrogen
as well as water in it
to hold to grow the next crop and harvest.
When we plough the soil,
it releases the carbon into the atmosphere
rather than hold it near the plant’s roots where it’s accessible.
That leads to the soil needed more nutrients artificially,
such as those from synthetic fertilizers,
which creates an unsustainable production cycle.
When treated well, soil acts as a natural carbon sink.
When plants grow, they absorb the carbon out of the atmosphere
and sequester it in the soil.
When they die, they decompose
and feed this carbon from the biomass back into the soil,
nurturing the next year’s crop,
and the cycle continues.
The top meter of the world’s soils
holds three times as much carbon as our entire atmosphere.
This means that just like oceans and forests,
soil is one of the main carbon sinks.
If we picture soil as the world’s carbon bank,
the last two millennia have been about increasing the credit limit
and drawing on it without paying it back.
Luckily, the science shows
that if we go back to more inclusive and diverse agricultural practices,
we can repair a lot of the damage that has been done to the soil
and to the climate as a whole.
Moreover, if we go back
to this more inclusive and diverse agricultural practices on a large scale,
the agricultural soils will be able to sequester
one third of annual carbon emissions worldwide.
This farming system is called “regenerative agriculture.”
It focuses on regenerating the soil health,
improving its biodiversity
and returning to it what was taken from it.
Let’s talk more about regenerative agriculture.
It is a farming system that seeks to keep the soil covered at all times
and keep the living roots in the ground year-round.
The regenerative agriculture practices
include planting cover crop in the offseason,
not tilling the soil or turning over the top layer of the soil,
and integrating livestock with cropping
to make it a more self-sustained system.
In general,
regenerative agriculture practices help the soil build up the organic matter,
sequester more carbon,
but more importantly, produce healthier food.
In addition to these practices being good for us as consumers,
these practices are good for the farmers financially,
since they allow them to reduce the amount of synthetic fertilizer and chemical use
for crop production,
making not only the environment healthier,
but the farm bottom line stronger.
Sounds like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?
Yet, there is a sticky point.
Currently, the farmers are getting paid for the yield,
the amount of product they produce.
We need to shift the incentives
and incentivize the farming methods that are good for the planet.
The farmers need to be incentivized not only to produce the yield
but even more so to farm in a way that is good for the planet,
paying back our societal soil carbon debt.
So, how can we incentivize the farmer
for the amount of carbon they can put into the soil?
Luckily, the innovations in science and technology
by the company that I co-founded,
the Regrow,
enable to measure the amount of carbon
that any particular field or farm can put into the soil
and suggest the practices that enable them
to improve the soil health in the most efficient way.
Once a farmer implements the practices,
the satellite technologies help us monitor the land
and verify that the practice has been implemented.
So, we can notify the food company
that sources the ingredients from this farmer
to make a payment for the carbon sequestered.
Suddenly, the sustainability isn’t the extra risk for the farm.
It's actually the source of income.
Hence, the farm can become more financially stable,
whilst the regenerative ag practices keep building up the soil health,
enabling the next generation of farmers in 20 years from now
grow corps on the same ground
and keep cooling the planet.
If we care about solving climate change and addressing it most promptly,
we must turn to one of the most actionable solutions in our arsenal -
our soils.
As buyers prefer climate smart products,
so next time you’re grocery shopping,
you can invest in the soil carbon bank
by preferring the products that help us rebuild the food system,
paying out our soil carbon debt
and investing
so the next generation can reap the dividends.