Impossible to ignore

You only have to look at the numbers to understand why we’re seeking new ways to grow.

SOURCES & LINKS

95% of life on land lives in the soil (link to Scottish Communities CAN)

60 years left before we lose all the world’s topsoil – if current rates of soil degradation continue (from Reuters)

30 football fields worth of soil is currently lost per minute, mostly due to intensive farming (also from Reuters)

30% of the world’s cropland abandoned in the last 40 years because of soil degradation (link to Scottish Communities CAN)

6 lorries of edible food is lost, or wasted, every second (link to Ellan McArthur Foundation)

11 Gigatons of emissions are heading into the atmosphere from land management now (via Nature.com)

3 Gigatons of carbon that could instead be sequestered from the atmosphere by that land by 2050, with regenerative practices (via Nature.com)

15 minutes for the sun to radiate as much energy as all humans consume, in all forms, over a whole year (read more on National Geographic)

A 5% increase in global photosynthetic capacity (the light converted to energy by leaves in a given area) is needed to balance the CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels (link to Scottish Communities CAN)

20,000 gallons/acre increased water retention from a 1% increase in soil organic matter (via NRDC)

$550 billion possible reduction in healthcare costs associated with the food sector if we eliminate pesticide use, and minimise waste (link to Ellan McArthur Foundation)

78% higher profitability from insecticide-free regenerative arable farms, compared to conventional farms – as found in a recent US study from NCBI

$1.9 trillion possible financial return, by 2050, on a global investment of $57 billion in regenerative agriculture (read on Socapglobal)

530 million people in Europe could be fed healthily – and with a 40% decrease in agricultural emissions – through a transition to organic, holistically managed farming (from the Soil Association)

580 thousand new jobs could be created through the Europe-wide adoption of a circular economy (read the European Commission here)