Sadhguru, a spiritualist to the stars and environmental campaigner, said we are on a path toward worldwide hunger and environmental destruction. However, he believes that reversing the degradation of the world's soil will not just prevent the devastation of our food supply but could play a pivotal role in reversing climate change.
"There is nothing better than a green leaf, so every extra green leaf that we put on this planet is one step towards climate mitigation," the yoga master, who counts Will Smith and Matthew McConaughey among his followers, told Newsweek from the COP28 climate summit in Dubai that he is attending as the founder of the Save Soil movement.
He argued that there was substantial data to show that many climate issues "can be settled just by revitalizing the land, and right now the unproductive land, ploughed land, is releasing a huge amount of carbon dioxide. Even the Brazilian rainforest, which was at one time a huge natural oxygen factory, [is] now releasing carbon dioxide because 25 percent of it is reasonably damaged."
According to recent analysis by Save Soil, agricultural lands alone have the potential to sequester 27 percent of the carbon needed to keep global temperatures from rising by two degrees—considered a critical threshold at which prolonged deleterious effects would occur to humans and the environment.
Carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is absorbed by plants and microorganisms in the soil. While humans are producing more CO2 than can be absorbed, the ability for soil to hold organic content—and therefore sustain life—is also degrading. The U.N. estimates that 40 percent of the Earth's land is degraded, while a 2015 study suggested this was as high as 52 percent for agricultural land.
"Right now, we are just thinking [that]—without keeping the soil alive—we can just produce food, while every prediction is showing in another 35-40 years, we will be definitely producing at least 40 percent less food than we are producing, but in the meantime our population would be nearly 10 billion," Sadhguru said. "That is not a world I want to live in."
He added: "If we grow one ton of food from, let's say, an acre of land, then we are taking away one ton of organic content. How much are we putting back? Almost zero. This kind of farming can only last for 30-50 years. In 50 years, we'll kill the land."
It is widely estimated that soil needs at least 3 percent organic content to sustain plant life, but modern agricultural techniques—including intensive plowing and overcultivation—are among things that can bring down the content. The less organic content, the fewer organisms it can maintain and the less carbon it can hold.
Sadhguru, who rose to prominence on social media and now boasts 11.1 million Instagram followers, argued that taking steps to improve the organic content of soil would "impact climate change in a massive, positive way" in a shorter timespan than finding substitutes for fossil fuels.
"I'm not saying fossil fuels should continue as they are; yes, we should definitely try to taper them down," he said. "But unless we find some breakthroughs in technological innovation, that's not going to happen."
There is academic disagreement about how much of a role soil can play in sequestering the carbon currently clogging up our atmosphere, though.
In a letter to the Global Change Biology journal on November 15, a group of researchers said estimates of the amount it could sequester toward the higher end were unrealistic and focus on technical potential rather than what was practically feasible.
While they acknowledged the benefits to vegetation and sustainability of boosting organic soil content, they questioned how economically and logistically viable it would be as a means of reducing CO2 in the short term, with compost—which is already composed of solid carbon—among the most common ways to improve soil health.
"Overly optimistic estimates for current technical potential can be highly misleading for policymakers and may hamper rather than aid the fight against global warming," said Gabriel Moinet, the letter's lead author and a soil biologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Asked about this, Sadhguru argued the opposite: that studies were showing "we are seriously underestimating the power of the green leaf; what we thought it can sequester, it can sequester almost 30 percent more."
He suggested that farmlands with single crop types and non-indigenous species may be hampered, but that those which plant trees and rotate crops would naturally build up organic content. The academic letter did not comment on localized rehabilitation.
Praveena Sridhar, Save Soil's chief technical officer, told Newsweek that grasslands and pasture lands alone held one-fifth of the world's carbon, but "the potential for these lands is far more than what they hold right now. The actual capability of the lands to sequester is far, far higher if left to nature."
Sadhguru argued that for American farmers, there were three changes that would help keep their lands healthy and improve their financial viability.
He called for a law to mandate a minimum 3 percent organic content, and financial incentives to meet the target.
"Farmers' economies are so fragile, that if he attempts this now, maybe he will be bankrupt," the south Indian sage said. "So he has to be protected and incentivized."
He also referenced a push for carbon credits to be given to farms based on how much carbon they could sequester, rather than just industry. He said this would be a "big breakthrough" as not only would it help tackle soil degradation and climate change but would slow economic migration.
"Nobody would leave their land if their land is rich and there is living wealth standing there on the land," he said.
The spiritualist influencer—known for a mix of spiritual musings and blunt humor—also took food labeling to task.
"Right now, everybody is branding their produce as organic," he said. "Who has ever seen an inorganic apple? There is no such thing. So we need to quantify this. That is, 'this apple comes from 3 percent organic content soil.'...If it is below that, it must be mentioned."
He claimed that about 200,000 farmers in India are now using the land-use techniques he champions to boost organic content, with some seeing their incomes increase by as much as eight times in the last eight to 12 years.
"Soil is the largest living system—not only upon this planet, but in the known universe," Sadhguru said. "This is the foundational life for all life on the planet."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
