Globally around 24 billion tons of fertile soil and 27,000 bio-species are lost each year

Indian Space Research Organisation

an oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London [...] injected lung cancer patients with a common, harmless soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vacca [...] Her patients were happier, expressed more vitality, and better cognitive functioning

Annals of oncology

In England, only one in eight fields had high earthworm numbers

Govt. of UK

The world’s climate-stressed and pollution-degraded farming and agricultural system must shift quickly to sustainable practices to feed an additional 2 billion mouths expected by 2050, a new United Nations report finds.

UN report: The world’s farms stretched to ‘a breaking point’

during drought years, yields are 30% to 100% higher in the organic systems

Rodale Institute

Mean values of Soil Organic Carbon (%C) in Cropland in Spain was 1.05% [...] 1% is a threshold value, which has been established as a desertification limit.

Geoderma

63% of India's soils have low organic carbon content

Govt. of India

Without CO2 fertilization, effective adaptation, and genetic improvement, each degree-Celsius increase in global mean temperature would, on average, reduce global yields of wheat by 6.0%, rice by 3.2%, maize by 7.4%, and soybean by 3.1%

National Academy of Sciences

We are essentially destroying the functionality of soil, so that you have to feed it more and more synthetic fertilizers just to keep growing this crop

Rick Haney, US Department of Agriculture

Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years

Scientific American

by fully harnessing the total technical potential of SOC sequestration across all land use types (3.4 GtC·y−1) and by halting net deforestation (0.9 GtC·y−1), the atmospheric growth of CO2 (4.3 GtC·y−1) would be stopped

Soil and Tillage Research

More than 50 percent America’s topsoil has eroded away. In areas of the Southeast, the country’s original breadbasket, it’s almost all gone.

Politico

10–20% of the Earth‘s drylands are degraded. Estimated economic loss = USD 6.3–10.6 trillion/yr

The Economics of Land Degradation

4,000-acre farm in west central Indiana [...] when he started no-till farming and using cover crops in the early 1990s, his soil had about 1.8 percent organic matter. Now it’s at 4.5 percent and still ticking up.

24% from GHG emissions are from agriculture, forestry and other land use.

One teaspoon of bare or tilled soil contains more microorganisms than there are people on Earth, however, the rhizosphere can have 1000-2000 times that number

Nature Magazine

Land issues have played a major role in 27 major conflicts in Africa since 1990.

Between 1993-94 and 2011-12, protein levels in beans dropped around 60 per cent; in brown lentil (whole), it went down by 10 per cent; and, in goat meat, it has come down by 5 per cent.

National Institute of Nutrition

Adopting sustainable land management could deliver up to USD 1.4 trillion in increased crop production.

increase soil organic carbon annually by 0.4% [...] production of three major crops – maize, wheat and rice – is estimated to increase by 23.4%, 22.9% and 41.9% respectively with an estimated value of US$ 135.2 billion per year between 2020 and 2050

International Union for Conservation of Nature

potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 5 million jobs across sub-Saharan Africa

individual farmers who have fully embraced regenerative practices such as pruning and rejuvenation are seeing up to 300% yield increases

potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 17 billion USD potential avoided farm costs per year across sub-Saharan Africa

The increase in soil moisture from .4% has the potential to reduce reliance on irrigation, with estimated global savings of US$ 44 billion per year.

potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 24% increase in crop production across sub-Saharan Africa

Potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: up to 15% reduction in household food expenditure

Potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 30% reduction in soil erosion

The benefits of production increases [due to .4% increase in soil carbon] will differ by region but would be highest in developing countries, and particularly in Africa.

33% of the Earth's soils are already degraded and over 90% could become degraded by 2050

UN Convention to Combat Desertification

The benefits of .4% could result in increased resilience for vulnerable farming communities, and reduced exposure to projected risks associated with climate change, such as floods, droughts and storms.

Enhancing carbon stocks through soils can create value from 96 up to 480 billion USD

Hydrological cycles also benefit from increased soil carbon and the capacity of soils to store water could increase by up to 37 billion m3

Potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 20% increase in soil organic carbon

potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 13% increase in per capita food consumption

degraded soil will mean that we will produce 30% less food over the next 20-50 years.This is against a background of projected demand requiring us to grow 50% more food, as the population grows

TIME Magazine

potential impacts by 2040 under a regenerative agriculture scenario: 13% increase in crop production across sub-Saharan Africa

Currently, land degradation has reduced productivity in 23 percent of the global terrestrial area, and between $235 billion and $577 billion in annual global crop output

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Intensive agriculture has caused arable soils to lose 40 to 60% of their organic carbon [in the UK]

A third of the CO2 emitted through human activities into the atmosphere from 1850 to 1998 came from agricultural activities.

UN Environment

1% loss in SOC can be translated to a societal loss of natural capital, due to declines of ecosystem services and associated soil fertility, amounting to about $163/hectare

50-70% of soil carbon stocks have been lost in cultivated soil

Agroforestry [...] can create multiple environmental, economic and social benefits. It can increase SOC [soil organic carbon] and sequester between 0.2 and 5.3 GtC per year in soils, not counting the carbon sequestered in the wood

Most of the nutrients that are required for human health come from the soil [...] Micronutrient deficiencies are rampant in the country [India] and on average 43.0, 12.1, 5.4, 5.6 and 18.3% soils are deficient in Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn and B, respectively

Indian Journal of Fertilisers

Agricultural fields today often contain less than 2% SOM [soil organic matter], while at time of conversion from grasslands or forests SOM often amounts to 8-15% or even more

The UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” in parts of the country, the environment secretary Michael Gove has warned.

land degradation could reduce global food productivity by 12 per cent, causing food prices to soar by up to 30 per cent by 2040

Estimates [of Carbon emissions] range between 133 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC) since the dawn of agriculture through loss of soil organic matter and soil erosion, and 379 GtC through forest clearing and burning

In agriculture, we estimate that soil erosion can lead up to 50 percent loss in crop yields.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

from 25 million to 1 billion environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis

UN Institute of Migration

The impacts of past climate trends on agriculture are already evident in several parts of the world [...] with a study in 2018 projecting more than 143 million internal migrants by 2050 across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America

Global warming of 2°C would lead to about 230 billion tonnes of carbon being released from the world's soil

University of Exeter

One percent of organic matter in the top six inches of soil holds approximately 20,000 gallons of water per acre

US Dept of Agriculture

95 percent of the food we eat comes from the soil

cropland across Iowa has lost an average of 6.8 inches of topsoil since 1850. And soil erosion in the United States costs the country about $37.6 billion in productivity losses each year

About 20 per cent of the planet's vegetated surface shows declining trends in productivity with fertility losses linked to erosion, depletion and pollution

By 2050 degradation and climate change could reduce crop yields by 10 per cent globally and by up to 50 per cent in certain regions.

the United States lost 2 million acres of land in active crop production in 2020

The majority of the known antibiotics originated from soil bacteria, including penicillin.

The water stored in soil serves as the source for 90 per cent of the world's agricultural production and represents about 65 per cent of fresh water

Around 45% of the mineral soils in Europe have low or very low organic carbon content

European Commission of the European Union

organic matter can hold up to 90 percent of its weight in water and releases that moisture slowly over time, particularly helpful in areas prone to drought

the number of earthworms per square meter varied between 119 in ploughed land and 160 in no-till land

74% of the land in southern Europe has a surface soil horizon (0-30cm) that contains less than 2% OC

The United States is losing soil at a rate 10 times faster than the soil replenishment rate while China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster.

Cornell University

The microbiota of the human gut and the plant rhizome are similar in many ways and intricately connected with each other. A healthy plant therefore affects human microbiota and human health.

Center for Desert Agriculture

the annual loss of organic carbon from the world's soils is between [...] 0.2,0.5 [...] percent of the total organic carbon

Agricultural University of The Netherlands

We see organic matter levels in some fields of 1 percent or less. Whereas you can go to a pasture sitting right next to it where organics levels are 5 percent or 6 percent.

farmers say traditional vegetable crops do not grow in their fields any longer. Across the country, farmers say yields drop if they don't add more fertiliser every year

The Economic Times

Are we putting on too much fertilizer? And the answer is, “Yes we are.” It’s like instead of feeding your children a balanced diet, let’s just feed them vitamins. That’s not going to work.

What Science Says

Biodiversity

Biodiversity, Health

Biodiversity, Europe

Climate Change

Agriculture, Water

Agriculture, Europe

Agriculture, India

Agriculture, Climate Change

Agriculture

Biodiversity

Climate Change

Agriculture, America