The Real Green Revolution: How Regenerative Agriculture Can Save Humanity

Human beings have been degrading Nature since they dominated agriculture, but in recent decades we have seen an alarming intensification of this degradation. See in the images above the comparison of the territory of South America between the years 1985 and 2020.

The process of deforestation and soil desertification is visible and frightening. What will the next photo in this sequence look like, in 2050, if we keep up the pace of destruction? How much biodiversity will be lost? How much CO2 will be emitted into the atmosphere? And going a little further, imagine now how it will be in 2500? Will there be life on earth if we continue at this pace?

Around 1960, what became known as the “Green Revolution” began, the technological package of genetically modified seeds, extensive machines and chemical products that in fact revolutionized agriculture and drastically changed the way food is produced in the world.

The problem is that this revolution has nothing GREEN!

The degradation caused on the planet due to the predatory exploitation of natural resources by industrial monoculture is alarming and puts all living beings in danger, especially the less economically favored and future generations that will suffer the consequences of our selfishness.

This is the route of socio-environmental collapse: depletion of water and soil, extinction of biodiversity and a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

I will adopt the name of Chemical Revolution to refer to the change of habit of farmers that causes an effect of degradation, destruction or degeneration of life. For, again, green this revolution has nothing.

The good news is that there is a solution to this problem, but it won’t be easy. On the one hand, it is necessary to extinguish deforestation. On the other hand, to regenerate what was lost.

Agriculture plays a key role in this solution. We can follow the path of collapse we are on or drastically change our habits to build a better future by regenerating the planet while producing what is necessary for our livelihoods.

I will use as a definition of regenerative agriculture agricultural practices that regenerate the soil, restore water, increase biodiversity and sequester atmospheric carbon through their operating processes. The most incredible form I’ve ever known is syntropic agriculture, or agriculture of life processes, synthesized and idealized by Ernst Gotsch, which has a very high impact on restoring life and ecosystems in the place. Agroforestry systems are the smartest way we have to reforest the planet.

Currently the degeneration level is MUCH higher than the regeneration level. Our mission as humanity must be to reach the tipping point of regeneration, that is, to start regenerating the planet instead of destroying it. This is the solution to solving the problem for the cause, and not for the technological treatment of the symptoms of a serious illness. There is no long-term prosperous future as long as the level of degeneration is greater than the level of regeneration. There is only the collapse at the end of the train that we are all aboard.

The long-term result of this change will be restoration of biodiversity rather than mass extinction. Restoring water, rather than water scarcity. Regenerating the soil and bringing food security instead of starvation. And start the process of reversing global warming!

THE TRUE GREEN REVOLUTION IS AGROFORESTRY

The Hunger Fallacy

How many times have you been told that industrial agriculture feeds the world?

Unfortunately this is not true…

Chemical agriculture relies on this fallacy to justify the environmental damage caused by its industrial production and deceives the population by feeding the present in parts to the detriment of the future.

It is true that we need to feed 8 billion [1] people in the world. And it is also true that the productivity gains from the technology of the chemical revolution greatly increased world food production.

However, globally only 50% of cereal production [2] is intended for human consumption. And that number is skewed as it is much higher in poorer countries, and much lower in major soy and corn exporters like Brazil and the US, at 32% and just 11% respectively.

That is, in Brazil approximately 2/3 of all grain production serves to feed the hunger of human beings to live on a meat-based diet. Brazilian soybean production in the 2021/2022 harvest was 123 million tons [3]. Considering the Brazilian population of 207.8 million people [4] we arrive at the value of 591 kg of soy per person per year and 1.62 kg per person PER DAY, this only for soy. I don’t know anyone who would be hungry after eating all of that…

Even so, 33.1 million people [5] are in a situation of hunger in Brazil and it is estimated that 10% of the world is in a situation of food insecurity [6].

And food insecurity is directly related to soil health. Where there is fertile soil, we have an abundance of food. Where there is degraded soil, we have food insecurity. It is estimated that 30% of the world’s soil is degraded [7] and according to the UN every 5 seconds the world loses an amount of soil equivalent to a football field [8].

Degenerative agriculture does not follow the life processes of the planet, it seeks short-term technological solutions to solve problems with severe long-term impacts and is largely responsible for this degradation.

The first step is deforestation. Then the production cycles begin, involving plowing and turning the earth with machines, chemical fertilization, chemical defense and harvesting. The large machines that make it possible to work in large areas compact the soil, requiring plowing at each cycle. And chemical fertilizers, as much as they increase productivity, generate a chemical dependency where a little more is needed in each cycle to obtain the same result. And after a few decades, guess what? We have degraded land that contributes to food insecurity.

Regenerative, on the other hand, does the exact opposite of chemistry: It makes the soil better over time.

It is possible to regenerate ALL degraded soils on the planet, including deserts. When we remove humans from the equation and leave the soil fallow, Nature already begins its work of regeneration. If magically there were no more human beings on the planet, in a few tens, hundreds, thousands or millions of years the soil would be recovered.

But we don’t have that much time, and that’s why we must speed up Nature’s life processes. It is enough to understand how it works and replicate it in agricultural production. For example, the pruning process that adds organic matter to the soil accelerates the natural process of shedding leaves and branches, which results in fertility and regeneration.

If we want to solve the problem of hunger, we have to regenerate the soil through agriculture. And to achieve this, it will be necessary to break paradigms of current society and end the fallacy of hunger, which condemns us to a future of food insecurity.

We need to change that route before it’s too late.

Besides, who can actually say that feeds the world is FAMILY FARMING.

Water can be planted

Brazil is the richest country in fresh water in the world and most of this water is concentrated in the northern Amazon region.

Does the Amazon forest exist because there is a lot of water, or is there an abundance of water because there is a forest?

“Water can be planted”. Ernst was a pioneer in agroforestry agriculture without irrigation and reforested 350 hectares of an area that was previously said to be “dry”. After decades of work, he saw water and life regrowth on his farm, with the return of springs and a differentiated microclimate in the region.

The answer to the question is that the water is there because of the forest, and the reason is that an area with vegetation retains and transpires much more than a deforested area, such as pastures and monocultures.

When it rains, tree roots feed on this abundance and water retention in the soil is great. When it’s sunny, the dry mass cover on the ground and the vegetation itself form a barrier that prevents the sun from rapidly drying the water in the area. And through photosynthesis, plants transpire and send part of the water accumulated in their biomass to the atmosphere. A forest is a large natural reservoir of water.

In a pasture, for example, when it rains, water retention is very low, and it ends up draining quickly. When it’s sunny, the heat quickly dries the place completely.

To solve the world’s water scarcity problem is easy: Just plant forests, and lots of them!

Globally, about 70% of fresh water is used in agriculture [9]. And the amount of water used has grown dramatically since the 1960s, out of proportion to population growth.

That is, degenerative agriculture, in addition to deforesting our forests, which reduces the supply of water in the world, is still responsible for using a large part of the water available in aquifers and rivers, leaving little to supply the population.

An agriculture model that needs this huge amount of water is not sustainable, it is necessary to change the direction.

Syntropic agriculture and agroforestry systems, regenerative farming techniques, offer a solution to this problem. Instead of needing extensive water, trees are planted that contribute to this maintenance and reduce the need for external irrigation to practically zero. Instead of irrigation, nature’s own processes are used to plant water.

Mass extermination

Biodiversity is one of the most precious assets on the planet. It is incredible to see the many and varied forms of life, each one fulfilling its function in the macroorganism in which we live.

We cannot live in a world of humans, cattle, chicken, pigs and machines. It makes no sense to destroy biodiversity the way we are doing. Compared to 1970 levels, it is estimated that 70% of biodiversity has been lost.

We are living through a process of mass extinction. And guess who is the main villain of this problem?

Just look back at the images from the beginning to see the amount of ecosystems and habitats lost. Imagine if from one day to the next fire or machines destroyed all the houses in the area where you live, would you like it? Because that is exactly what is happening with biodiversity in the face of deforestation.

In addition, chemical pesticides are poisons applied with the intention of killing local life other than the desired crop. It’s literally using a chemical weapon of mass destruction.

All species have their function in Nature. Applying fungicides, herbicides, bactericides or any other type of chemical defense is acting on the symptom of one problem, generating several others. Just imagine that you are a caterpillar, who loves corn. Suddenly you look to the side and there is a cornfield of 1000 hectares with only this plant. A feast, right?

There are no pests, they are beings that find a favorable environment for their multiplication and indicate an ecosystem imbalance. The solution that solves the problem for the cause is to create balanced ecosystems favorable to life.

And can you guess a solution that creates balanced and life-friendly ecosystems at the same time as it is produced?

THE AGROFOREST!

I’ll never forget the first time I was on one, on Fazenda Ouro Fino in september 2020.

I spent a week at the farm and it was an amazing experience. Seeing with my own eyes an agroforestry system more than 15-20 years old has changed my life. It made me decide that this would be the purpose for which I would fight and if I am today leading the Sintrop’s project, which aims to regenerate the planet, was because of this experience.

I recommend everyone to visit and see an agroforest with their own eyes. For those who still haven’t made it, I recorded this video here showing the inside of the new and old areas of Ouro Fino.

Something that caught my attention during those days was the amount of fruit we could find on the ground. For me it was commercially counterintuitive to “waste” and lose food on the property’s floor. After a long time, I came to understand that they were systems of abundance, where what did not feed humans served the animals and microlife of the place.

Literally planting for the animals, instead of exterminating them.

As if deforestation and the direct application of chemical weapons were not enough, there is another major problem worth mentioning: water contamination.

Fertilizers and chemical pesticides end up flowing into the water, which continues its flow towards the oceans. The result is contamination and indirect alteration in aquatic ecosystems. In addition to a risk to our own health, chemicals affect corals and marine life.

Unfortunately it’s death everywhere…

The carbon sequestering machine

Global warming is the symptom of a serious disease on the planet caused by the current economic model and way of life of post-industrial revolution society. We are interrupting a cycle that nature takes thousands and millions of years to form native vegetation and fossil fuel reserves by burning everything in a tiny window of two centuries. All in defense of economic development, which is driven by human greed and ignorance.

Global CO2 emissions in the year 2021 amounted to 41.06 billion tons [10]. That’s A LOT. It is estimated that agriculture is responsible for 1/4 of these emissions [11].

The long-term effects of these emissions are staggering. And we cannot think that it is something for the future, because we are already being affected today: droughts, excessive rains, extreme heat, sea level rise, winter heat, summer cold, fires and several other impacts. No one is safe from the consequences and again the economically disadvantaged and future generations will suffer the most.

Theoretically solving the problem is easy, in practice it is not. On the one hand, it is necessary to zero emissions. On the other hand, hijacking what has already been issued. To zero emissions there is no alternative but to keep oil and other fossil fuels underground and completely change our way of life and all sectors of the economy. But that will be the subject of another article, for now we will focus on the second point, that of hijacking what has already been issued.

To sequester atmospheric carbon, you have to remove it from the air and store it somehow. There are projects that aim to use technology to do this work. I really hope they work out, because the current scenario is not good and we will need a lot of technology. But, again, it is acting on the symptom and not on the cause of the problem.

There is already an ancient machine that sequesters carbon: NATURE!

Through the process of photosynthesis in the presence of light, plants transform carbon dioxide into energy and oxygen. This is the real machine we already know that can save us from global warming.

It is estimated that the world area used for agriculture is 5 billion hectares. Of this total, approximately 1400 million are used for annual crops, 3475 million for pastures and 135 million for permanent crops [12].

Of the 41.06 billion tons of CO2 emitted, approximately 10 billion is the responsibility of agriculture. Which leads us to the result of a global average of 2 tons emitted per hectare.

To neutralize annual emissions, it will be necessary for the average to be 8.8 tons SEQUESTRED per hectare.

It means going from +2t to -8.8t of CO2 per hectare.

Well-managed successional agroforestry systems are capable of sequestering 40, 50, 60, 70 tons of CO2/ha/year and even more. Regenerative livestock is capable of sequestering more than 20 tons of CO2/ha/year and regenerative grain farming can sequester more than 2 tons of CO2/ha/year.

If the 135 hectares of permanent crops become agroforestry, sequestering an average of 60 tons, we would sequester 8.1 billion tons of CO2/year. If half of the pastures were part of the forest, with an average sequestration of 20 tons per hectare/year, that would be over 34.750 billion tons. This combination would be enough to neutralize annual emissions and an even greater increase could offset the huge amount that has already been emitted.

When we make regenerative agriculture the standard of our food production, we will be on the path to reversing global warming!

I know it’s a dauntingly big task, said to be impossible by most people, and that it will be a decades-long process. But a paradigm shift is enough to make this regenerative mode of production the standard of society to make this distant dream possible.

It is necessary to create ecosystems that follow the natural flow of life while sequestering this carbon and producing food for the population.

If the Chemical Revolution managed to change the pattern of society in a few decades, the real Green Revolution can also do the same.

But what about the money?

Well, dear reader, this is a key point of this revolution. Unfortunately, today our society is driven by economic interest and we cannot leave it aside.

Degenerative agribusiness and deforestation exist because some make money from it. But they only win because the cost of the environmental impact does not enter into the account. We should tax this impact, but it is something that will take a long time to happen because public power is dominated by chemical ruralists. It is unfortunately sad to see that government subsidies still encourage and benefit industrial chemical agriculture rather than agroecology.

If we put this impact on the price of food and products, it would no longer make sense to produce while destroying the planet. But in reality, that’s not how it works and Nature pays that bill, and consequently ALL human beings, without exception. After all, we are part of it…

But what if regenerative agriculture was more profitable?

Industrial monoculture aims at maximizing profits and looks at only one variable: the area!

The fixed costs of machinery, interest and inputs are high and for the business to make sense, a very large area is needed. After that the process is mechanized. Nowadays it is easy to plant soybeans in a huge area, diluting the fixed cost per hectare and making it an attractive business model that needs more area to grow. (And guess where this land comes from? From the forests 🙁 )

Syntropic agriculture and successional agroforestry, instead of looking only at the area, look at three variables: the area, space and time!

in which plants with different light needs can occupy different “floors” within the same space. Therefore, instead of monoculture, different species that like different amounts of light are planted together, so that one shades the other and results in a much larger number of plants per area.

And time, as it unites stratification with the life cycle of plants, where species at different stages can thrive, produce and give way to others with a longer cycle to advance, functioning as breeders of the most demanding plants that need a better environment and take longer to grow.

The result is that productivity per area is MUCH higher. First, because it creates a favorable environment for the main crop, and second, because other species also produce and generate income. A well-managed agroforest can produce more than 60 tons per hectare/year. For comparison purposes, a soy monoculture does not exceed 8 tons per hectare/year.

Therefore, planting agroforestry is much more productive per area than monoculture. The problem is in the scale, that’s where the tables turn.

It is very difficult and requires a lot of work to plant and manage a forest. There are few agroforests with more than 20 hectares. And not monoculture, just follow a cake recipe and voilá, thousands of hectares concentrated in the hands of a “farmer” who doesn’t even touch the ground…

To reduce this difference, mechanization plays a fundamental role. But a different mechanization, focused on small equipment that does not compact the soil. All manufacturers should have a dedicated sector for this area.

But is this difficulty necessarily bad?

Brazil has a history that has contributed a lot to the concentration of land. Few large estates dominate this power and concentrate millions of hectares. Agrarian reform, whether public or private, is essential in this mission. But this will also be the subject of another post.

It is estimated that the world has more than 2 billion degraded hectares. If each family recovered 2 hectares, we would have 1 billion families working in harmony with Nature in a more socially just and environmentally sustainable world.

An alternative way to make regenerative agriculture more financially attractive, since we are unable to tax the loss, is to REMUNERATE regenerative producers with a green premium for the ecosystemic environmental service provided to society. Anyone who plants a forest is providing a service to all citizens of the Planet and should be rewarded for it.

It is exactly this problem that we aim to solve at Sintrop. We are developing with blockchain technology, in a decentralized way and with public data, the token Regeneration Credit, which will be algorithmically distributed by Smart Contracts to rural producers according to their life regeneration level.

But this will also be the subject of another post. However, we are looking for regenerative producers to participate in the first test operation of the System, if anyone is interested, just contact us.

I do believe. And you?

Now we know what needs to be done and where we have to go to reverse global warming, end hunger, restore water and reverse the mass extinction process we are experiencing.

Making regenerative agriculture the standard of our society is the path to humanity’s salvation.

I understand that this mission may seem crazy or impossible for most people living today. But I BELIEVE that we will make it. I believe that there will be a future where all sectors of our life will walk in harmony with Nature, in a cyclical and sustainable way.

I believe there will be a future in which all agricultural production will be Regenerative. Where producing degrading the Planet is as absurd as slavery. Where all people are environmentally aware and where, even if someone produced degraded, no one would buy.

We have to change before it’s too late. But it will be a process that will take decades…

We doubt the capacity for change and awareness of the existing population, but we underestimate how fast our society changes over the centuries with the passage of generations.

Environmental education for children is our greatest weapon in this fight. If changing and making adults more aware is more difficult, let’s educate our children. The older, the more resistant the person becomes to new habits and the more rooted they are in their own beliefs and lies.

I am a person who has lived most of my life with little environmental awareness. But I had my moment of awakening and today I try to consume food consciously.

It’s not a binary, “you’re either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution” kind of thing. We are all part of the problem and have a level of impact with our food. What matters is the direction we are going. What matters is that the “me” of the future has a smaller impact than I have today. And knowing that today I have a much smaller impact than years ago.

Some habits are easier, some more difficult. Particularly I see that the greatest difficulty is in the moments when we are away from our homes. Indoors it’s easier and if you don’t know where to start, look for local producers and buy products produced without poison.

We cannot wait idly for the government or any other group of people to solve the problem for us. We must take responsibility for our actions!

Our only enemy in this fight is the mirror itself, the one that shows us who we are and what we do.

Every time you buy some food, ask yourself: Is this product contributing to the regeneration or degradation of the Planet?

Nor should we judge each other, only each one knows the reality in which he lives. But if all people who have more than the basics to survive, create awareness about the problem and walk towards regeneration, regardless of whether they are still somehow linked to chemical agriculture, we will be on the right path.

And remember, your mirror knows which direction you’re going. At some point, we will all return to Nature, and we will take with us the mark we leave on the world.

It’s not the planet that’s at risk, it’s us human beings that are.

Agriculture will either destroy or save humanity. Which way are you going?

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