Spiritual leader Sadhguru warned that the world faces a looming food crisis and potential civilisational collapse unless urgent action is taken to address the deteriorating state of the world’s soil.
In an interview with Arabian Business, Sadhguru praised the UAE for making food and agriculture a top priority at COP28, noting “at last, we’ve realised we need to eat.” However, he stressed that more needs to be done, warning that “we are on the verge of desertification. People should just look at Google Maps from 2004 to now, if you look at it there is more than 12-15 percent extra brown patches. The desert is expanding.”
According to Sadhguru, the key issue is that the world has approximately only 40-50 years of agricultural soil left, yet “we are going on as if there is no tomorrow.” He explained that when crops are harvested “we putting back almost nothing.” As a result, even rich soils can only support farming for “25 to 40 or maybe 50 years at the most.”
Sadhguru’s warning: Desertification threatens civilisation
Sadhguru highlighted that “not a single nation on the planet has the minimum average of 3 percent organic matter,” with the highest levels currently found in some parts of Western Europe at just 2.4 percent. Below 1 percent organic matter is considered desertification, yet the average levels in India and Africa are only 0.62 percent and 0.3 percent respectively. “We are on the verge of desertification. This is because we’re actively turning land into desert,” he warned.
Unless urgent action is taken, Sadhguru painted a grim picture of potential “civilisational collapse.”
“When a food crisis happens, it is not just about somebody being hungry, a civilisational collapse will happen. You can imagine if people on the street don’t have anything to eat, your whole idea of civilisation, which was built over 1,000 years will be pulled down in one afternoon.”
Sadhguru’s soil solution: Laws, support, awareness
To avert disaster, Sadhguru outlined three pillars needed – policies to regulate soil health, policy support mechanisms, and increased awareness. “We need a law. Minimum 3 percent organic content is needed to maintain agricultural lands,” he said. National governments must introduce “incentive based” policies to help fragile farmer economies improve soil quality.
If the world “acts now in the next 12-15 years, we can make a significant difference,” Sadhguru said.
“Your body is over 60 percent micro-organisms; all life is like this. What we call as micro-organisms or biome is the foundation for all life, but that foundation is depleting at a pace that you can’t imagine,” warned Sadhguru.
Sadhguru is a spiritual leader and founder of the Save Soil Movement, a campaign to address the soil crisis by bringing together people from around the world to stand up for soil health, and supporting leaders of all nations to institute national policies and actions toward increasing the organic content in cultivable soil.
A full video of the Arabian Business interview with Sadhguru will be released in the coming days.
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