WATCH: Can we feed the world without destroying it?
Free for anyone to view, The Need To GROW asks how we can make agriculture more sustainable through organic, circular approaches that offer high yields and support microorganisms.
The planet is running out of resources, and few places is this more evident than food production. Environmentally speaking, no sector comes close for overall impact, which ranges from emissions from machinery, processing, storage and distribution, to the degradation of soil, rendering land useless in terms of farming, and biodiversity.
In the US, for example, soil degradation is now occurring at ten times the rate the land can replenish itself, and by 2021 was costing corn farmers alone £500million in lost revenue. It’s a pattern that is being repeated across all locations where industrial scale agriculture occurs, and this is particularly worrying when we consider how the Earth is used overall.
Almost 40% of the planet’s land area is dedicated to farming, but as nutrient depletion continues this will proportion need to increase to sustain current output without substantial changes in how the sector works, a significant number of which are related to how agricultural land is used.
Simply put, humans need to limit how much land the sector covers, limit the impact of activities on those areas, and reduce waste – with around 1/3 of all food produced for humans winding up in the bin.
Food Revolution Network has produced a new documentary, The Need To GROW, which unveils the keys to a sustainable food chain, and a healthy planet overall. Covering subjects such as averting species extinction and reducing the use of pesticides and fertilisers, in turn limiting pollution, to the food types we should all be filling our fridges with, the full movie is available to watch online for free.
Watch The Need To Grow here, or check out the trailer first below.
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Image: Steven Weeks