Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

by Paul Hawken

IMPACT: Based on historic growth on large farming operations, our analysis projects the total area under conservation agriculture will continue growing from 177 million acres to peak at 1 billion acres by 2035. We assume that as regenerative agriculture becomes more widely used, farms that have already adopted conservation agriculture will convert to these more effective soil fertility practices in response to consumer demand for fewer harmful herbicides. The benefits of that conversion are counted by the regenerative agriculture solution. Nonetheless, conservation agriculture offers significant benefits in the interim, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 17.4 gigatons based on average carbon sequestration rates of .15 to .25 tons of carbon per acre per year, depending on region. Implementation costs are low at $38 billion with a return of $2.1 trillion.