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

by Paul Hawken

There has long been a conventional wisdom that the world cannot be fed without chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now running trials on farming methodologies that eschew tillage and chemicals. Evidence points to a new wisdom: The world cannot be fed unless the soil is fed. Feeding the soil reduces carbon in the atmosphere. Soil erosion and water depletion cost $37 billion in the United States annually and $400 billion globally. Ninety-six percent of that comes from food production. India and China are losing soil thirty to forty times faster that the U.S. Regenerative agriculture is not the absence of chemicals. It is the presence of observable science—a practice that aligns agriculture with natural principles. It restores, revitalizes, and reinstates healthy agricultural ecosystems. Indeed, regenerative agriculture is one of the greatest opportunities to simultaneously address human, soil, and climate health, along with the financial well-being of farmers. It is about biological alignment—how to live and grow better food in ways that are more productive, safer, and more resilient.