 I have not ridden a motorcycle for more than thirty years. Right. Thirty thousand kilometers after thirty years. Soil is the largest living system. This is a kind of a murder of life. That I liked when you used the word that of murder. People are saying war on climate change. Right. Climate change is bad enough. We don't need a war on top of it. Namaskaram, good morning, Ginger. Hello, how are you? Very well, thank you. How are you doing? I am fine. I am well. What time it is there? I am just saying good morning to you. Do you know what is so great about that? Is I work early mornings. So, no matter if I am on the evening shows or it doesn't, I always say good morning. So, you are right. It's really an honor to speak with you. So, I am here in Jordan. Just got here some time ago. I am sorry, where did you end up? I am here in Jordan in a Kaba. So, it's riding through the desert has been a tough ride. The winds are trying to blow me off the road. Have you always been a person that likes to be on the move or is this truly just making sure that you get the message around? Or are you kind of a person who enjoys getting around? No, no. This is to get the message around. I have not ridden a motorcycle for more than 30 years. It's only now I am riding again. Last two years I am riding a bit. So, the 30 years, you figured you skipped 30 years, now 30 kilometers. 30,000. Yeah, 30,000. 30,000 kilometers after 30 years. So, let's just begin with the very simple part of what this journey is about and what saved the soil is about. Because our soil is not well. Yes, when you say not well, I am glad you are saying that. When you say not well, it's almost like a reference to your human being. I am not well means something is not good with me. So, soil is not well means you are recognizing that it's a living entity because soil is the largest living system, not just upon this planet, but in the known universe, it is the largest living system. There is no such magical material like topsoil on this planet anywhere in the known universe. And 87% of the life that you see around you, whether it's a worm, insect, bird, tree, man, woman, everybody comes from the soil. So, such a magical material, unfortunately in the last 70 to 100 years time, 52% of this topsoil is gone. We have destroyed it or degraded it to a point where it could be nearly useless. Above all, this is a kind of a murder of life. We are murdering the foundations of life, not realizing who we are today is a consequence of the soil or the organisms in the soil. A handful of soil has 8 to 10 billion organisms. These zillions of organisms is what manufactures life on this planet. Even in terms of evolutionary development of who we are, we are a consequence of this soil. If you give me a minute, I will put this into context. See, nearly a billion years ago before this phenomena called photosynthesis started, what photosynthesis means is plant life learned how to cook their food by using perpetual energy of the sun. Before that started, the atmospheric oxygen on this planet was approximately a little over one percent, a shade over one percent. That's all it was. Today it is 21%. That's why all of us are alive. We know that if we hold our nose, we cannot live. If we don't breathe, we cannot exist. So, photosynthesis has been the basis of enhancement of oxygen and that is the basis of all the complex life on this planet. There are many other aspects to it, but this is one key element. But in the last thousand years, we've brought down the photosynthesis on the planet by 85%. 85% drop in photosynthesis. What's our plan for life? It's really ridiculous. So, yes, please. I was going to say that I liked when you used the word that of murder, you know, to murder the soil because I always, I typically use the word bastardized, but murder is more correct because sometimes you cannot bring it back or there isn't an easy way to bring it back. But there actually is, right? It's like we're murdering it and then we had a chance to revive it and we haven't done that yet. Yes. So, right now we are in a cusp of time. As a generation, we are facing a great challenge. At the same time, we have this privilege that if we act now, we could be that generation which turned back from the brink of a disaster. Or we can sleep through this time and walk into the disaster which we may not be able to walk out of. Why I'm saying this is, according to NFAO, 27,000 species of organisms are going extinct per year. At this rate, in another somewhere between 25 to 40 years time, we will reach a place where even if we want to regenerate the soil, we will not be able to do it. It will become extremely hard or it will become impossible. So, right now we are in a cusp of time. If we act in 10 to 15 years time, we can make a significant turn around. This is why the urgency. And the urgency is different, I think. First of all, the timeframe is small, reading about and the regionality of it for someone here in the US, Chicago. I know that was one of the statistics that I was reading about or parts of Illinois having desertification to the point where we wouldn't have food source. By 2035, it's expected Illinois will go into famine kind of situations. You will not be able to grow much in that place. So, Illinois is one of the seriously threatened areas. Indiana and Ohio are not far behind. They are right there. See, what we need to look at is, across the world, across the world, there is not a single nation which has an average minimum 3% organic content in the soil. Individual plots may have, but average is like this. Northern Europe is 1.48, which is the highest in the world. Southern Europe is 1.1%. India is 0.68%. Africa is 0.3%. And that is almost near desert. United States is around 1.25 to 1.3%. Most of the South American nations are also suffering this because of forested land, the average is working out reasonably well. But otherwise, if you just take the agricultural land, South America also as a continent is pretty bad. So, not a single nation has a minimum organic content needed. So, this is a global crisis. This is not one nation. This is also one thing everybody should understand. When it comes to soil, when it comes to soil organic content or soil ecology, our national boundaries mean nothing because organisms thrive as one whole life system. It is not, it is in human minds that this is my piece of land, that is your piece of land. We've cut the planet as if it's a cake, that you can have one piece and I can have another piece. For administrative purposes, yes, we may divide the world. But if we believe these divisions are absolute, then how much damage we have caused to each other, how many wars we have fought in the name of nationality, race and religion, because constantly we are looking at what is the difference between you and me. I'm only scared, we will not start a gender war. It should not come because even that we're talking as if we're separate species. And every point difference, we are enhancing the points of difference. It is very important at a time like this when humanity is so empowered and so capable we find points which are common to us, a common ground, a common factor among ourselves. If we do not understand what is that all unifying cosmic consciousness, at least we must understand all of us come from the same soil. We are thriving on the same soil. When we die, we go back to the same soil. When the soil is stripped, the food is stripped. Our content of our food on top of not being able to potentially grow food, but the actual content of the food has changed, right? The micronutrient levels in the United States from early 20th century to now has dropped nearly 90%. So as I've been speaking about this, the statistics show that in 1920, if you ate one orange, what nutrients you were getting from that, if you want to get the same thing today in 2022, you need to eat eight oranges. Have you on any day eaten eight oranges? No, no. I wouldn't be able to do that. The fiber alone and the water content probably couldn't fit. And then the water, we should talk about water because that is something that people do understand and see happening quickly and can comprehend that desertification, water use, when you have soil that is stripped, it takes more water, correct? See, right now nearly 67% of the world's freshwater is used for agriculture. In India, 84% of the freshwater is used for agriculture, but we have demonstrated this clearly in our, with our farmers, where about 130,000 farmers we have converted into regenerative agriculture, which we call as tree-based agriculture. Here, if you raise the organic content to 8% to 10%, your irrigation requirement will come down to 30% of what it is right now. If you're using 100 liters of water, it will come down to 30 liters. This is very, very important. I'm glad that you raised that question because it is estimated by 2032, 3.5 billion people will be water stressed on the planet and this will be a major cause of migration and it is expected between 2032 to 2035, 1.2 billion people will migrate, unplanned forced migrations. Unplanned forced migrations cause enormous suffering to people, especially women and children take the brunt of that suffering, the brunt of that exploitation that happens out of that unplanned and forced migrations is mainly taken by the woman and then the children. So it's extremely important that people stay back where they belong and if enough food is growing there, if the soil is rich and the water content in the soil is rich, if the humidity is high in the soil and the humus is high in the soil, people will stay there if food is growing. Right now, when lands have become like desert, when there is no hope of finding food, naturally they move somewhere. Now I grew up on a small farm and I was fortunate enough to compost, was just a normal part of our life. Then I moved to a city and got to see how most people live and now I'm back outside of the city and my children were composting, but I do realize that my individual action means nothing compared to a vote or a vote for with my dollar. I mean at the end of it, people who are living in these cities that you are going around and speaking to, what do you tell them to do? Because we have to have societal change and policy to make this happen. It is agriculture, number one. 70% of the world's land are agriculture lands. So the problem is there to provide food for 8 billion people is not going to happen out of any rich kitchen garden. Definitely, you're growing a little bit of your own food is a wonderful thing to do, no question about that, but that's not a solution. Solution will happen only when it is entrained in the policy. What should be the quality of the soil that you do? Because we are focusing on agricultural soil because it's fashionable to talk about rainforest. See, rainforest doesn't need you. If you keep out of it, it'll be fine. It's as simple as that. But agricultural land is part of our food system. It is a part of our economic system and this is the only piece of geography which is tended to by human hand every day. Men and women are working on this every day. If you can't fix that, how will you fix the rainforest or the ocean or something else? This is a place where every day human hand is on it. This is what we need to fix and because this is also connected to our nourishment and economic well-being of any nation. So how do I do it? I vote for people who will make soil a priority, I assume, but it feels very okay. I'll talk about it. I love it. This is important to me. It's purchasing, the purchase power, voting with your dollar of who's doing it right or shopping from people who are doing it right. But what can someone do coming away from this right now? See, as a citizen of a democratic nation, there are things that we need to understand. Suppose you were the president of your country and you are given a four-year mandate, tell me, would you take up something which will take 15, 20 years to yield results or would you try to do things which will bear fruit in four years or five years or something? Naturally, it is so. This is the case with every country. Political leadership is aiming to do something within the mandate period. They won't think too far off because in every country, resources are scarce. Once you do something long-term, short-term things will suffer and unfortunately, the citizenry in the world have been so short-term-ish that if some leader comes and thinks long-term, next time he's always voted out. This has been the case. So this is what I'm trying to change. Three to four billion adults means nearly 60% of the voting population on the planet should express their concern about soil, about long-term well-being of our nations, long-term well-being of our children, future well-being of future generations. We must express this. So this is the first time something like this is possible because now you are on the television, there are people on social media, this is the first time you can sit in your chair and talk to the whole world. Never before in the history of humanity such a thing was possible. When we have these capabilities, when we have these technologies and platforms to do this, if we don't do it now, if we do not manifest what we want in this world now, it simply shows that we don't care enough. So I thought before, I've been talking about this for the last 30 years, everybody claps their hands and says, Sathaguru, what you're doing is fantastic, wonderful work and they go to sleep. So I thought I need to do something to wake up everybody at the age of 65, 30,000 kilometers, he's not enjoying that. But I thought I need to do something, I need to risk my life, otherwise people won't sit up. Now they're sitting up, I wanted three to four billion, it is only day 45 and approximately from the numbers that I'm getting, we could have instigated or inspired nearly 1.2 to 1.3 billion people talking about soil and almost every other government has started talking about soil. In COP 15, the main theme is soil this time, not just that. In the World Economic Forum, we've got soil meetings going on. In the Economic Forum, soil was impossible, but this time there is space for soil in the Economic Forum. The narrative is changing. This is how human beings work. First, we need to think differently, then we need to feel for it, then we need to make systems for it, and then action. We must be patient enough to make that happen. Now we replaced microorganisms and the basis of what biodiversity on a farm was with machine and chemical. Is it wrong of me to think that we're also going to have to, after we think and then start taking action, fight a bit against an entity that has very, very big stakes in their companies making money off of the way that we do agriculture right now? See, if you fight, they will fight back. This is the nature of human beings, especially when their commercial interests are involved. But instead of that, if you give them incentives to transform their businesses, they will transform their businesses. There is no need to beat down any business. If some businesses are not suitable for our times, we must transform the business. Transformation will not come easy. It costs money. It takes time. Give them the time and the money. They will transform themselves. Why will they not do it? So first thing is, give the incentive to the farmer. The thing that I'm saying right now is there are many nations and like for example, European Union has worked out a very comprehensive plan for their common agricultural policy. I've been looking at that. What I see is, it is too complex ever to become a full-fledged reality because too many things are involved. Like you said, people are thinking about fertilizer, reduce the fertilizer, reduce the pesticide. For such people who are sitting in urban centers and thinking of organic farming and disforming, let me put it into context. If we take away all fertilizer and pesticide today from the world, our food production could come down to 25% of what it is right now. That will be a mega disaster that we can't fix. We cannot afford that. So how to reduce this? If you enhance the organic content, the use of fertilizer will start sliding down naturally. See, fertilizers cost a certain amount of money. Why would any farmer use a fertilizer that is not needed on his farm? He will naturally start reducing. But I'm never telling them, don't use it because from field to field, the soil is different. Different soils may need different amount of chemical additions, whatever. But if the soil is rich, the need for chemical will start coming down. This is the way to go. It is very important that we don't start a fight. There are enough fights going on in the world because when we say climate change, people are saying war on climate change. Climate change is bad enough. We don't need a war on top of it. People are angry on the streets and shouting. If you're getting angry, obviously you're causing global warming. Well, I like that. I like to think of an incentive does make sense to incentivize, to reduce tilling. There are so many things that you could make incentive, but that's also going to have to come from policy. It has to come from policy. See, if let us say you have a certain piece of land and I have my land, both of us are keeping our land really wonderful. What is the guarantee the next generation will keep it wow? Unless it's in the policy. The simple thing I'm saying is this, if you have 10,000 square feet of land in your city, you cannot build 10,000 square feet of building. There is a law. You can build 6-7,000. You have to allow some space for yourself, your neighbor, something. But if you have 100 acres of land, you can plow every inch of it, turn it into a desert in 10 years time. There is no law. Nobody will ask you why you did this. I'm saying if you own agricultural land, you must keep the organic content at the minimum level, which is 3% because soil is not our property. Soil is a legacy that's come to us from previous generations. Passing it on as living soil is most important and a fundamental responsibility that we owe to future generations. But today some generations are calling themselves Generation Z that scares me. It sounds like the last generation. Thank you so much for this. Let's make it happen. Then we must make this happen. You're in the media. You must raise the pitch because right now, as a citizen of a democratic country, our voice is the most valuable thing. We must voice our concern, not in anger, not in resentment. This is an expression of our love and responsibility for the life that we are and the life that is around us and the future life that must be on this planet beyond us. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think that this soil is the one that could get us through because I was saying to your colleagues. This is an infine factor also for us. And I've seen it and even across our party, the stories I've told, I went to what I would call a soil sermon about six years ago in Texas at a cattle ranch. And that really opened me into the world of seeing and these were from folks who would not usually be in a story that I was doing about environment and climate change. And it was a really beautiful moment. I think soil is maybe one of those topics and obviously incredibly important, but perhaps one that does unify. In this 45 days right across Europe, everywhere people's response has been nothing short of spectacular, spectacular response. And most agricultural ministries and others and 11 of these governments have signed MOUs with us. That means the narrative is shifting within the agriculture ministries and above all, they're beginning to recognize soil as a living entity, which is the most important thing. So we are moving in that way, but we must understand something of this scale will not change overnight. We must keep the throttle on till it is done. Please be with me and let's make this happen. Thank you. Stay safe on the road, enjoy the rest of the process. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.