 So we will see how land and soil interconnect and how all of that will interconnect with food, with water, with air, with fashion, and with our life, so to speak. Sadhguru, you embarked into a 100-day motorbike journey from London to India covering 30,000 kilometers across 25 nations. You are doing this as part of the Safe Soil Campaign calling on policymakers to make soil regeneration a priority. You are not young anymore. Embarking on such a journey is quite extraordinary. Sir Guru, can you first tell us about this campaign? What is the vision and what is the ambition behind the campaign? Namaskaram, Tev Ibrahim. Thank you very much for having us here and your support. And this has been your life's work in many ways. What I am seeing is there is so much happening in the world. There are so many concerned people, but still when it comes to concerted action, it is not one-pointed, it's many-pointed. I am not questioning the significance of other aspects, that is also significant. But soil is like the cream of the land or the cream of the planet itself. When I say cream, it takes certain amount of time for the cream to come up and the cream has come up over millions of years. And our life has come out of this cream, which is the topsoil. And that topsoil is in serious danger right now. We are running towards an extinction of this. What extinction of soil simply means is soil or the topsoil particularly is the largest living system, not just on this planet, but in this universe. In the known universe, there is no other material like this that can sprout life the way this topsoil sprouts. Whether you see a worm or an insect, bird, tree, animal, man, woman, everything has come out of this. But we have put this to great risk and danger right now. Yes, there are other concerns of rainforest, oceans and everything, but I think if we just stay out of it, they will be fine. They will all come back by themselves. But agricultural land is, you know, very connected with us, is entwined with our lifestyles and our living and our survival. This is a piece of land or this is a piece of geography that we call as agricultural lands in the world, where human hand is tending to it on a daily basis. If we can't turn this around, and that is in the worst possible condition, and if we can't turn this around, this shows we don't have enough commitment. So this is not a question of some great technology needed. This is not a question of enormous resources needed. This is just a question of direction and commitment. So I thought we should bring focus to this because as I spoke to various ministries, agriculture ministries across the world, what I discovered was most nations are still treating soil as an inert substance that you can manage by adding or discounting some chemical in it. Soil is the largest living system and first thing is this must come into human consciousness that we are dealing with life, we are not dealing with the material. Soil is not a resource, soil is the source of our life. If we do not rejuvenate that, if we do not enhance the power and the quality of that soil, the power and quality of our own lives will go down, the life of every other organism will go down. Why this urgency? You already accused me that I am not young enough for this. Yes, I am not. I shouldn't be doing this at this stage in my life. But I have been talking about this for nearly thirty years and people have a way of listening to it, appreciating it and sleeping on it. So I thought I need to do something shocking to wake them up a little bit and at least now they are concerned about my life. So in that, they will also be concerned about the soil. Why I am doing this is, see people in any given nation, nowhere in any given country have they ever spoken. 60% of the population have never spoken of their nations or their, or the planet or even the long-term well-being of their own children. They have not spoken. So in a democratic country, we have not elected governments to do something fantastic. We have elected governments to fulfill the mandate of the people. Where is the mandate from the people? So this movement is focused towards creating that 60% of the world's electorate to stand up and say, yes, we are concerned about soil. We are interested in long-term well-being of the planet and the future of our children because without these democratically elected governments cannot go ahead because their own term is four to five years. If they have to commit to an action which will take 15, 20 years to bear results, it needs people's mandate. We are trying to create, bring the people's mandate by moving three to four billion people on the planet. Fantastic. Well, really well said. When you said soil is not a resource, it's a source. It is a source. Soil has different names. Soil is food. Healthy land is clean water. Sustainable soil conservation is climate action. Biodiversity conservation, poverty reduction. Soil is fashion. Think about it when you buy a new t-shirt. Healthy soil sustains the economy. I guess that is the reason behind the campaign and the conscious planet movement that you have created, isn't it? So what do you say to the young girl or the young boy in the street about what their contribution specifically can be to conserve soil and to save the planet? See, Ibrahim, you're heading this agency, the UNCCD, which is combating desertification. I'm not here to tell you the horrific facts about soil to you. You're the man. But you can tell it to the people in the street. No, I will say it in a different way. Because I'm not a scientist. Let me say it in my way. This happened in 2016. A few scientists got an appointment with God. They went there and they told him, hey, old man, you've done pretty well with creation. But today everything that you can do, we can also do. It's time you retire. God said, oh, is that so? What is it that you can do? So they dug up little soil, made a vague image of a human child and did certain things to it and it came alive. The child became alive. God said, oh, that's very impressive. But first get your own soil. So it doesn't matter what, it doesn't matter what in your life you are using right now, what you see as living things around you, everything, from a tree to a plant to a worm to an insect, human beings, animals, your clothes, your food, the table, the furniture in which you sleep, just everything, everything in your life is from the soil. And there is no such material in the entire universe. This is not something that can be substituted. The only way is to keep the soil rich if you want the life rich. So it doesn't matter who you are, what you're doing, you must understand you're constantly dealing with soil, the very body that you carry is soil. Will you get this now? Or will you get this when we are buried? This is the only question. If we get it now, we can turn this around, we can make a huge difference. If we get it then, we still make good manure, but it's late. So are you saying that the young boy and the young lady in the street can do something about safe soil? Yes, they can do something. See, our school children in Tamil Nadu, when I spoke to our children, they said they are going to get 10 million children in India to write to the Prime Minister. So right now we have not reached 10 million, but few hundred thousands have happened. I'm sure Prime Minister's office will be inundated with children's messages. But once this happens in every country, no leader will be able to ignore it when he knows people are concerned about it. The most important thing is people have not spoken till now. So without getting them angry, it's very important, everybody says let's go, let's get the thing, the evil people who did this. I want everybody to understand this did not happen because of any evil design. This has happened in pursuit of human happiness and well-being. So that means every one of us are partners in this destruction and every one of us should become part of the solution. This is not about, this is not an agitation. This is not a protest. This is not an activism against any particular industry or lobby. I think all of us need to get together to turn this around because this is a problem of that size. If we want a solution, every one of us should be a part of it. Fantastic. Sadguru, you are expected to attend the 15th session of the conference of the parties to the UN Convention to combat desertification. This conference will be held in Abirjan, Kodifar in West Africa from 9th to 20th of May. World leaders, ministers, civil society organizations, experts, the world will rally to Abirjan by thousands to discuss the very important issue of land and soil. And we very much, we are looking forward to your participation to this conference. I believe Abirjan is one of the cities that you will be visiting. During that 100 days, what do you expect from a conference of the parties like this one in Abirjan and what do you hope to accomplish there? One thing I would request yourself and UNCCD as a whole to in some way get the focus more on top soil. The other concerns are there. I'm not saying you should give it up. But in terms of simple policy, we must bring the concern to this. This is what I would like to appeal to these 197 nations, including the European Union, which is an important part of setting an example. The important thing is this, that there must be an incentive for a farmer to raise the organic content. Right now there are various products which are considered organic. What are the other products? They are definitely not inorganic. We know that. So if we change the label itself, that it is a certain percentage of organic content, for example, right now, Northern Europe has 1.48%. If Northern Europe offers this incentive to the farmer, if you raise it to 3% organic content, it's very easy to test the organic content of the soil. It can be done on the field. You don't need a lab to do that. So if that is done, this product, by converting the land into 3% organic, 3% is not the best thing. 3% is starvation diet for the microbial life. But at least let that much happen because at least they stay alive. Below that, they're dying and desertification is happening means microbial life is being starved to death. That's what it means. So at least keep them alive and as it raises, you label the product according to its organic content. In the meanwhile, the businesses and industry can jump in and see that the farmer gets the carbon credit. It's very important we enhance the renumerative aspect of farming. Otherwise nobody will be farming in another 25-30 years time. We have seen in India out of 63% of the population which is in farming, not even 2% want their children to go into farming. This is a disastrous future we are looking at because this magic of turning mud into food is not a simple thing. It's a very complex thing, but the knowledge is intrinsic. So people are not valuing it. Most educated people cannot grow a crop. They cannot do it. It is not in their capability to do that. So another thing is the product will find different ladders in the marketplace. 3%, 4%, 5% because we have enough science to tell you that if the organic content in the soil is 3%, what are the extra micronutrients which are present in that food and what are the health benefits, what are the preventive health benefits. All this is well established. We just need to collate this and establish a roadmap that the whole world moves towards a minimum 3-6% organic content in the next 8-12 years time. It is very much doable because just if you bring cover crops in summers or winters according to the nature of one's climate, just the cover crop and plough it back into the land, if you do this within 6-8 years most lands will reach 3% minimum. So it is not not doable, nor does it take enormous amount of money. It is only a question of single pointed direction and commitment. What we have seen in India is to put cover crops, if government has to give subsidy for the seeds to be thrown into the soil out of which you are not taking any crop, it is just being used as humus. If you have to do that, it just costs 450 rupees per acre which is just 5 euros or less than 5 euros per acre. Every nation can do this. It does not need heavy budgets. If you want to do it within 2-3 years time it will cost little more money but if you want to do it in 6-8 years time every nation can do it. This is not happening only because of lack of single or direction and commitment. That's what I would like to bring to the COP 15 in Ivory Coast that these 197 nations, if they look at it this way that a single or focused towards top soil and a commitment towards that this doesn't take money this doesn't take any great technology every nation poor or rich can do it and it should be done. If you are interested in the future of this world and the future generations UNFAO goes about to say the food that we are eating right now belongs to the unborn child. Eating up the food of the unborn child hurts me deep in my heart. It feels like we are committing a crime against humanity itself. Well, thank you very much, thank you to all listeners and viewers millions from around the world follow you and we hope that they will do more than just following you in your videos they will follow you with actions and we would like to call all people in the world to actually take care of this very important natural capital because it is life it is our food, it is our air it is the quality of the water it is the quality of our health and it is the quality of the food the nutritious food that we all need. So I would like to thank you all very much for your participation, thank you Sadhguru for your tour and thank you once again my appeal to every one of you that all you have to do is these hundred days talk about soil every day something. Please research by yourself or savesoil.org is there otherwise UNFAO, World Food Program, UNCCD, many conventions they have their website, there's a whole lot of information take something make it your own and talk about soil for these hundred days in a concerted way the world talking about soil and shifting the narrative towards soil is very vitally important right now. This is once in a will we be that of disaster or will we be that generation which was sleeping through the thing and landed up in the disaster and later on we will grieve about it this is not a disaster we can allow to happen we can mitigate this and this is both a challenge and a privilege for our generation that we are in this cusp of time that we can turn it around but if this is attempted after thirty or forty years time this will be extraordinarily difficult and most probably we will not be able to do it this is just the time this is our time let's make this happen thank you very much let's make it happen thank you are we done? ok well