 World War II is a scar upon human race forever. World War II is supposed to have taken the lives of anywhere between eleven to twelve million people. More than two hundred political prisoners were burned to death. It is not about who did it. We as human beings, that's what we do, unfortunately, till now. But what we are looking at is not going to come in the form of bombs. There's no bang bang happening here, this happens quietly. Every responsible scientist in the world is saying by 2045, we'll be producing forty percent less food on the planet and our population will be 9.2 billion people. If it goes this way, World War II will look like a small blimp because a forty percent less food means it's estimated in six months about 1.5 to 1.7 billion people can die. Climate change, food security, nutrition security, water quality, water renewability, power diversity, land grab, political stability, human health, well-being, peace, prosperity. Soil is the basic. Soil is a basic entity on which all trust real life depends. Ninety-five percent of all the food which is consumed by human comes from soil. As much as ninety-five percent of all antibiotics taken by human and animal come from soil. Soil and life have evolved together. There is no soil without life and there is no life without soil. In a handful of soil, there are over five to seven billion organisms. And just like how our body functions, the food that we eat, actually we cannot digest all by ourselves. We don't have the necessary enzymes and alkalines to digest this completely. Only because of the microbial gut microbes that are there, we digest food. The same is true with all the plants and trees. They cannot take the nutrients from the soil by themselves. They need the help of the microorganisms. Good guy bacteria, good guy fungi, protozoa, nematodes, micro arthropods, earthworms, inkotraids, all of those organisms are required to have a good healthy soil so your plant gets the balance of everything that it needs every second of every day. The first fifteen inches, twelve to fifteen inches of soil is responsible for eighty-seven percent of the life on the planet including you and me. And that, today we are using machines where they're ploughing almost like twelve to fourteen inches deep and leaving it open to the sun. This is like we peel off our skin and stand in the sun, you know? You will be screaming. That's exactly what the land is doing. Land is screaming but nobody's hearing. Just plowed and left open, killing all the microbial activity. See right now the organisms here, the only food they can eat is organic content. Where will the organic content come from? Here you see all these leaves, dry leaves falling down. We won't pick it up nor sweep it away. We leave it like that, it'll become part of the soil. It is only the green litter from the trees and other, whether it's grass or bushes, whatever, or the animal waste, which can put organic content into the soil. In normal agricultural soil the minimum organic content should be between three to six percent. The most minimum is three percent. Three percent is kind of the borderline where you've got enough diversity in the kinds of foods that are present so that all of the necessary sets of microorganisms will be able to perform their jobs. In most of the western world we have so destroyed sets of species of different functional groups that we're on the edge of not being able to come back from that. Over sixty-two percent of India's soil has organic content less than point five percent. Entire southern Europe, the soil organic content is just around one percent or below. Over fifty percent of the top soil in whole of United States is gone. You've heard of dinosaurs going extinct, dodos going extinct, but this is a question of soil extinction. See, this is… this is sand. If you add enough organic content into this, this will become rich soil. Similarly, if you take all the organic content out of the soil, it will become sand. So, this is called as desertification in the world. World's agricultural soils are becoming sand or turning into a desert largely across the world because there is no organic content. Now the soil that we are using is not our generation soil. We are using up the soil of the unborn child. We have no business to do that because soil is not our property. It's a legacy that's come to us and it's a legacy that we should leave behind. Living soil, because once there is no richness in soil, there is no way there is richness in life. Right now, United Nations statistics say that we may have agricultural soil only for another eighty to hundred crops. This means it is a matter of forty to fifty years after that there could be severe food shortages and getting rich organic land or soil will become the basis of battles and wars on this planet. People talk about the weapon of mass disruption, nuclear bombs and missiles and other things. Yes, what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is unforgivable. Yes, we forget one of the biggest weapon of mass destruction is hunger, malnutrition, unavailability of healthy environment. Even now, hunger-related death in the world are sixteen to seventeen every minute. That, my friend, is the weapon of mass destruction. Now, we had in December 2019, we had 690 million people globally which were hungry. Out of that, 40 million were in the United States. So, it's not just Tambakthu or some part in India or elsewhere, even in the US. I was talking to the WFP director who is from United States. He said that by 2035, there could be severe famines in Chicago and Illinois region because the soil conditions have depleted so badly, it can easily happen. Civil wars are expected. By 2035, 2040, they're expecting many many civil wars within countries because not everybody in a given country will have food. So, naturally there'll be fights. If 40% less food in India means 40% of the people don't have food, you think they'll just get hungry and sit in a corner? No, they will do things that you can't imagine. You must understand, all human civilizations have been built only because of the fire of the belly to fulfill this. The same fire which built human civilizations can burn the damn thing down if it is not quenched. Do not underestimate that. Since 1990, there have been around 30 wars in Africa. 27 of these wars were fought for the sake of acquiring fertile soil. The great revolutions of the world, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was mainly for bread. Even their slogan is peace, land and bread. That is the slogan of the Russian Revolution. Food scare cities in France were the main trigger for the French Revolution. What happened in China, you know, the so-called cultural revolution is also because of repeated famines across the country. And once there is no bread on the street, it's easy to light the fuse. If you want peace, everybody must have bread, roti, food. There is no peace if there is no food. It's simpler than that. Soil is a most neglected part of the human environment. Degrading soils means losing and wasting potential food today and forever. A human being like other animals are requiring a fairly complex diet and many nutrients. And these nutrients we get through our food and that essentially depend on the soils. So the soils rich in nutrients, in minerals, a precondition for a healthy diet. There's a direct link between soil quality in terms of nutrients and diet quality in terms of what we eat. So that is not well understood by many people. You have to put into the soil nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, micronutrients, calcium, potassium, organic matter, content, which is mineral-identic. It must be returned back to the soil in one form or the other or soil to be productive. Soil produces straw grains, roots. I believe that if people take the grains and they turn the roots and straw back to the soil so that soil gets its share of production, that's a good thing. If you take away the straw, then soil does not get anything. So progressively soil is being degraded, depleted, devoid of the essential elements. That is when we call degradation of soil health. And when soil is degraded, people living on it are also becoming progressively miserable. The soil depletion in United States has led to 21% drop in vitamin A in all the fruits, vegetables and everything else that you're eating. 30% drop in vitamin C, 37% drop in iron levels, 27% drop in calcium levels. The things that today you all think is very healthy to eat salads and stuff, from the early 20th century what level of nutrients they had and what they have today is only 10% left, 90% lower than what it was in early 20th century. The Center for Disease Control, which is right now playing a significant role in this COVID situation says all Americans are potassium deficient. 90% of the Americans have vitamin E deficiency, 70% have vitamin K deficiency, 52% don't have enough magnesium, 43% don't have enough vitamin A, 40% don't have enough vitamin C. This is in the most affluent nation. It simply means the food that you're eating doesn't have enough nutrients, even if you eat enough food, because soil has been destroyed like this. One serious problem that the world is facing right now is by 2030 it is expected 1.6 billion people will migrate. Out of this, 0.9 billion will come from Africa. See, when people migrate in an unplanned way, what they go through is unbelievable, especially women and children. What they go through in unplanned migration, where they're being dragged through all kinds of unfamiliar terrain, what happens to them is unbelievable. Nobody should face this. All young women like between 14 to 18 years of age, they're being seriously exploited. It is expected that in India about 220 million people will move to urban centers in the next eight to ten years time. Tell me in your city, do you have place for another 20-30 million people extra? This will happen in a big way across the world. Yes, there are soil refuges. Yes, there are climate refuges. Yes, there are drought refuges. And those refuges go and knock door of other people. A U.S. southern border is a very good of them. People jumping into the Mediterranean without realizing whether they'll make it on the other side or not is a very good example. There are several millions of refuges in the world because the land which they grew up on cannot afford their services, their basic needs. Eventually the solution lies to make sure that the soil can support them. There's a very strong link between soil degradation and global issues. For example, climate change. So current civilization, I call it carbon civilization. Everything we do is based on carbon, fossil fuel based carbon. And therefore we have depleted also carbon not only from fossil fuel but also from soil. Maximum amount of carbon was always in the soil. But now a lot of it is in the atmosphere where it should not be. If it gets into the atmosphere, as you've heard of global warming and climate change, all these impacts happen. But nearly forty percent of this is happening simply because soil is left open. For this, the main contributor is agriculture or open lands. The same soil which would have taken carbon dioxide and methane from the atmosphere is now releasing it simply because we are leaving it open and there is no life or microbial activity. When the global mean temperature goes from zero to one, that's a big thing. Go from one to two, it's a massive thing. Go beyond two, you're in a disaster zone. We are now on our way to a warming of three degrees Celsius and we're doing it in a blink of time. I mean it's just this extraordinary exponential rise of temperature on earth. But if we can take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through plots and put it back to the soil and keep it there, then we deplete the carbon from the atmosphere and make global warming lesser serious problems. The Brazilian part of the Amazon rainforest has, according to the latest science, tipped over from being a carbon sink for thousands of years, one of the most important carbon sinks on planet earth, to now being a carbon source. So it has already tipped over and is releasing more carbon than it's taking up. So soil has become, you know, if anything even more important, even existential. See, the whole life process on this planet is carbon-based. So the same goes for a blade of grass, the same goes for the coconut tree, the same goes for every other creature on this planet, essentially carbon. Where is all this carbon coming from? The great miracle on the planet in the process of evolution of creation on this planet is photosynthesis. A limitless amount of energy coming there from the sun, using that the atmospheric carbon is absorbed and it goes through a whole series of process through millions of microbial life and gets stored in the soil. What gets stored in this way, going through three to four cycles of microbes, this gets stored up to a thousand years minimum. We've become a geological force of change. We are at risk of destabilizing not only, you know, local ecosystems and local life living conditions, but the entire planet. United Nations says we only have 60 years of agricultural soil left. So within 50 years time, there will be a serious food crisis on the planet. A mass famine would be inevitable. Now I know people always say, you know, we only have 60 more years of agriculture to go. Yeah, but that was 10 years ago that we made that statement. We're at 50 guys. Soil is a living entity. It has a lot of organism. And when those organisms are killed, soil is no longer healthy. Soil is no longer living. Soil cannot create the ecosystem services. When soil dies, everything else dies with it, including us. If we start correcting it now in 15 to 25 years, we can make a reasonable level of correction. We can come away from the brink where we are. But if you leave it for another 30 to 40 years and then try to do it, it will take 150 to 200 years to regenerate the soil. So this is not about just painting a, this is not about just painting a dark picture of everything. This is a moment of responsibility that we as human beings, if you stand up right now, we can turn this around. Soils is the very basis for biology and human life. But we also know that we cannot destroy nature to feed humanity because that will threaten the stability of the planet, which means the life support for humans and all species on earth. So we now need to be caretakers of soil. The cost of action is much lower than the cost of inaction, dealing with soil and land degradation. But it's not something which the individual farmers can do. It has to have a large, regional, if not global initiative. This depletion of soil has happened because we have not put back the organic content back into the soil of what we're taking out. So we're seeing how to get a policy in 192 countries to make this the norm that if you own agricultural land, minimum three to six percent organic content must be there by law. Initially by recommendation, then by incentives and then by law, by mandatory law it has to happen. If it's not in the law, then we don't know what they will do tomorrow. That's what we have done, isn't it? From previous generation to this generation, in one generation we've ruined it because there was no law. If there was a law, minimum agriculture content should be… organic content should be there in it. We would have kept it that way. So first and foremost thing is to bring the law. To bring the law what is needed. This is a democracy. That means people are the power. It's people's power. That's what it means. So there are two very powerful things in your hands right now. One is your vote, another is a microphone. Hello? That means your voice. So this is important. The people of the world have to speak and say we are ready for long-term solutions. We are ready for long-term commitment. We are ready for a long haul. We are willing to pay the price for the well-being of future generations. This is why the safe soil movement is not about action but it's about bringing policy change. As a part of this, I'm sixty-five and I'm riding thirty thousand kilometers across twenty-four nations to activate support from the citizenry. We are trying to get about three to three point five billion people to speak about soil for this one hundred days. From March 21st, one hundred days, we want the whole world to talk about soil. We have UNCCD as our partner. We have also signed something with the World Food Program and the scientists from FHO and other organizations are working with us. World Economic Forum is very much with us. Most governments have come on board. Heads of states will be flagging off this rally. Right now that's what I'm trying to create, that if three point five billion people speak, this is sixty percent of the electorate. If sixty percent of the electorate speaks, there is no government which will ignore that in a democratically set up government. Each one of you should reach as many people as you can to make this happen. Many global leaders and influencers are already participating in the movement. Be a part of this and let it make it happen. For my part, as much as I can contribute. And the movement that you are taken up, I could not expect any more God-wessing than that. Sadguru and this campaign is so important. You're going to save the soil. Do your part. And saving the soil. And our planet's future depends on it. Sadguru, save soil my friend. Save soil, let's make it happen. Antigone Barbutta is part of the SAVE soil mission. In the event of what you're doing, that is why we are happy to save the MOU. There's science and philosophy that backs the thought and who dismantles it. Save soil, let's make it happen. Save the soil. We know what we must do, so let's make it happen. Let's make it happen. Let's make it happen. Let's make it happen. Let's make this happen. Let's make it happen.