We need a message of hope . . . 

Dear Organic Consumer,

I’ve just returned from an inspirational trip to India. I went on this journey (which my fellow traveler, Vandana Shiva, refers to as a “soil pilgrimage”) to celebrate the International Year of the Soil.

But I also undertook this journey to see firsthand what many Indian farmers are up against. And also because I believe that the crises we face today—hunger, poverty, chronic illness, drought, floods—demand that we come up with solutions that we can adapt to every region of the world, and execute on a global scale.

Tomorrow is World Food Day. It is also the day we will publicly launch, in conjunction with other international leaders and organizations, a new project: Regeneration International.

What better day—the day on which the International Year of the Soil and World Food Day intersect—to remind world leaders and policymakers that without healthy soil, there are no healthy farms. Without healthy farms, there is no healthy food. Without healthy food, there are no healthy people. Without healthy farms, food and people, there are no healthy local economies.

And, as it turns out, without healthy soil, there is no healthy climate.

The world’s best climate scientists warn that even if we miraculously achieve zero emissions tomorrow, on a global scale, it would take about 1,000 years to get back to the magic “safe” number of 350 ppm carbon in the atmosphere.

That could be too late.

We need a message of hope to counter such dire climate predictions. We need a message of hope for those people, all over the world, who don’t worry about global warming, because they are too worried about where their next meal will come from. 

Regeneration International’s mission is to broadcast a new message of hope. The message is this: Organic regenerative agriculture and land use practices, scaled up all over the world, can restore the soil’s natural ability to draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in the soil. And by restoring the health of the world’s soils, we will also revitalize local economies, and produce abundant, nutrient-dense food.

I didn’t have to go all the way to India to learn that we need to shut down our degenerative industrial GMO factory farm system and replace it with a regenerative one. But my “soil pilgrimage” did serve as an urgent reminder that there are people all over the world who go hungry, every day.

It doesn’t have to be that way. The solutions to hunger and poverty lie right under our feet, in the soil. We just have to cultivate it with consciousness.

On this World Food Day, I have several invitations for you.

If you would like to support this new project, please make a donation here. 

If you would like to join the “Regenerator” movement, please sign up here for news and alerts. 

If you would like to attend our World Food Day press conference tomorrow in Washington D.C., learn more here. 

And please read this wonderful World Food Day essay by Vandana Shiva.

Ronnie Cummins
National Director, Organic Consumers Association and Organic Consumers Fund

P.S. I serve on the steering committee of Regeneration International, along with: Vandana Shiva (Navdanya); Tom Newmark (The Carbon Underground); Hans Herren (Millennium Institute); Andre Leu (IFOAM Organics International); Steve Rye (Mercola.com); and Renate Künast (German Parliament). Regeneration International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are tax deductible. Click here if you would like to support this project.