According to a recent United Nations report, modern farming techniques, climate change, urbanization, ranching and mining have contributed to a global "soil death" that increases now at a rate 30 to 35 times faster than the historical, normal rate. This affects 2 billion already and by 2030 an additional 50 million people will be displaced. According to a European Commission on desertification, 75% of Earth's land area is already degraded, 1.61 million square miles are degraded annually, and by 2050 90% will be in this condition. In many areas, poor irrigation practices represent the main cause. The UN started a program to combat this trend in 1994, which has 122 countries participating, but desertification still grows at a truly alarming rate. The consequences - from dust storms and food shortages to dramatic increases in poverty and massive immigration - have become severe and almost too scary to think about.

Desertification

• 75% of Earth's land area already degraded
• "Soil death" increasing by 35x
• 1.61 million square miles degraded annually
• Per UN, 2/3 of the Earth undergoing desertification
• 2 billion people affected or displaced
• Per UN, more than 24 billion tons of good soil lost each year

Causes

• Deforestation
• Unsustainable agricultural practices
• Chemical fertilizers and pesticides
• Poor water management systems
• Overgrazing
• Over use of wood for cooking and heating
• Erosion

Consequences

• More pollution and climate change
• Food shortages
• Dramatic poverty increases
• Massive immigration
• Hurricanes and extreme dust storms
• Forest fires
• Droughts
• Loss of biodiversity
• Increase of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19
• Loss of aquifers
• Loss of drinking water reserves

Solutions

Semi-successful projects like the Green Wall of China and the Great Green Wall of Africa make good strides to help but are dwarfed by the immensity, the scale of this problem. They also ignore the more natural way reforestation occurs through a slow process that begins with establishing drought-tolerant grasses that create the conditions for growing more small vegetation, then bushes which in turn help create a healthy environment for a succession of different tree types.

As with health in general, prevention can cost much less while being more effective than trying to fix a problem already established. The Legacy Foundation developed an innovative and inexpensive way of making fuel from food, animal, and agricultural waste that prevents the necessity for people to cut down trees because of the firewood needed to cook and heat. The Green World Campaign has found a way to plant over 4 million trees in Africa. Paolo Lugari from Gaviotas in Colombia regenerated a rainforest.

Our irrigation systems help make the most efficient use of limited water supplies while saving days of hauling water from remote water sources to local farms and gardens.

Root Demand Irrigation is a game-changing, new, and disruptive irrigation system.

Food Desert Oasis

"My ultimate dream is to sow seeds in the desert. To revegetate the deserts is to sow seed in people's hearts... Let us begin by removing national boundaries with the trees and grasses. The liberation of peoples everywhere shall begin from this point... grasses and trees have no national boundaries. Let us scatter the seeds of various drought-hardy grasses, trees, and food crops by airplane all at once over those areas on earth that have turned to desert... Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing."
-Masanobu Fukuoka