A Collective Call to Action
Yes…It is Urgent
“When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper. When they relate not as members, but as competing interests, all three are exploited.”
-Wes Jackson, Founder of The Land Institute
Picture the Possibilities
We see images every day that break our hearts: famine, poverty, factory farms and environmental degradation. Instead of looking away, we need to find regenerative solutions together. This decay was created one act at a time. And all these things can be healed…one regenerative act at a time. We stand together at a historic time of possibility. We’re committed—together—to growing a healthy and hopeful vision for our future. We are cultivating this future with the regenerative power of a single, humble, miraculous plant.
Our People
We MUST help each other. Forty MILLION people live in poverty in the US, including 18 million children. Nineteen MILLION people report incomes that are less than 50-percent of the poverty threshold. A report by the U.N. on extreme poverty and human rights finds 40 million people in the United States live in poverty. OF those, 18.5 million live in extreme poverty and more than 5 million live in conditions of absolute poverty on income that is less than 50-percent of the poverty threshold. Rural areas have been particularly hard hit with 17-percent of the population of those communities living in poverty.
Twenty-two MILLION people make their living from agriculture. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 97-percent of the 2.1 million farms that dot America’s rural landscape are family owned—individuals, family partnerships or family corporations.
Small-scale farmers are in crisis due to low prices, shrinking water supplies, degraded soil and destructive weather.
We must help each other. The time is now.
“We’re all just walking each other home.” -Ram Dass
Our Planet
We MUST take action to restore and regenerate the health of our planet. The resource depletion and contamination caused by industrial-scale extraction and farming activities has wreaked havoc on this place we call home.
We are in the midst of an environmental catastrophe. One regenerative act at a time is our collective responsibility to our planet.
Industrial Agricultural Activities
These activities contribute nine percent of total climate change-related emissions. Since 1970, CO2 emissions have increased by nearly 90-percent, with emissions from fossil fuel consumption and industrial processes contributing about 78-percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture, deforestation and other land-use changes have been the second largest contributors.
The Global Carbon Project expects even further increases caused by the persistent growth in oil and natural gas and projected economic growth. This is deeply troubling considering that the latest climate science suggests emissions will need to peak by 2020 to have a good chance of avoiding some of the worst climate impacts.
Herbicides and Pesticides
Associated with acute poisoning and long-term chronic illness, exposure to pesticides can cause short-term adverse health effects including stinging eyes, rashes, blisters, blindness, nausea, dizziness, diarrhea and death. Chronic health effects include cancer and other tumors; brain and nervous system damage; birth defects; infertility and other reproductive problems; and damage to the liver, kidneys, lungs and other body organs.
Soil Degradation
Barren fields cause erosion and negatively impact the quality of our air, water and soil. Soil is the Earth’s fragile skin that anchors all life on Earth. It is comprised of countless species that create a dynamic and complex ecosystem and is one of our most precious resources. Increased demand for agriculture commodities leads to the loss of forests, grasslands, farm fields and pastures which are crucial to soil preservation.
Biodiversity
The rich range of life found on smaller farms has been drastically reduced. Over the last century, humans have come to dominate the planet, causing rapid ecosystem change and massive loss of biodiversity across the planet.
While the Earth has always experienced changes and extinctions, today they are occurring at an unprecedented rate. Major direct threats to biodiversity include habitat loss and fragmentation, unsustainable resource use, invasive species, pollution, and global climate change.
Biodiversity—the variation of life on Earth—is essential to healthy ecosystems and serves as nature’s own system of checks and balances.
