Sadhguru on the movement to save the world’s soil - "In our lifetime, we can turn this around"

Virgin Radio

16 Mar 2022, 10:28

World renowned guru and spiritual leader Sadhguru joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about embarking on a 30,000km motorcycle journey through Europe, the Middle East and Asia to launch a new Conscious Planet movement to save the world’s soil.

Starting next Monday in London, his journey marks the official launch of the Save Soil movement, aiming to educate about the vital role that soil plays in the planet’s sustainable future, with backing from the UN and World Food Programme. He told Chris: “The depletion of soils have reached a point where all the UN agencies are telling us we have only another 60 to 80 harvests left. That means 45 to 60 years, max.”

At present, 52 percent of the earth’s agricultural soil has already degraded, which is worsening with the prediction that by 2050 this will be 90 percent of the world’s soil. Sadhguru said: “We need to understand if we put organic content into sand, that becomes soil. If you take away all organic content from the soil, that becomes sand. This is what we have been doing. We remove all the animals from the farm, we have removed all of the trees from the farm, vegetitive matters. We are going for monoculture farming, which is just everything taken out except for what we want, or what we think we want. So, because of this, there is no organic content. It has gone down significantly.” 

The yogi, mystic, bestselling author and poet continued: “At this rate, in 30 to 40 years time, we’re going to reach a place where our food production will come down by 50 percent. And in 30, 40 years our populations are supposed to be over 9 billion, and 50 percent less food, that is a disastrous life. That’s not a disaster we should allow to happen. 

“We are at a cusp of time. If we act now, if we really act now with the necessary policy changes across the world, then we can turn this around in 12, 15 years time.”

Sadhguru, who is considered amongst India’s 50 most influential people, told Chris: “Fortunately, wherever I have gone, the response has been phenomenal. Just now I have finished my Caribbean tour, and also some parts of South America. 

“Already in Europe, many changes are beginning to happen. A certain amount of incentive to the farmers would turn this around. In our lifetime, we can turn this around. 

“It’s for us to make up our minds right now. Do you want to be the generation who turned back from the brink, or the generation who slept through and went over the brink? This is the choice we have.”

During his interview with Chris, Sadhguru spoke about how studies have shown that, because nutrient levels in soil have gone down significantly, they also have in the food that we eat. “The vegetables consumed in the early 20th Century, what nourishment they had at that time, today if we consumed the same vegetables, the nourishment value is just 10 percent of what they were in the early 20th Century. If you ate one orange in 1920, to get the same stuff today you'd have to eat eight oranges,” he said.

“So nutrient depletion is happening and people are aware of it. This is why all the supplement-selling shops have gone up in such a huge way. Anybody who knows the human body will know that supplements are fine to bridge over some small issues that human-beings may have, but that is never going to be our food, and one cannot attain health that way.”

Continuing to explain the situation, Sadhguru said: “The same attitude we have employed with the soil. With the new fertiliser scheme, the chemical fertilisers scheme… suddenly everything burst out in the first three or four years. 

“Then we thought, ‘We don’t need anything else other than these chemicals,’ so we completely ignored the organic content, and just went on adding chemicals, which we have managed for a few years. Similar things we are doing with the human body. We need to understand the human body as a complex system.

“We are just a reflection of the soil. We have done exactly the same with both. We thought just the chemical additions can grow the crops. Similarly now we are thinking just the supplementary additions can take care of us. We don’t really need food. This is not the way life works. Life needs life to sustain itself.” 

Regarding what we can do about it, the guru said: “Everybody is asking, ‘What should we do? Should I roll up my sleeves and fix my garden?’ Oh, you fixing your garden is very cute and very needed, you must do it, but that’s not a solution. Because a solution is in the agricultural lands - 71 percent of the world’s land is under agriculture. So this has to change. We need a policy change. If a policy change needs to happen, we must understand we are living in democratic society. The citizen must express something, because this kind of policy takes 8, 10, 15 years to find effect. And our democratic governments are only 4, 5 or 6 years maximum in most countries. So why would somebody take steps which will take 15 years to yield results, unless people give them a mandate? We are willing for a long-term investment in our lives, we don’t want just trinkets from you.”

He added: “People have not expressed this until now. So it is time to express.” 

And so Sadhguru will embark on his 30,000km motorcycle journey through Europe, the Middle East and Asia to raise awareness. He told Chris: “A hundred days I am on the rally. I want you to understand, I am 65; 30,000 kilometres is not a joyride!

“I must do this because it’s a generational responsibility. If we don’t do this now, in another two decades we will be a very regretful generation.”

For more information on the Save Soil Movement, visit consciousplanet.org. 

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.