Why our soil is dying and what we can do about it.
At World Organics, our north star is to create products that deliver great skin (thanks, CO2 extracts!) and which care for our planet at the same time; products that are not only sustainable, but regenerative too. Here’s one of the most important ways we go about it…
IT”S ALL ABOUT THE SOIL
Our soil is dying. It’s an uncomfortable truth, one we don’t speak about enough, but it’s happening, and the consequences for us and our children are dire.
In our very modern haste to grow crops quickly and cheaply, we’ve adopted, over the last 70 years, a monoculture farming model, continuously growing one type of plant in one area of soil. It’s a practice that has degraded our farmlands, and – thanks to the overuse of chemical herbicides and pesticides – stripped it of much of its nutritional value.
Here are some statistics we should all be aware of:
- It takes hundreds, even thousands, of years to form an inch of nutrient rich topsoil.
- 95% of per capita calorie consumption worldwide comes from crops that grow directly in the soil or from food sources that indirectly rely on it
- Approximately one half of the earth’s agricultural soils are now degraded
- A teaspoon of healthy soil has up to 1 billion different helpful bacteria from 15,000 species. One teaspoon of soil treated with chemicals may carry as few as 100 helpful bacteria.
- The nutritional values of many fruits and vegetables have dropped dramatically since 1950. A comprehensive 2004 US study found important nutrients in some garden crops were up to 38% lower than 50 years previously (and things have only gotten worse since then!).
- 2 billion people globally are now suffering nutritional deficiencies
Devastating, right?
Thankfully, all is not lost… yet. We can protect, and begin to regenerate, our farmlands, by ending our reliance on monoculture and synthetic chemicals, and by adopting organic farming practices instead, including crop rotations. With a little bit of thought, we can replenish our soil, clean our waterways, support vital ecosystems, and ensure that we have sufficient life-giving, nutrient-rich produce available for future generations.
That’s why, at World Organics, everything begins for us with our support for organic farming, including our relationships with our extraordinary community farms in India.
Importantly, it’s also why we certify our organic ingredients with BioGro. We want you to know that – when you use our products – you’re not only applying nutrient-rich, premium organic ingredients to your skin, you’re also playing your part to help regenerate our precious soil.