Food and farming are destroying the land they depend on

Cattle, sheep, and other ruminants produce methane when they digest grass — a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than CO2. Livestock farming uses nearly 80% of all agricultural land but provides only 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein.

The scale is staggering: there are over a billion cattle on Earth, each producing 200-400 pounds of methane annually. Add in the land clearing for pasture and feed crops, plus the energy-intensive processing and transport, and animal agriculture becomes one of the largest drivers of climate change.

Modern agriculture depends on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which is made by combining natural gas with nitrogen from the air in an energy-intensive process. This accounts for about 2% of global energy use and 1.4% of CO2 emissions.

Worse, much of this fertilizer runs off fields into waterways, creating massive dead zones in lakes and oceans where nothing can live. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone, fed by fertilizer runoff from Midwest farms, is larger than the state of Connecticut. We need ways to provide crops with nutrients without fossil fuels or water pollution.

Intensive agriculture has degraded about a third of the world's arable land. Constant tilling breaks up soil structure, while monocultures and heavy chemical use destroy the complex web of microorganisms that keep soil healthy.

Healthy soil is teeming with billions of bacteria, fungi, and other organisms that help plants access nutrients, fight diseases, and store carbon. Industrial farming practices have reduced soil organic matter by 50-70% in many regions, making crops more vulnerable to drought, pests, and diseases while reducing the soil's ability to store carbon.

Agriculture drives about 80% of global deforestation. Every year, an area the size of Greece is cleared for farming — mostly for cattle pasture and crops like soy, palm oil, and cocoa. This destroys biodiversity hotspots and releases massive amounts of stored carbon.

The problem is often hidden in global supply chains. Beef from recently cleared Amazon rainforest, soy from converted Brazilian savanna, and palm oil from cleared Indonesian forests end up in products sold worldwide. We need technologies that can track and prevent this destruction while supporting farmers' livelihoods.

Globally, we waste about 1.3 billion tons of food every year — enough to feed 3 billion people. In developing countries, most loss happens during harvest, storage, and transport due to poor infrastructure. In wealthy countries, most waste occurs at retail and consumer levels.

This waste represents a massive misuse of the land, water, energy, and labor that went into producing that food. Food waste in landfills also produces methane, making it a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing food waste is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve food security and reduce environmental impact.