Latest / EnvironMental with Dandelion / Global Food Security in 2026: Soil Health is a National Security Strategy | EnvironMental Podcast
Transcript
- Aub Wallace: It's springtime, which means that my inside garden can finally sit outside for a couple of hours in real sunshine. They can get a little hose down and find their way into new homes after a stuffy winter here in the Netherlands. So there I was trying to repot my ultra root bound yucca plants. And don't judge me. I literally had to saw through the root. all to pull apart the plants. But don't worry, they're fine. They're totally fine, I promise you. Well, so, in the middle of it, I ran out of potting soil. Naturally, okay, I just ran to the store, I grabbed a new bag, and I didn't even think twice about it. But as I was potting, I sat there looking at this bag of dirt, and I realized that we're the only species on the planet that treats earth. like a retail commodity that we can just restock when we've used it up. We've commodified the literal foundation of life so thoroughly that we've actually forgotten how it works. We've become so detached from the dirt that we think food security means just a close-by, well-stocked grocery store. But, Spoiler alert, the aisle will ⁓ empty if the soil is And right now, ⁓ our soil is on life That's what I'm talking about. today on Environmental with Dandelion. If this is your first time tuning in, hi, hello, I'm Aub, your host and the chief cultivator here at Dandelion. My team and I are trying our damnedest to tell sustainability stories that actually matter ⁓ If you want dive deeper into ⁓ any of the I'm about to share, Make sure you check the show notes. I always put a link in the description to my resources doc on my website. And of course, you, the star of our show, you are the eco-curious baddie who's been called an alarmist hippie your whole life. And now that the world is literally burning, the I told you so doesn't really feel like the best. that we kind of wanted it to be, Okay, since we last spoke, I saw my bestie just a couple of weeks ago and he, we talked about YouTube, and he severely impressed upon me how big of an ask it is to give a video a thumbs up. So believe me, I know. And I'm gonna ask anyway, because here's the thing. We live in a moment where long form creators are struggling more than ever to reach audiences that matter because of the prevalence of short videos, like reels, coupled with AI slop talking to an AI algorithm. So before we dig in and the literal shit hits the fan, tap the little thumbs up button down here like you're celebrating a dandelion pushing through a crack in the pavement against all odds. Brave little flowers that Done? Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. Cool. But we gotta talk because your breakfast, your dinner, your lunch, your snacks, ⁓ in danger. And we talk a lot about the future of climate change, but for our food systems, the future is already here. We are seeing a breakdown of stability that goes ⁓ far far far beyond a bad harvest years. We are seeing systematic collapse. Let's talk about climate instability. I could do a whole episode just on this, but I do want to use it just to make a about how if the things that keep us caffeinated and sane aren't safe, what is? Coffee and chocolate. We treat them like basic human rights, but in 2026, they are big flashing red flags for what's to come. Because research shows that by 2050, the land suitable for growing Arabica and Robusta coffee will decline by 50%. Brazil and Vietnam are heavy hitters here. They're already exceeding extreme heat days and droughts like we talked about in the last episode, and the plants just can't handle it. It's fast climate change. And if you think we can just move the plantations, where? Where are we going to do that? Into like the few remaining rainforests? That's not a solution, man. Climate change is coming for every single part of our planet. Moving plantations in the current agricultural system literally means more harm to sensitive ecosystems, which is going to exacerbate the crisis cycle we're already spiraling into. Then there's chocolate. Have you been watching these prices? Because the cacao crash out, it is real. West African farmers are facing 60 % price cut on their produce, while global demand reaches record highs. How fucking backwards is that, right? Yeah, When the market squeezes the farmer, the farmer doesn't just disappear, alright? Often they don't have any other option but to continue ⁓ on. So do they do? ⁓ They to the only things left. Illegal deforestation and forced labor. No joke. The Kakao Initiative says that almost half of children living in cocoa growing areas in Cote d'Ivoire, and Ghana are estimated to be involved in child labor. 50 % of child labor in cacao? Yeah. Yeah. That's the true cost of your $1.99 checkout aisle candy bar. And what are we seeing? How are people solving this? How are we solving this? as well. Instead of investing in cacao farmers, better infrastructures, new trees on the plantation, or even just accessible roads to reach the plantation easier, they're choosing lab-grown cocoa, chocolate-flavored coatings. They're just removing people and the plant from the story all together. I hate it. I hate this. mean, Hershey's has a net income like a profit of $1.91 billion in 2024. They can afford to invest in the people who make their products possible and they don't. They haven't. They have not. And if that doesn't turn your guts, which it should, how about this for a story? Brad Reiss. He's the grandson of H.B. Reese, ⁓ Reese's He ⁓ spit out ⁓ new Hershey's chocolate coating. I mean, if a Hershey's legacy is admitting the fake ⁓ stuff tastes like sadness, yeah, we're all screwed I'm sorry. ⁓ What can you do about this one? Well, this one is actually a full scale vote with your dollar situation. We need to be recognizing that coffee and chocolate is a luxury and we need to make it part of our mission to stop buying cheap bullshit. stop buying cheap bullshit. Look to brands like Tony's Chocolate Lonely that actually gives a damn about human beings ⁓ in the soil. But it's not. It's not just the luxury crops here at all. It's the staples that are in danger. In Colorado, nearly every corn seed planted is coated in neonicotinoids. Say that word five times fast. Neonicotinoids. I'm talking 80 % here. And corn isn't alone. Along with corn seeds, farmers often use this pesticide as a seed coating on things like sugar beets, wheat, barley, alfalfa, and sorghum. According to Bayer, Monsanto, it's used to treat 140 different crops, which I'm calling death by powder. death by powder. So, I mean, what are neonicotinoids? they're basically a neuroactive insecticide that's modeled after nicotine, originally made with nicotine. They're made by Bayer, the Aspirin people who, by the way, bought Monsanto and just like quietly phased the name out because people hated Monsanto so much, but they're still doing the same products. More on that later. ⁓ company called Syngenta. Sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong. Actually, I'm not sorry. Anyway, I'm talking about this specific chemical because it's been in the news lately. It's incredibly popular, especially in the US. But ⁓ speaking, ⁓ ⁓ a disaster for biodiversity. ⁓ we aren't even covering herbicides today. ⁓ but they do have a similar devastating impact on their non-target plants. like copy paste insecticide world into herbicide world. Neonics are so bad, they were banned in Europe twice years ago because they're so dangerous. mean, one teaspoon of this stuff can kill 1.25 billion bees. That's four truckloads of one of this pollinator wiped out by a convenience code. See what I'm talking about? Death by powder. And here's the thing though, the chemicals, they don't stay on the seed. Nope, nope, no. They end up in the plants, in the soil, and in the groundwater. And this is still being used all around the world. In Australia, it's estimated that between one and three species of insect, not just bees, are becoming extinct every single week, with pesticides being a major cause of this. And in the UK, studies show that songbirds are dying because neonics are being found in their nest materials, which kills chicks before they ever even get a chance to fly. We are literally poisoning the food web that keeps our crops growing. And here's the greenwashing of it all. Because Bayer did put out a stewardship report. They do it every year. And it's focused on honeybees. Why? Because greenwashing. They get to say because honeybees are measurable. I can tell you right now that other things are too. But actually it's because honeybees are a cash crop. They say this in the report. Without neotinicanoid seed treatments, farmers would have great difficulty controlling certain soil-borne and early season seedling pests and would have to use more expensive and less environmental friendly methods. In many cases, farmers don't have a practical alternative to seed treatments to protect crops from pests. ⁓ A, ⁓ less environmental friendly, excuse me? There also isn't a single mention of wild pollinators, soil health, biodiversity, but it is in the research pipeline, or balance, except for when they talk about balance between using chemicals to kill stuff while supporting insects, i.e. that they're killing. I don't know. ⁓ They just say, ⁓ don't plant our stuff near bees. And also you're gonna, you buy this box thing to like plant inside of it from them because when you plant at high levels on an arable scale, ⁓ the chemical powder can like poof. Man, that's like putting a bandaid on a gunshot. and calling it surgery. And the greenwashing continues because while lawmakers in the US are considering restrictions in 2026, I'm going to call this a dead bill right now because the pockets of this administration are lined with bare Monsanto money. Reports show that they spent $9.19 million in federal lobbying in 2025 alone. These folks, not waiting for the science. They're not looking at the information. They're saying all these pretty words while they're waiting for the check to clear. And let's talk about some hidden court cases. This happened so quietly this year that if I hadn't been actively researching this podcast, I wouldn't have found it. Monsanto, now Bayer, ⁓ a major settlement agreement to resolve current and future claims related to Roundup. We're talking about billions of dollars being funneled into resolving the fact that their products are linked to cancer and environmental destruction. They'd rather pay a fine as a cost of doing business than actually stop producing the poison itself. Literally, they're just like, we're gonna put aside some money so if anybody bitches, we can just throw money at the problem and then we can just keep making round. That's frustrating. It's frustrating to watch how capitalism is running the world. But I want to pull this thread even further let's talk about war. I'm gonna get a little personal. for most of my life, and the lives of ⁓ most millennials and basically of Gen Z's, the United States has been at war. For most people in my first country, it's just something happening. But for me, it was a family event. A lot of that isn't my story to tell, but I am one of those people who waited with bated breath for phone calls and videos from Iraq and Iran in the mid-2000s. And I'm one of those people whose heart was broken because war changes people. The casualties of war aren't just soldiers or the cities or the people who die and their loved ones. The land itself suffers too. War is the ultimate anti-sustainability event. ⁓ It destroys water networks, farmlands, and depots. It leaves pollutants everywhere, ⁓ and the impacts last ⁓ way than ⁓ the temper politicians around the And honestly, the connection between war and your dinner plate ⁓ is ⁓ older than you think. fertilizers were literally born from leftover nitrogen used for bombs in World War II. Yeah, you heard it right. ⁓ turned ⁓ bomb making industry ⁓ ⁓ fertilizer industry. We just had a lot of extra nitrogen for TNT hanging around and they were like, let's put it on plants. let's put it on plants. ⁓ And because these synthetics are made using fossil fuels like natural gas and mined minerals, every time the world stares down a conflict like the Iran war, yeah, I'm calling it a war, fertilizer costs skyrocket. I think it's really fascinating how every single sustainability crisis eventually leads back to the executive's boardroom ⁓ on fossil or in... ⁓ Or in this case, the administration's pockets. Yeah. Okay, yeah, and yes, synthetic fertilizers, they help with crop yields in a dramatic way, but it's not sustainable. They supercharge and then kill the soil, damaging and then replacing the natural soil cycle. The big ag and fertilizer industry has pushed damaging farming techniques and synthetic inputs so hard that farmers have been duped into destroying their own land, which honestly should be illegal. I think it is illegal, like who is gonna... Dead soil can't produce crops, so farmers increase their synthetic inputs. Those inputs don't support soil health in the next growing season, so they increase them again. And in the end, they spend a ton of money on synthetic fertilizers. It's sort of like the ugliest drug addiction on the planet. the ugliest drug addiction on the planet. You can quote me saying that. I think that's exactly what it is. It's an ugly-ass drug addiction. The Union ⁓ of Concerned Scientists said, much of those chemical nutrients never reach the plants, ⁓ instead making their way into our air and water. Today, scientists estimate that half of the nitrogen fertilizer applied worldwide is lost from farm fields rather than taken up by crops. And that 50 % runoff, it's creating literal dead zones in our water, like in our oceans and in our lakes. And it's making our water bankruptcy episode from last week look like a teaser to the end of safe water in the world. Why isn't this the biggest scandal in the world? Why isn't this the biggest scandal in the world? ⁓ Why isn't this a scandal? I think it is a scandal. That's why I keep fucking talking about it. Anyway, ⁓ I feel like I have a crash out every single one of episodes Because here's the deal, if you couple synthetic inputs and pesticides alone, just those two things alone, you're looking at dead soil within just a few years. And do you think they didn't know? Do you think they didn't know 10 years, 20 years, 50 freaking years ago? Cause they did, they knew. Because just like fossil fuel companies knew that climate change was real and caused by humans. Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta, CF Industries, Nutrient, they have known. Because they're not just companies selling a product like they would have you believe. They are literal research companies. They started as research companies. That's what they do. They knew and they chose. They made the choice and still today make the choice to continue down this path for power and money. They've known that if they convinced farmers to kill insects and beneficial bacteria in their soil, it would disrupt soil health. And they knew that if they disrupted soil health, they could fix it with synthetic inputs. And maybe they didn't know longitudinally like forever ago, but they fucking know now and they keep pushing it. They really just thought they could take humans out of the natural cycling system that the rest of the planet still uses. Here's my message to you, and I'm gonna say this. Dear Bayer we have the data. Your experiment failed. Our crops are getting hit by climate change. Our soil has been deadened by fake fertilizations and our insects, the linchpin. in our world that heals our soil and pollinates our plants from the worms to the butterflies are dying in droves. It's time to step in with real actual solutions. I could go on for so much longer, but I think that's it. And ⁓ look, here's one now. The good news, ⁓ I should get like a ⁓ rainbow. The good news. ⁓ Regenerative agriculture. it all doom and gloom? ⁓ because there is a solution to ⁓ arable problem and it's regenerative agriculture. I'm a huge fan of regenerative agriculture because I think it's viable on the scale we need to actually feed people. ⁓ are a lot of other ways of looking at food, biodynamic, permaculture, food forests, et cetera. ⁓ all very, very valuable ⁓ they're more similar. ⁓ to each other than different because they're all focused on soil health, end sharing space with local ecosystems. But my preference is to talk about regenerative agriculture because it's the arable solution we can start working on right now today. And this isn't a buzzword. It is a dedication to real biodiversity and soil health without synthetic inputs and within ⁓ planetary Regenerative agriculture treats the farm as an ecosystem, not like a factory. It's also ⁓ so It's so gorgeous if you've ever seen a regenerative farm. When you focus on soil health, you just don't need these toxic bug bombs or fertilizers because pests can be maintained with balanced solution like biodiversity strips that bring in birds to eat insects, companion planting that naturally repels pests, cover cropping that suppresses weeds while feeding the soil by using rest. crop rotation and compost teas, you can rebuild the natural immunity and balance of the land. Regenerative agriculture not only ⁓ offers climate resilience to crops, ⁓ it lets our fields as a carbon sink, and reduces polluting runoff to basically freaking nothing, because you're not a bunch of synthetic chemicals in there. It's a solution on every single front. And before you come at me, this is an arable solution. One of my clients is Soil Heroes Foundation, and they're the folks that do the study. They just dropped some longitudinal data that is an honest mic drop. Bow for the big ab crowd. So they've been testing three types of farming over like 33 different plots. Conventional, regenerative till, and regenerative no till. and the of year two of their soil biology tests? ⁓ The regenerative no-till scored the highest on every single level of soil biology. ⁓ Bacterial, microbial, and biomass is way higher and so is mycorrhizae. You know the stuff in the soil that actually makes our food nutrient dense? Yeah, way higher in regenerative no-till. The industry tells us that we need their chemicals in order to feed the world, but the data says we just kind of need to get out of the way and let the fungi do their job. We don't need the bigger, better bug bomb. We need better mulch, more time to rest, and more working with the seasons, natural fertilization. So what can you do? Because we can't switch the food system overnight. I know that. But we can start this transition. So here's what you can do from the personal to the political when it comes to protecting our food security ⁓ Ditch the in your own garden. Stop poisoning your own backyard ecosystem and create space for local biodiversity. Grow something to ⁓ eat, even it's an herb on a windowsill. Pay attention to season and to source. If it's cheap, somebody else is paying the price there. Find your local wizard farmer Search for regenerative or biodynamic farms in your area and try to buy from them. Support your local farmers. Watch local politics and find ways to support farmers in the transition away from chemical dependency. Not just support them because they don't want to make changes, which is what happened here in the Netherlands. The anonymous, like, mass market food thing has to be a dead end. We need to figure out how to convert our whole food system, not just the individual farm. This is intense. This is an intense topic for me. I can talk about it for a long time, but I'm going to leave you here. Our food is a wild web of factors, and somewhere along the way, we just started pulling levers that we didn't fully understand. ⁓ now we've gotten ourselves into this messy, weird situation. And speaking of stuff we've messed with, check out what's going on with our water systems with last month's State of the Water episode. I'll put it on the YouTube screen now along with a little circle with my face in it so it's really easy for you to subscribe. Thank you ⁓ so much for being here, for work you're doing, and for not hushing your ⁓ little hippie heart. And I'll see next time. ⁓ Bye.