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The Environmental Horrors of Plasticulture

Plastics are used in almost every facet of modern day life. Found in packaging, clothing, furniture, microchips and even medical equipment, these imperishable materials are being produced at alarming rates. Polyethylene, one of the world’s most popular and dangerous plastics, is even applied in agriculture as a cheap solution in crop care. Once celebrated for strengthening the global food supply, these agricultural films are now known to severely degrade natural capital and the ecological services we depend on for sustenance.

The application of razor-thin sheets of polyethylene film across farmland began in the 1950s when agronomists noticed that it could successfully moderate soil temperature, limit weed growth and prevent moisture loss.…

Disruptive Technologies and Sustainable Agriculture

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Sustainable Future Initiative Mission

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The Need to Strengthen Global Water Security

Over 3,200 environmental specialists and 330 organizations from 130 countries have gathered in Sweden for World Water Week to exchange ideas, catalyze new thinking and develop solutions for today’s most pressing water challenges. With droughts in Somalia, water rationing in Rome, water-based conflicts in Donetsk and even flooding in Houston, time is of the essence.

Even though one billion trillion liters of water cover two-thirds of the world’s surface, 683 million people are left without direct access to this life-saving resource. If no action is taken, the majority of the global population will live in water-stressed regions by 2050.

The Driving Factors in Global Water Security

Source: Edie (2017)

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“Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are primarily responsible for observed climate changes. There are no alternative explanations.”

The US National Climate Assessment (2017)

The United States Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment has been officially disbanded. Originally mandated to help the country prepare for a changing climate, this panel offered a platform for the world’s leading academics, industry, government and local officials to advise private sector and government stakeholders on navigating climate change risk.

Designed to examine all new scientific climate research and summarize the current state of knowledge in the field, the 4th National Climate Assessment was compiled from several thousand studies conducted by tens of thousands of environmental specialists.…

“If we will not change the ways that we are living in the environment and the chemicals that we are exposed to, I am very worried about what will happen in the future… Eventually, we may have a problem with reproduction in general and it may be the extinction of the human species.”

Hagai Levin, Public Health Researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Sperm counts among men around the world have more than halved in the last 40 years, according to the results of nearly 200 peer-reviewed scientific investigations into male fertility across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.…

An Environment No Longer Supporting Life

Dangerous toxins are pouring into waterways around the world, exacerbating massive, harmful algae blooms that create oxygen-deprived stretches of the ocean. Hundreds of aquatic dead zones exist throughout the world, covering nearly 100,000 square miles of sea and causing the relocation or death of nearly 10 million tons of biomass annually. Once filled with life, these ecosystems are left barren, causing unprecedented pressure on the private sector and federal governments to increase restoration and cut this pollution at its source.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that this year’s dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest ever recorded.…

“We know that [synthetic] chemicals are present in the food supply and environment at levels in which they are likely to explain cancer epidemics, mental problems, and many other illnesses that we have.”

Jonathan R. Latham, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Bioscience Resource Project (2017)

For nearly a century, some of the most controversial activities deemed standard practice across the agrochemical industry have been kept well beyond public reach. Those days are long gone, as over 20,000 documents from Dow Jones, Monsanto, DuPont, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Defense have been made publicly available.…

A Natural Way to Access the Cannabis Market

With the legalization of cannabis occurring around the world, many high profile investment banks, asset managers and private investors are paying close attention to what is widely being referred to as the ‘green rush’.

The legal cannabis market in the United States grew by an impressive 34% to $6.3 billion in 2016 alone. Industry forecasts expect the market will reach $21.6 billion by 2021 at a CAGR of 26%. Such rapid growth, matched only by cable television in the 1990s and Broadband Internet in the 2000s, will inevitably catalyze demand for supplementary sectors such as specialized crop care solutions. “The fact is that healthier cannabis, with higher yields, can be produced without the use of synthetic chemicals that exhaust natural capital and pollute the environment.…

Shaping Sustainable Food Systems for Future Generations

Agriculture has always strived to achieve better, more robust yields. Over the centuries, mankind has made significant progress in this field, facing global hunger through new crop varieties, synthetic pesticides for crop protection and synthetic fertilizers to artificially increase yields. Despite the incredible progress humanity has made in the realm of agriculture, there remain stark truths that demand our attention. So what are the main issues we are facing in securing our global food supply and which technologies will enable us to achieve the United Nations Social Development Goal of eradicating hunger by 2030 while managing resources more efficiently and effectively?…

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