Soil
“Soil is the Secret Ingredient”
“Soil is the Secret Ingredient”
Downforce Technologies is committed to providing up to date and relevant data to empower landowners and farmers to improve the health of their land and the planet.
Downforce Technologies is committed to providing up to date and relevant data to empower landowners and farmers to improve the health of their land and the planet.
Downforce Technologies is committed to providing up to date and relevant data to empower landowners and farmers to improve the health of their land and the planet.
Soil is the secret ingredient for carbon sequestration. And it’s beneath all our feet. If we added just 1% carbon by mass to all the agricultural soil around the world it would close the emissions gap by storing 85 gigatonnes of carbon under our fields.
This is the equivalent to a decade of the global emissions reductions of 311 GtCO2 needed to keep the world on a safe track away from dangerous warming.
The opportunity is massive, and the need for action is urgent, because between 30% and 68% of the earth’s soil is degraded. If we want nature to help solve the climate crisis we need to look after our soil, and to do that we need accurate information to help design and refine our plans to improve it.
After decades working to interpret and apply data to solve problems at local, national and international levels, I saw the opportunities that would be unleashed if farmers were able to access robust and timely data about their land. It’s impossible to establish a meaningful baseline by taking a tiny piece of soil from one corner of a field. One sample split five ways and sent to five different labs will return five different results – giving a confused and incomplete picture. Multiple sources are needed to inform dynamic decision making. We provide tens of thousands of data points to be able to do this effectively.
What we know from maths, statistics and fluid dynamics is that what is needed are the deterministic effects, the things that can provide predictability – the data that gives the signal rather than transmits the noise.
We have the wherewithal to tell people, whether they’re sitting in New York eating organic vegetables, or in the Sahel working with camels, that there is a solution and the data to drive it can be delivered by available technology.
If people take care of their land, they can feed themselves, have a place to live, have dignity and help to change the climate at the same time. If we learn how to work with nature, nature will do the heavy lifting for us.
We can make this transformation not only cost-effective, ethical and just, we can make it work for the whole world.
Professor Jacqueline McGlade
Professor Jacqueline McGlade is a world-renowned scientific leader. As Chief Scientist of UNEP and head of the European Environment Agency she created global programmes that advanced climate and biodiversity scientific infrastructure. Jacquie is a leading figure in natural capital, as evidenced by receiving the 2013 Global Citizen Award. The author of over 200 highly-cited research publications, Jacquie also holds professorships at Strathmore University Business School and UCL.
Downforce Technologies is committed to providing up to date and relevant data to empower landowners and farmers to improve the health of their land and the planet.
Soil is the secret ingredient for carbon sequestration. And it’s beneath all our feet. If we added just 1% carbon by mass to all the agricultural soil around the world it would close the emissions gap by storing 85 gigatonnes of carbon under our fields.
This is the equivalent to a decade of the global emissions reductions of 311 GtCO2 needed to keep the world on a safe track away from dangerous warming.
The opportunity is massive, and the need for action is urgent, because between 30% and 68% of the earth’s soil is degraded. If we want nature to help solve the climate crisis we need to look after our soil, and to do that we need accurate information to help design and refine our plans to improve it.
After decades working to interpret and apply data to solve problems at local, national and international levels, I saw the opportunities that would be unleashed if farmers were able to access robust and timely data about their land. It’s impossible to establish a meaningful baseline by taking a tiny piece of soil from one corner of a field. One sample split five ways and sent to five different labs will return five different results – giving a confused and incomplete picture. Multiple sources are needed to inform dynamic decision making. We provide tens of thousands of data points to be able to do this effectively.
What we know from maths, statistics and fluid dynamics is that what is needed are the deterministic effects, the things that can provide predictability – the data that gives the signal rather than transmits the noise.
We have the wherewithal to tell people, whether they’re sitting in New York eating organic vegetables, or in the Sahel working with camels, that there is a solution and the data to drive it can be delivered by available technology.
If people take care of their land, they can feed themselves, have a place to live, have dignity and help to change the climate at the same time. If we learn how to work with nature, nature will do the heavy lifting for us.
We can make this transformation not only cost-effective, ethical and just, we can make it work for the whole world.
Professor Jacqueline McGlade
Professor Jacqueline McGlade is a world-renowned scientific leader. As Chief Scientist of UNEP and head of the European Environment Agency she created global programmes that advanced climate and biodiversity scientific infrastructure. Jacquie is a leading figure in natural capital, as evidenced by receiving the 2013 Global Citizen Award. The author of over 200 highly-cited research publications, Jacquie also holds professorships at Strathmore University Business School and UCL.