Photograph by Jim Richardson
Inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888
Photograph by Jim Richardson
According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment survey, agriculture is now the number one human threat to global biodiversity and ecosystem function. 70 percent of the Earth’s farmland is planted with annual crops (wheat, corn, rice), which provide nearly 70 percent of the calories that sustain the world’s populations. The problem is that annual crops must be planted from seed every year. According to Glover, “That requires tremendous amounts of time, effort, and expense because annual crop species are very inefficient. They allow half of the nitrogen fertilizer farmers spread over fields to escape below the root zone or run off the soil surface.” Every year the same wear and tear takes place. The result is seriously depleted soil, excess agricultural run-off, and foods with decreased nutritional content.
As an agroecologist, Glover is working to develop perennial food crops that could revolutionize farming, increase food security, and light the path to a more sustainable future for generations to come. The journal Nature recognized Glover as “one of five crop researchers who could change the world.” An Emerging Explorer at National Geographic, Glover also serves as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow on food security issues with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he lectures worldwide on sustainable farming and food security.
Popular Presentations
The Future Is Perennials
What happens when the soil that provides our food has nothing left to give? In this enlightening presentation, Glover takes us on a journey from the birth and flowering of agriculture through a global snapshot of today’s stressed agricultural ecosystems and decreasing crop yields, and then looks into the not-too-distant future when our finite and depleted soil simply will be unable to sustain human populations booming out of control. Glover and his team of researchers believe they have the solution to a silent but looming catastrophe—perennial grains. These crops would have the power to drastically reduce wear and tear on the lands that sustain them, while providing a more nutrient rich and cost-effective answer to the world’s long term food security.
We Really Are What We Eat: Dirt to Dirt
Nearly all the elements making up our human flesh and bones spring from the crops that farmers harvest. How nine billion people get enough of those elements from the Earth’s thin, fragile covering of soil will largely determine how well the rest of the planet’s animals may fare in the years ahead. Glover discusses a range of revolutionary farming systems from small scale urban production to large scale intensive agriculture and explores the challenges of farming on an increasingly hot, crowded and resource strapped planet.
Boyd Matson Interviews Jerry for NG Weekend Radio Show
Boyd Matson Interviews Jerry Glover for NG Weekend Radio Show
The future rests on the soil beneath our feet. Jim Richardson’s photos show soil loss around the world—and what can be done to stop it.
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