Earth Day 2026: Power to She Who Works the Earth

 April 22nd has been observed as Earth Day since 1970 the first time through American efforts to channel student anti-war efforts into an environmental movement. Fifty-seven years on Earth Day is observed across the planet and has encompassed many activities to protect the planet. 

Source: Photo of the earth as a Pale Blue Dot suspended on a sunbeam captured by the Voyager 1 space probe from 6 million kilometers away and sent on Valentine's Day 1990 after multiple requests by American Astronomer and Planetary Scientist Carl Sagan. 

Our Power, Our Planet

The theme for Earth Day 2026 is "Our Power, Our Planet" which can be interpreted in multiple ways.

While the main focus is Energy Security through boosting SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy - a Just Transition to Renewable Energy, vital in these times of an Energy Shock due to the choking of the Strait of Hormuz, another aspect is  a call for all of us to use our power for the planet - individually or collectively. The Environmentalist Foundation of India's (EFI) call for a #BlueGreenCleanVote in the Legislative Assembly Elections is a great demonstration of this.

EFI Founder Arun Krishnamurthy of Tambaram, Chennai, Calls for a Blue Green Clean Vote in Tamil Nadu State Elections 2026.

This involves building Sustainable Communities and Sustainable Cities (SDG 11). Literally on Earth Day in the International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF2026) and the International Year of the Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP2026) both championed by the UN's Food And Agriculture Organization (FAO) it makes sense that the focus is on "Saving the Soil." Overuse of soil, GMO seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and antibiotics as well as the all pervasive plastic and microplastics pollution has degraded soil fertility and soil quality across the planet. The possible fertilizer crisis due to the disruption of the supply of crude oil from the unstable Middle East could be an opportunity to train and transition justly to organic farming.

This could be a great time to empower women farmers and smallholding farmers to become organic farmers, natural farmers and friends of the soils. Training and in-the-field, 24-hour big data--mapped support could transform the lives of farmers already pushed to the brink by various factors including price rise all around except seemingly for their hard-grown products. CSR, ESG, local governments, panchayats, NGOs and PPP programs could all be tailored to empowering farmers to transition to organic or natural farming as well as solar powered irrigation systems. 

 For Farmers and Soil Health: For the Planet

To use power for the planet - literal clean energy or that of people is vital in these troubled times of climate crises, environmental crises, economic crises and conflicts. In order to achieve human security we need to ensure self-reliance, sustainability and self-sufficiency - food security, water security, energy security. By empowering those who grow our food and the very earth than nourishes it we can definitely improve lives of not just farmers but our whole population. 

A ground up, hands on strategy to transition to organic and natural farming while  empowering and training women farmers and smallholders is a step in the right direction and is much needed on Earth Day and beyond. 

It's our home.

This Earth Day, see our planet as our Artemis II astronauts saw it with these new images from the mission. pic.twitter.com/ne0ZwqtqOc

— NASA (@NASA) April 22, 2026

Curb Soil Erosion to Curb Environmental Erosion: World Soil Day 2019

The theme for World Soil Day 2019 is "Stop soil erosion, Save our future."

This day promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has, since 2012, hoped to raise awareness about the role healthy soil plays in "sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being." Ensuring "Good Health and Well-Being" #SDG3 as well as life on land #SDG15 can be achieved through healthy soil that produces healthy food and healthy people. Tending the soil can improve mental health and well-being. Thus the process of ensuring soil health - organic gardening and organic farming can ensure mental health. Healthy minds are vital for people to thrive.

As the member-states of the United Nations gather in Madrid at COP25 to discuss climate change, reports submitted there indicate that land degradation is a major driver of climate change.

Now while it's important to de-carbonize our economies and "Keep Oil in the Soil and Coal in the Hole." A major way that people and policy can help curb emissions and environmental degradation is by curbing soil erosion and restoring and rejuvenating the soil. Intensive organic agriculture and mixed agriculture especially cultivation amidst man-made mixed fruit forests or rice fields that farm fresh water fish in fields can help restore soil.

These fields of trees can provide shade on a hot day, fix soil and protect it from erosion as well as fixing water and carbon. The leaves that fall from them can bring in nutrition and organic matter to improve soil. This is permaculture harnessed to horticulture and agriculture underpinned by chemical-free organic restorative and regenerative cultivation practices. Agroforestry demonstrated by young Costa Rican farmer Alexander Retana, shows that we can increase green cover and produce food comfortably.

As Vandana Siva put it in the Year of the Soil in 2015 when we saw the signing of the Paris Climate Treaty, "we are nothing without living soil. ...If we make peace with the soil we make peace between people."

As the article in the Hindu Business Line indicates

In short, deforestation, which in itself raises carbon emissions by 25 per cent, along with all human activities pursued on the land, is the real cause of climate change in the form of extreme weather conditions like intense and untimely rains, floods, soil erosion, and high temperatures. 

Our lifestyle, the food we eat and from where we source it has an impact on the life of the planet and its soil. Unsustainable agricultural practices, industrial agriculture, deforestation caused by greed for more agricultural and grazing lands (Amazon and the Equatorial Rainforest in Southeast Asia being two key examples of vital primordial forests cut down or burnt down).

Ecological farming - restorative organic farming that puts organic matter back into the soil to keep it living instead of making a zombie out of it with petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, can be the difference between life and death of the soil and of the human race.

We need to #StopSoilErosion in all its forms and unsustainable agricultural practices and unsustainable development are key reasons for dying soil.

via GIPHY

In a world where micro-hunger - the hunger for essential nutrients is as devastating to a different set of people as hunger is to the poorer populations, ensuring that the soil is healthy ensures that there is Zero Hunger #SDG2. Nutritious food can be produced through healthy and nutritious soil. Saving the soil can ensure that all the sustainable development goals are achieved. Smallholder farmers in the developing world must be engaged in preserving and restoring soil health. Making young farmers, women farmers, and small-scale farmers - usually marginalized and impoverished by industrial agriculture - should be made stakeholders who can benefit from ecological farming that restores soil health and ensures soil is safe from erosion. Organic ecological agriculture can be incorporated into climate adaptation and climate action measures that can be funded and trained by climate finance and green tech transfer.  These marginalized farmers can help #SaveOurFuture by saving the soil. Thus we can ensure social justice and climate justice by protecting soil.

SOIL AND FARMERS: KEY TO CLIMATE ACTION

December sees the celebration of Soil and the Farmer. Both are key in the fight against climate change and are essential for efficient climate action. 

 World Soil Day, initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization, is observed on December 5th annually and the 2017 theme was

‘Caring for the Planet starts from the Ground’

Kisan Diwas or National Farmers’ Day is an  Indian celebration observed on December 23rd in honor of  the birth anniversary of the fifth Indian prime minister and leader of farmers, late Chaudhary Charan Singh. Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan is the nationalist cry and the farmer is the backbone of the Indian economy especially the rural sector which still employs a majority of Indians. Plagued by financial crises as well as climate change--exacerbated extreme weather the Indian farmer faces many challenges. With a majority of them being small-holders their livelihood which feeds the nation is fraught with financial and climate risks. 

By training Indian farmers - targeting especially small-hold farmers and women farmers - to go back to and readopt organic soil management  techniques could help reverse GHG emissions as well as bringing extra income through organic certification. The key is to link these producers to a market for their produce and ensure adequate profits go directly to the farmer. The social entrepreneurs Vishnu Vardhan and Divya Shetty of Indian Superheroes (ISH), who I had the privilege to meet and hear at the #GES2017 parallel event at IIT Madras on November 28th are making this happen. This bootstrapped initiative based out of Coimbatore is slowly convincing farmers to go organic and ensuring adequate revenue streams for them. A third or their 800-odd network of organic farmers are women. They even allow urbanites to "rent patches of organic farms to grow and harvest your own crops!" IRL Farmville a great way to generate interest and networks for organic farmers beyond the organic store. Kudos to Divya Shetty and her team.  

As Vandana Siva repeatedly emphasizes empowering our farmers and returning to organic farming and soil management can trap current carbon emissions in just three years and reverse adverse affects.

As we face the challenges of soil erosion as well as desertification, the solution is soil management by farmers. The sheer number of Indian farmers - if harnessed into the organic green revolution and soil protection movement could be the most efficient climate action.

Combating the devastation of soil erosion, desertification, flood-drought cycles, undependable monsoons, and avoid the trap of expensive pesticides and chemical fertilizers can save the farmer as well as the planet. Organic farming and soil management if adopted on a large scale will make a big difference in combating climate change and carbon emissions.