The Most Powerful Climate Solution is Right Underneath Our Feet

Dr. Jonathan Lundgren

I try not to spend a lot of time slapping down symptoms; I prefer to get to root causes of problems. With this in mind, a question has driven our research program over the past 5 years: 

What if many of the problems we are facing as a planet and as a society could be simultaneously solved with a single swipe? 

Turns out, they can. And climate change is one of the problems we are talking about.

Why Food Matters

For decades, we've been told that solving climate change will require new technologies, alternative infrastructure, and cleaner ways of producing energy. 

Food production is rarely brought up—and when it is, agriculture is framed as the problem, never the solution.

It’s shocking how little research has been done into something that takes up more than a third of the planet's land surface and influences everything from biodiversity and water quality to public health and economic security. 

But Ecdysis is changing that.

The Power of the Whole System

Living soils can do what degraded soils can’t: trap and hold carbon. 

We found that regenerative crop farms store 39% more carbon in soil than conventional ones. If all U.S. field crops were managed regeneratively, the additional carbon stored in soil could equal 1.49 times the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. 

Thinking about that a different way: the carbon storage potential of regenerative farms exceeds the projected carbon capture of all proposed tech-based climate solutions by 2050, combined.

Regenerative farmers and ranchers have been reporting remarkable outcomes like these for years. Healthier soils. More resilient farms. More life on their land. 

So why hasn't mainstream science backed them up until now? Because traditional research studies one isolated practice at a time (sometimes for years, but it is still only one farm). But farms are living systems where soil, plants, water, and human choices all interact. If you only measure one piece, you miss the big picture.

Through our 1000 Farms Initiative, we collected hundreds of measurements across more than 2,000 farms and ranches in North America to create the most comprehensive dataset in modern agricultural research. This data helps with local decision making on farms. But it also can inform national or even global potential of our food system.

Farmers are the Key

Data is critical, but this initiative succeeded because of something that traditional research overlooks: treating farmers and ranchers as research partners.

Transitioning to regenerative agriculture isn't just an operational shift; it’s a social risk. Take Sean, a rancher in our study. When he shifted his pastures away from conventional methods, neighbors told him it would never work. The further he went, the more isolated he felt.

When our field team showed up to measure his land, he expected more skepticism. Instead, our data validated what he already knew in his gut: What you’ve built is real. It’s working. And it is beautiful and it matters.

Science can measure the carbon, but farmers are the ones absorbing the financial risk and operational uncertainty of changing how they farm. When research learns directly from the innovators on the ground instead of dictating to them, data reveals the whole picture and shows us the clearest way forward. 

This is Just the Beginning

Soil carbon is only one chapter of a much bigger story. Over the coming months, Ecdysis will release a series of papers providing guidance, solutions, and case studies that explore how regenerative farming and ranching improve biodiversity, water, food quality, human health, and farm economics.

The future of agriculture isn’t a trade-off between feeding people and caring for the planet. 

Our research proves we can do both.