Seven years ago, at the Sedona International Film Festival, I reviewed a documentary that profoundly impacted me: "The Need to Grow." This award-winning film is a wake-up call—an unflinching look at the rapid depletion of the Earth’s fertile soil and the unsung innovators working to reverse that decline. One of the film’s most chilling revelations was the estimate that we may have only 60 years of farmable soil left if current trends continue. Sixty harvests. Sixty chances to get it right before the ground beneath us — quite literally — can no longer support us.
That film planted a seed in my consciousness. It led me to explore just how deep the crisis of arable land depletion goes — and how profoundly it affects not just our food systems, but our environment, our economies and global stability.
This commentary brings together what I’ve learned — the roots of the crisis, its far-reaching consequences, and the pathways to renewal — in the hope that others will grasp the profound threat it poses to our future.
Read the entire commentary on Substack In The Center Lane With Herb Paine →
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Commentator Herb Paine says King Charles III's address to Congress last month was remarkable as an example of civic intelligence and an exhortation to defend democracy. -
Commentator Herb Paine on the troubling revival of capital punishment in the United States and Israel. -
In the midst of all the current social and political disruption, commentator Herb Paine takes a step back and reflect on how we shifted from an age of aspirations to an era of polarization. -
Commentator Herb Paine documents the Trump administration’s continuing campaign on what he calls "a coordinated effort to narrow, sanitize and control the stories Americans encounter about their own culture and history" and offers an "inventory" of the damage already done — and the implications of allowing it to continue. -
Commentator Herb Paine examines a crucial but under-explored dimension of the current moment: How the Jewish community responds ethically when Jewish continuity intersects with political power in Israel.
