On June 30, Bill Gates said in his latest article that in less than a decade, its investment has helped transform the carbon reduction fantasy into a series of transformative solutions and deployed in all areas of the economy.
He pointed out that agriculture contributes 20% of global carbon emissions and that the crops we grow and eat have a huge impact on the climate.
Bill Gates' investment company, Pivot Bio, is reducing this impact with microbial products that allow crops to draw nitrogen from the air, giving farmers what they've longed for: a more reliable and efficient form of fertilizer.
Generating less than 1% of emissions and requiring 1,000 times less water than synthetic fertilizers, their solutions are currently being used on 5 million acres of land, helping farmers increase productivity while eliminating emissions.
Bill Gates once pointed to a shocking fact: there is more carbon dioxide in the soil than in the atmosphere and in all plants combined. In its natural state, it's not a big deal. But when the soil is disturbed (e.g. by turning a forest into farmland), all the carbon dioxide stored in the soil is released into the atmosphere.
Microorganisms in the soil also produce greenhouse gases when they come into contact with fertilizers. Fertilizers have revolutionized the way the world supplies food, but when broken down by microorganisms, fertilizers release a powerful greenhouse gas called nitrous oxide.
Natural fertilizers like manure are no better, as they also release greenhouse gases when they decompose.
Pivot Bio uses genetically modified microorganisms to provide plants with the nitrogen they need without producing as much greenhouse gases as fertilizers do.
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