Can We Build our Future without Soil?

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My Sustainable Encounter with Nasir Jamal

by Albert Schiller

A New Way to Farm, Rooted in Ancient Wisdom

Not all sustainability breakthroughs come from labs or legislative chambers.

Some grow quietly under greenhouse canopies.

That’s where I found Nasir Jamal, an agronomist and project head at I Plant System in India. His work is simple in purpose, but complex in execution: to grow more food using fewer resources—without soil, and with a lot of care.

Nasir designs hydroponic systems, soilless farming technologies that reduce water usage and land dependence while producing food at scale. It’s one of those solutions that sounds futuristic but is deeply rooted in an ancient idea: work with what the environment gives you, don’t fight it.

“We design systems that use what’s available,” he said.

“We optimize. We don’t waste.”

That philosophy cuts deeper than any trend. In Nasir’s world, sustainability isn’t an add-on. It’s built into the blueprint from space planning to nutrient delivery to light management. It’s all intentional. And it’s all aimed at preserving what we can’t afford to lose.

Farming in a Time of Climate Anxiety

But even the best systems face old problems.

“Manpower and weather.”

These are not software glitches. They’re structural and climatic realities. Skilled labor is still essential, even in tech-forward agriculture. And unpredictable weather exacerbated by climate change can disrupt growing cycles even inside controlled environments.

It’s the kind of insight you don’t always hear in sustainability strategy decks. Because it’s not about policy, it’s about plants. It’s not a forecast, it’s a lived pattern. When a farmer or agronomist says it, you feel the urgency differently.

He’s not waiting for perfect conditions. He’s adapting to real ones.

You don’t need to be an agronomist to learn from Nasir.

We’re all part of a food system. And that system is already being reshaped—by heat, by water scarcity, by supply chain disruption. Nasir’s work is a response to that shift, not in theory, but in roots and leaves.

So what can we take from his approach?

Nasir reminded me that not all leadership is loud.

Sometimes it shows up in greenhouse rows, designing nutrient flows, training farmers, and protecting harvests we haven’t even grown yet.

He’s not just managing farms.

He’s managing fragility with intelligence, resilience, and a quiet kind of strength.

And maybe that’s the sustainability model we need most right now.