Saline Agriculture As the Future of Food 153
Damien1972 writes "To confront rising salinization, authors writing in the journal Science recommend increased spending on saline agriculture, which proposes growing salt-water crops to feed the world. Jelte Rozema and Timothy Flowers believe that salt-loving plants known as halophytes could become important crops, especially in areas where the salt content of the water is about half that of ocean water."
Necessary (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to recommend the book "Collapse," by Jared Diamond (the author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel," another book I'd recommend). He spends several pages explaining the damage that salinization has done to farmland in places like Australia. It's kind of an eye opener about how wasteful irrigation policies have ended up basically permanently ruining large ares of Australia's farmlands by drawing salt up into the soil.
The damage, once done, is ridiculously expensive to fix, so we need to find crops that can grow in the unusable land, especially as the world's population grows -- especially its meat-eating population as third world countries acquire first world living standards, which multiplies the need for vegetable crops.
Re:vaporware.. (Score:1, Informative)
There are actually lots of edible Halophytes. A quick search of the wikipedia yields one genus of 100-200 species, many of which are edible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atriplex [wikipedia]
Great idea! How about resistance to polution too? (Score:4, Informative)
This article (at Mongabay, not Science) starts out strong, saying "accessible and unpolluted freshwater is a necessity for every nation's stability and well-being." Unfortunately, that first sentence was the last reference in the article to the issue of pollution or non-salt contamination.
What we really need is the ability to farm directly in the ocean without producing inedible food. The article's referenced halophytes [wikipedia.org] (plants that can grow in salt water) are just one piece of the issue, as the ocean is also filled with other contaminants (mercury, industrial waste, and so very much more). We can probably do some farming with net-like filters around enclosed areas (similar to the way most fish farming [wikipedia.org] works). Wikipedia calls this "open cage aquaculture." However, these filters can only get so much, and once you get complex enough to need a treatment facility, you've defeated the purpose of farming in the ocean (unless you treat the whole ocean...).
The referenced Science Magazine [sciencemag.org] article gets published tomorrow, but you can see related documents by searching for the authors (Rozema and Flowers) and salination [google.com]. Perhaps the actual article will discuss this issue...
GM Crops (Score:5, Informative)
What we really need is more research into GM crops which the environmentalists hate for some reason.
I'll try to field this one. I'm a moderate on the issue. I don't think GM crops are themselves a bad idea, but I am studying environmental law, and I have pretty good exposure to what people in the movement worry about.
You can summarize the problem with GM crops into a few distinct worries:
1) A love of "natural" foods.
2) Worries about crop contamination.
3) What GM technology is *actually* being used for. (Instead of the "feel good" science.)
4) Safety issues in the creation of GM crops.
First, a lot of people worry about "frankenfoods." They don't want "unnatural" crops because they're worried about the safety of these crops. As my use of quotation marks suggests, I'm not a big supporter of this viewpoint, but a lot of customer do feel that way which is one reason why organic food certifications don't allow GM crops. I won't defend this view because it's not my own, and I haven't gotten a good solid explanation of it.
But it brings us to point 2. Pollen from GM crops is a HUGE problem for organic farmers. Planting GM crops freely in an area can destroy the market for organic crops at home as well as for selling to Europe and other parts of the world where GM crops are disdained by customers. You simply cannot protect your crop against contamination in many cases. (Also, besides market concerns, there's the infamous Canadian patents case, Monsanto v. Schmeiser [wikipedia.org].)
The third point is one that really cheeses of a lot of environmentalists. You hear a lot of awesome things in the news about how scientists have invented rice with extra vitamin A or tomatoes with longer shelf life. The truth is that there are really only two major types of changes which companies have fought to get onto the market -- crops that come with their own built-in Bt insecticide and crops that let you liberally sprinkle around the herbicide RoundUp. (A notable exception to this would be GM papaya engineered to resist the papaya ringspot virus which saved the Hawaiian conventional papaya industry while wiping out the organic industry there.)
Personally, I would have no problem with eating crops modified to be more healthy, but both of the above practices do nothing but help prolong the survival of crop monocultures. A lot of farming pest problems exist largely because farmers fight tooth and nail to plant the same plant over and over again, providing excellent feeding grounds for pests and opportunistic species. The use of Bt has taken a surprisingly long time to create resistance pests, but hey, so it begins. [sciencedaily.com] Oh, and RoundUp resistance is starting to become increasingly common, meaning that farmers are going to start turning to more toxic chemicals.
It's like disease resistance and the use of antibiotics in farm animals, another tragedy of the commons situation. People realized that if you give cattle antibiotics, they grow larger, so farmers started pumping cattle full of a variety of antibiotics. One by one, bacteria have become resistant in the animals themselves, through plasmid swapping in the soil and environment, and through exposure throughout the environment thanks to runoff of cattle urine and wastes into streams. So, they keep trying new chemicals as the old ones cease to work (or in the case of tetracycline resistance endanger human health).
So, as insecticides & pesticides become useless, farmers will turn to increasingly more hostile and dangerous chemicals to farm. ...Which they wouldn't need so much if practiced more sustainable agriculture methodology. But the USDA subsidizes the current monoculture-friendly, heavy petroleum byproducts using methods, so as game theory suggests, no one wants to change.
Anyway, the la
Parent is disinformative (Score:3, Informative)
The idea that the sun is the dominant factor in global warming has been resoundingly debunked. [newscientist.com]
And the idea that warming has increased carbon dioxide (and that somehow carbon dioxide is just an innocent bystander in the whole affair) is frankly facile. Carbon dioxide is the dominant cause of global warming (with methane coming in second). Global warming is increasing the release of some natural carbon dioxide sources. However, these natural releases are DWARFED by industrial releases, a fact commonly ignored by "global warming causes increased CO2" reality deniers. It's a theory that only holds up if you completely toss large amounts of data out the window, which frankly isn't uncommon among the "global warming is a myth" crowd.
Re:There is no global food production problem (Score:4, Informative)
That's just plain wrong. Many crops, especially soy beans and nuts, will provide tons of proteins.
Pick up any environmental studies textbook and they will confirm that a vegetarian diet is more efficient from an environmental standpoint.
Having said that, the only nutrient that cannot be obtained from plants is Vitamin B12 [wikipedia.org], you must consume some animal product (even a small amount of something like milk or eggs is enough) to get enough of it.
Note: I'm not trying to force a vegetarian diet on you, go on and enjoy your steak. But know that it is possible to do without it.
extracting salt with barley and/or sugar beets (Score:4, Informative)
I found some information [wikipedia.org] on wikipedia about that:
"Salt-tolerant (moderately halophytic) barley and/or sugar beets are commonly used for the extraction of Sodium chloride (common salt) to reclaim fields that were previously flooded by sea water."
Re:Just curious... (Score:2, Informative)
What? Arabs created the Sahara?
Um...
"The Sahara is currently as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara
Were Arabs destroying the Sahara 13,000 years ago?
Re:Necessary (Score:2, Informative)