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Saline Agriculture As the Future of Food

Posted by timothy on from the rice-goes-with-shrimp-and-mango dept.

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."

2 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Bioremediation by ZirbMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I love to hear about innovations like this. However it can be taken a step further.

    Not only can we make crops resistant to salty conditions, we can breed them to fix the soil and remove that salt. Bioremediation works on all sorts of poisoned soils, removing all sorts of poisons.

    Hell, we could have pre-salted potato chips!

  2. Re:Just curious... by bockelboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Zimbabwe, physically, is actually one of the best places to grow corn in Africa. They were once a breadbasket of the region.

    Of course now, the entire economy has completely collapsed, so much of the country is starving.

    That aside, it's a decent place to grow some corn.