This blog is due for some good news!

Marc vanRijsselberghe is a farmer on the bleak Texel, an island in the northern part of the Netherlands.  He has developed a strain of potato that thrives in salinated soil.  Fifty per cent of the world’s agricultural land is threatened by salt water, and there are millions of people who live in salt-contaminated areas, where poor farming practices, along with house and road building, are raising water- tables and increasing the saline content of rivers and lakes.  Desalininization of sea water is expensive, too expensive to be used for irrigation.  The lives of millions are being affected by this, so the work of Mr. van  Rijsselberghe is good news, especially to countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh.  It seems that if you give plants too much salt they compensate by making more sugar; the salt is retained in the leaves.

Potentially, a more secure and pleasant life for millions.

( First reported in The Guardian, November 2014)