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No time to check it out in depth now, but the notion that plants could be engineered to have the capacity of legumes to fix nitrogen in root nodules, thus reducing nitrogenous fertiliser needs, has often been floated.

The basic fact, however, is that the big money has gone to making "pesticide" GMs, which are the only ones on the market. Where R&D is at with nitrogen-fixing, I don't know offhand. There is, however, hype in holding out the promise of plants that will need less water, less fertiliser, and will produce double yields of more nourishing food: a hypothetical free lunch.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Jul 18th, 2008 at 03:26:53 AM EST
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peter kendall didn't exactly come off as progressive...steven sackur got on his case pretty strongly about the issue of meat production, mentioning that subsidies for this aren't needed in NZ or Australia, whereas they are in Britain.

Eating less meat was not an option P.K. endorsed, though S.S wisely pointed out the health bennies, and how much it would save the NHS.

as for GM food, i suspected that this would be the advocates' technique, to point to some potential future fantasy, while the real agenda is to sell more roundup, and much worse even, force farmers to rebuy seed every season.

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Fri Jul 18th, 2008 at 05:24:01 AM EST
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