Agroaldea
They have been successful potato production, strawberries, onions and carrots.
A small crop of the Dutch island of Texel, windswept Wadden Sea, It could provide an answer to world hunger, with planting vegetables grown in salt water.
This project may mean a solution to the problem of soil salinization, threatening the food security of millions of people.
Among the sheep and dykes of the island of Texel, Marc van Rijsselberghe has planted thirty varieties of potatoes. "We distribute seven concentrations of water in the field tested, ranging from freshwater to marine " , explains this farmer 60 years: "We threw what dies and study what survives".
No only potatoes. Marc and his team, supported by the University of Amsterdam, They are studying the compatibility with carrots, strawberries, onions or lettuce, among other vegetables and fruits.
In this 'farm salted potatoes', experiments began in 2006 hoping to help undernourished people in the world.
The small team of researchers and farmers carried out tests on all plants available to examine which survive in an environment with high proportions of salt. They do no laboratory or GMOs (GMO).
The potato is the fourth most widely cultivated plant in the world, five thousand different varieties, according to the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) .
"We see that the varieties whose ancestors lived hundreds or thousands of years ago near the sea salt better support the other", explica Mark van Rysselberghe.
Numerous research focuses on increasing the production of some plants, but the team looking opposite Texel: grow plants on land hitherto considered unproductive.
"In Holland we know everything about water and many things about agriculture, but we were so frightened by the sea, up to ten years, we had not found the courage to try to grow the plants with seawater " , says this sexagenarian.
Soil salinization by an accumulation of salt motivated by the lack of irrigation or inadequate irrigation land forms.
This phenomenon reduces 2.000 Daily hectares of agricultural land surface on the planet, according to the Institute for the United Nations Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) .
Currently it is affecting 62 million hectares (one surface comparable to that of France), against 45 million early 90. Current solutions for saline soils can be cultivated again are too expensive for many countries.
Texel team is convinced that his parents could change the lives of thousands of farmers in the region, and longer term of millions of people. The pope comes from Peru and Spanish settlers introduced in the sixteenth century in Europe, where it was essential to survive famines of the time.
According to FAO, today almost 800 million people go hungry in the world, and salinization threatens 10% of the world grain harvest.
The result is sweet potatoes because the plant produces more sugar to compensate for the saline environment, Texel ensures equipment.
Nor would increase salt intake in humans, Since sodium is trapped in the leaves, explain.
The price really is salty: a kilo of these potatoes currently costs five euros in the Netherlands, when others are worth less than one in supermarkets.
"We produce about 30.000 kilos per hectare ", in comparison with the 60 000 getting normally farmers, Alega Robin Rabbit, responsible for finance Texel farm.
For now, They have shown that it is feasible what was hitherto impossible.