Road Trip Discoveries and Global Water Crisis

Abandoned Village and Salinization

• Road trip to Wabar Crater reveals an abandoned stone fort and mud hut village.

• The village appeared recently deserted, with signs of isolation and desolation.

• A nearby palm grove was completely dead due to increasing salinity in the irrigation water.

• Salinization is identified as the cause of the palm grove's failure and the village's abandonment.

Signs of Environmental Stress in Saudi Arabia

• Rusting combine harvesters in the middle of a barren landscape indicate failed agriculture.

• Irrigation infrastructure is deteriorating, and trees are dying due to salinization.

• These signs of death and salinization are prevalent throughout Saudi Arabia.

Global Groundwater Depletion

• NASA, led by Jay Familietti, has documented the depletion of major aquifers worldwide.

• Seawater intrusion is affecting fertile agricultural lands, such as the Ganges-Brahmaputra and Mekong River Deltas.

• Rice crop yields are declining, leading to the conversion of rice fields to brine shrimp farms.

The Importance of Irrigation for Food Production

• Approximately one-third of our food is grown under irrigation.

• Two-thirds of all water used by humans globally is for irrigating crops.

• Agriculture is the largest single user of the world's fresh water.

• However, much of this water use is unsustainable due to aquifer depletion, drying wells, rising seawater, and retreating rivers.

Global Water Crisis and Food Security

• The World Economic Forum has consistently listed water crises as one of the top three risks to world economic security for the past six years.

• The FAO estimates that cereal production must increase by over 50% by 2050 to meet growing population demands, requiring an additional 1,000,000,000 tons of cereal from 2,000,000,000 tons to 3,000,000,000 tons.

• There is a need to increase food production sustainably and at an accelerated pace, despite global environmental change and threats to water supplies.

Innovation in Agriculture

• Innovation is essential to address the global water problem and its impact on agriculture.

• For every drop of fresh water, there is a drop of brackish water (too salty for easy use) and a drop of frozen water.

• Focus should be on unlocking brackish water and seawater to help feed the world.

• This can be achieved by growing salt-tolerant plants and irrigating them with partially desalinized water.

• Engineering innovations are needed for desalinization.

The New Genetics: Genomics Revolutionizing Agriculture

• Focus on increasing the salinity tolerance of plants through genetics.

• Genomics is turbocharging genetics, similar to how it is revolutionizing medicine.

• Genomics offers opportunities for innovation in agriculture.

Plant Variability and Toughness

• Plants are highly variable, offering a range of naturally occurring variations.

• Examples include the variety of mangoes and potatoes in local markets.

• Plants can be remarkably tough, adapting to extreme environments.

• Some plants even grow in the sea, but their utility for humans may be limited.

Crop Relatives and Genetic Resources

• Close relatives of crop plants can also be remarkably tough, providing genetic resources for crop improvement.

• Wild tomato relatives growing in the Galapagos Islands, being splashed by the sea, highlight the existence of genes that can confer salt tolerance.

• Researchers are crossing wild barley with domesticated barley to identify genes that enhance toughness.

Genetics Experiment with Barley

• A collection of 25 wild barley accessions was crossed with domesticated barley to create 1,400 lines, each three-quarters domesticated and one-quarter wild.

• Field experiments in Dubai, involving about half a million plants, tested these lines under low and high salinity conditions.

• One gene from a plant collected in Northwest Iraq led to a 20% increase in yield under normal conditions and a 30% increase in yield when irrigated with saline water (one-third seawater).

Discovery of a Salt-Tolerant Gene in Wheat

• A salt-tolerant gene was discovered in an old cross between a wild relative of wheat and pasta wheat.

• Introgressing this gene into commercial lines resulted in a 25% yield increase in high-salinity fields without any yield penalty in low-salt fields.

Enhancing Salt Tolerance in Quinoa

• Quinoa, a close relative of plants growing in the sea, exhibits high salt tolerance.

• Quinoa can grow in the Altiplano in Bolivia, next to the world's biggest salt lake.

• However, quinoa needs domestication to improve its mechanized planting and harvesting.

Developing a New Agricultural System

• The goal is to develop a new mechanized crop of quinoa that can be grown in broad acres and irrigated with saline water or partially desalinized seawater.

• This requires managing the soil, drainage water, and aquifer water.

• By using sand, sea, and advancements in genetics, a new agriculture can be developed to contribute to global food security.