One concept which should be on the radar of Obama's new agriculture and technology directors is biochar. Scientists are studying the impact its potential for agriculture and combatting global warming. I've seen a few mentions of it over the last half year, but anything with the potential to help with our problems in both global warming and soil fertility should be getting more attention and funding than it seems to be generating.
Science Daily has a small vein of articles about it, the concept of adding charcoal to soil to improve it's fertility. I had previously read about biochar in a really good National Geographic article about soil, Our Good Earth, where the author uses the term "terra preta" (black earth). Basically, the concept comes from patches of human-made dark fertile soil in the Amazon, where fertile soil is supposedly impossible to create. Hundreds of years ago, people added tons of charcoal to the soil, in some places up to six feet deep, and the soil is still fertile today, in the same conditions where modern agriculture struggles to keep the soil fertile for five years.
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