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Life

How to kickstart an agricultural revolution

By Andy Coghlan

2 April 2008

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Farms just produce food, right? Not for long perhaps. If a controversial utopian vision of how to save the world is accepted at a meeting in South Africa next week, farming could undergo its biggest transformation in history.

In this vision, farmers won’t just have to produce enough to head off the Malthusian food crisis economists believe is threatening the planet as its population grows ever larger. They will also be made custodians of nature, crusaders in the battle to combat climate change, engines of economic growth and gurus spreading technology and education to the remotest corners of the world.…

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