The earlier post Up In Smoke discussed better nitrogen compounds and smarter application methods to increase yields while reducing nitrogen use. And then there's better genes.

Arcadia says its GM rice requires less nitrogen fertiliser . . .

Arcadia is working to apply the reduced-nitrogen technology to GM wheat, rape seed oil, sugarbeet, maize, sugarcane, cotton and turf for golf courses and landscape gardening . . .

The Arcadia technology inserts a gene that improves the nitrogen uptake, which means less fertiliser is needed to produce a given yield of crop.

All of these materials, methods and cultivars could be used together for significant savings and increased yields.

Another relevant post is Everything Changed. It discussed the use of soil amendments and improved cultivars to open The Cerrado, the closed lands, in Brazil. The acidity and high aluminum content of these soils had prevented their cultivation. Little would grow. Those same soils are found in Africa, which was once joined to S. America before the continents drifted apart. This gives hope for eventual African agricultural improvement. We know what to do to raise productivity and feed some of the hungriest people on the planet. If all of these improvements were made it would make a remarkable difference in outcomes for even less cost than in the past.

That's a cheerful thought.

Update: Uncle Norm thinks Africa can do better too.

Africa needs roads. Roads bring know-how and fertilizer to farmers and ideas and business for commerce.

Few are listening.

Last year, ABC, CBS, and NBC cameras were absent when Borlaug was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal. And alas, Borlaug's friend and biographer Leon Hesser has now produced a prosaic work that, while good on his hero's early years, fades as Borlaug appears on the international stage. Borlaug deserves better, but when journalist Gregg Easterbrook sought a publisher for a popular biography, "they said he was boring," the self-described "environmental optimist" says. "If he'd killed someone instead of saving hundreds of millions of lives, then they'd have been interested."

Borlaug is an example of missing the point. The international "helping" community is not interested in results, just rhetoric. They have no use for true competence. When they say competence they only mean bureaucracy and a rhetoric of competence. Borlaug screwed the pooch by actually doing things since that undermines the rhetoric of "helpers". Worse, he ignored their litany and taboos.