| The Atlantic Cod has been a staple food fish for over 500 years. But the cod has been over-fished and the size of catches is now strictly controlled. Until recently only luxury fish, such as salmon, were farmed. However, new techniques have been developed that show that it could be cost effective to farm sea fish such as the Cod. Here we see how the farm of the future will use simple techniques to produce the fish for our plates. 08DR/CC Closed-Captioned IJSCA 30 min. |
| A few years ago European farmers were struggling to produce sufficient amounts of food. But with scientific intervention, they now produce a surplus. Because of this, land has now been set aside and made available for new non-food crops: timber, biomass, oil seeds and plants from which we will make clothes. An embarrassment of riches forced people to rethink. The solution they reached should help us overcome some of the hazards of industrial societies and enrich our lives. 08DR/CC Closed-Captioned IJSCA 30 min. |
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"Recommended. An optimistic view of biotechnology and
plant genetic engineering in an easily understood and non-technical
way." -EMRO Review England's green and pleasant land is turning yellow. Oil seed, a wonderfully adaptable plant, has become a prime crop. Genetic engineers hybridize it with alien species, alien material and in doing so these vast yellow fields are becoming the world's new plastic factories, oil wells and major food stores. 07DR IJSCA 30 min. |
| Agriculture in Northeast Brazil is in crisis. The irreplaceable coastal Atlantic rainforests have been destroyed, to make way for sugar cane, to produce alcohol as a substitute for oil. In the interior, slash and burn farming practices have led to the degradation of soil structures. Drought is an additional problem and means those small farmers and their families face starvation, so they are quitting the land. Plantas do Nordeste, or PNE, is a scientific initiative attempting to show that this trend can be reversed. A new Information Center has been opened in Recife. Its role is to disseminate valuable agricultural and other information and put it within the grasp of the farmers. 07DR IJSCA 30 min. |