Question: how are you going to help the world?

Jo Hulsmans answered on 10 Jun 2011:

Sorry michel, my answer here is pretty much the same as for your other question, hope you don’t mind!

During my studies I spent 2 months in Togo (West Africa), as an exchange student, and I became very interested in agriculture. One of the many problems west african farmers have is that they have no money for fertiliser, and even if they did, their soils are not very suited to agriculture with fertilisers.
Fertiliser has 3 important chemical elements: Phosphorus, Potassium and most importantly: Nitrogen. If we can make plants that don’t need fertiliser for nitrogen it could be an enormous help to poorer farmers.
Another very important reason is the climate: Making and applying fertiliser is pretty terrible for the environment, almost 50% of CO2 emissions of agriculture are from nitrogen fertiliser. If we could make better plants that no longer need as much fertiliser it could be another step in stopping climate change.