Green Revolution – Primal Group

The Consequences of Agrochemicals on the Oceans

The oceans feed more than 500 million people and provide jobs for 350 million people.

At least 500 dead zones have now been reported near coasts, up from under 50 in 1950. A recent example is the red tide on the southwestern coast of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, which has killed thousands of animals and significantly disrupted the biodiversity of the area. The red tide is a normal seasonal occurrence in southwestern Florida, however, this year’s tide has astoundingly lasted since November 2017. Areas affected are known as “hypoxic areas” or “dead zones”. The cause of such hypoxic (lacking oxygen) conditions is usually eutrophication, an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, leading to excessive blooms of algae that deplete underwater oxygen levels. …

The Golden Age of Genetic Engineering

One of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of 2016, and arguably for the next decade, is a powerful new gene-editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas9. This innovation in genetic modification has enabled scientists to customize organisms with an unprecedented precision in a matter of days rather than months or years.

Scientists have figured out how to exploit a quirk in the immune system of bacteria to edit genes in other organisms. How? On the surface, CRISPR harnesses the immune system of bacteria, making it easy, cheap and fast to move genes around and customize their effects. This is a powerful new tool to modify what characteristics are expressed in plants, animals and even humans.…

The Tree of the 21st Century

The neem tree (Azadirachta Indica) is an evergreen and part of the Meliaceae (mahogany) family, celebrated for its remarkable healing properties as far back as 5,000BC by the Harappa and Mohenjo civilizations. Described in ancient Indian Ayurvedic texts as ‘Sarva roga nivarini’ (the universal healer of all ailments) and ‘Nimba’ (giver of good health), neem’s name is ‘Arista’ in Sanskrit – meaning ‘perfect, complete and imperishable’. Fast-forward to the present day and neem is becoming renowned for its contributions to sustainable agriculture, as well as for its applications in the medicinal and environmental sectors worldwide.

Nearly two years old, the neem tree above is well on its way to producing 60 pounds of fruit each year

Though known for centuries in rural settings across Asia as the ‘Village Pharmacy’, and while research into neem has been underway in India since the 1920s, it was only in 1959 that a German entomologist in Sudan made a groundbreaking observation.…