"**A nearly perfect solution would be to develop grain or oil crops with the capabilities common to leguminous plants—that is, with their roots hosting bacteria able to convert inert atmospheric nitrogen to nitrates**. Plant scientists have been dreaming about this for decades, but no releases of commercial nitrogen-fixing varieties of wheat or rice are coming anytime soon. Nor is it very likely that all affluent countries and better-off modernizing economies will adopt large-scale voluntary reductions in the quantity and variety of their typical diets, or that the resources (fuel, fertilizers, and machinery) saved by such pullbacks would be transferred to Africa to improve the continent’s still-dismal nutrition." ([Location 1527](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B08SGC3TD3&location=1527)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[fertilisers]], [[nitrogen]], [[economics]], [[demographics]], [[food-security]] **Source** -- [[202412030828 - B - How the World Really Works]]