Alas NB, your link is from 2009 and things have changed since then. Both gas and oil from Shale has completely changed the situation, particularly in the USA where there is now a glut of gas. At the risk of upsetting JW you might like to look at
http://thegwpf.org/energy-news/6138-unleashing-the-north-american-energy-colossus.html

but there are many other reports that give similar information. And a recent discussion in the Guardian is
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/05/extracting-truth-peak-oil?INTCMP=SRCH

What is more interesting and more relevant to this thread is the £6.4 million grant given by the Gates Foundation to the John Innes Norwich Centre for GM Cereal Crop research.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18845282
which it is hoped to benefit African farmers who cannot afford fertiliser.

All modern agriculture is heavily dependent on oil and gas. Our current population levels are dependent on oil and gas. Nitrate fertilisers, on which agricultural yields depend, are made by the Haber process using natural gas. Wikipedia gives the rather staggering claim:

It is estimated that half of the protein within human beings is made of nitrogen that was originally fixed by this process

So the work in the article Alan refers to seems to be aimed at producing varieties which can fix nitrogen from the air, which would seem to reduce their energy requirement.

I find it ironic that oil is Natures, 'natural', organic way of dealing with NB's mulch. And of course all of our energy resources including the renewables, wind, wave and of course, solar result from nuclear power - the Sun.

Although the US didn't sign the Kyoto agreement their use of shale gas has reduced their carbon emissions to the required limit.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3aa19200-a4eb-11e1-b421-00144feabdc0.html#axzz20gXxyj7I

I may be totally wrong about this and if so stand corrected but I heard that even though we signed up we refuse to use shale gas and are currently importing some of the coal that the US don't require. Burning coal produces higher emissions so in doing this we haven't met Kyoto targets and we are feeding the US economy whilst having our energy bills increase partly due to subsidising green energy. I must have got all this wrong as it doesn't make any sense.

It often does not make sense gallotments! They privatised the railway and now they are bailing these private companies out with billions of our money while we suffer austerity anf this is only the start more cuts in the pipeline. They should re-nationalise the railways instead, at least we could see ir was spent properly then and benefit from any profits. The private companies have invested in fancy IT while neglrecting maintenance and infrastructure while they increase fares and their profits ! We shpould follow icelands example, they have kicked out their bankers and government and are beginning to see the benefits. The news is very carefully omitting to inform us about that., No mention either of lhe leakage of the chemicals fracking uses into the local water supplies, or the earth tremors that result, or the loss of value in houses which are unsaleable in those areas.

Germany shuts down its nuclear power stations and ends up importing electricity generated by nuclear power. NB - no technology, manual or otherwise, is free from risk. Fracking, carried out in a responsible manner promises much. Of course, Russia wants the EU to ban it so that it can keep up the price of its oil and hence the price of electricity. But that is really straying off-topic, as is privatisation.

GM, like any other technology is neither good or evil, it is our use of it that determines the outcome.

British GM crop scientists win $10m grant from Gates

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18845282

See more on this story on BBC One's Countryfile at 20:00 BST on Sunday 15 July

No apologies for repeating my post of this morning given the thread drift which has occurred

I thought the Countryfile piece turned out to be a well-informed, informative and balanced piece of reporting.

There was also some cracking stuff about Snowdonia.

It's available on BBC iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... 5_07_2012/

The relevant sections are nine and a half and twenty-six and a half minutes into the programme.

I agree, it was one of the better programmes for a while, didn't fast forward much of it (still have a bit to watch). I thought I knew the Ogwen valley quite well (admittedly a few years ago) but I didn't recognise that area, describing it as Upper Ogwen I expected it to be near the lake but it didn't look rugged enough. When they said they were going to a rare wild flower habitat I had been looking forward to Cwm Idwal but it was still interesting.

And if I may add to Alan's comment re Countryfile, the work being done at the National Botanic Garden of Wales by Dr. Natasha de Vere is also important as DNA profiling is a very useful tool. This is about 36mins 40 sec in, but more detail can be see at
http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/yr-ardd/barcode-project-puts-wales-number-1-in-the-world/

alan refail. I agree with alan, straight facts, and no histrionics, maybe a slightly longer programme needed.

I just wish Country file would not split up its features. Splitting a story into two or three sections and then using the first few seconds of each section to remind you what has gone before is very annoying - especially when interspersed with the presenters just having fun with some sort of activity.

We fast forward quite a lot!

Hi GA - yes, very annoying. And SpringWatch did the same. Supposed to keep us hanging on and excited! And they do it with the news too. Terrified we are going to turn off.

Soil Association's reaction to the announcement:

http://www.soilassociation.org/news/new ... -gm-cereal

It would be useful to have some more information to explain the comment:

"In the meantime, most international scientists agree that agroecological solutions, shown by other UK researchers to be capable of increases yields in countries in Africa by up to 100%, are available right now."

Keyhole gardens perhaps PDF document