Crops for a Salinized World

Currently, humans use about half of the fresh water readily available to them to support a growing world population [expected to be 9.3 billion by 2050 (1)]. Agriculture has to compete with domestic and industrial uses for this fresh water. Good-quality water is rapidly becoming a limited and expensive resource. However, although only about 1% of the water on Earth is fresh, there is an equivalent supply of brackish water (1%) and a vast quantity of seawater (98%). It is time to explore the agronomic use of these resources.