Dutch experiment shows farming with salty water possible

One of the many adverse effects of global climate change is the rise of sea levels, which scientists say can increase the salinity level of fresh water reserves. As saline water cannot be used for irrigation, farm fields close to the seashore are lost to agriculture. But a farm in Netherlands has managed to grow healthy and tasty vegetables in soil irrigated with salt water.

Salinization is reducing the world’s irrigated lands by 1 to 2 percent annually, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

But that doesn't faze Dutch farmer Marc Van Rijsselberghe, who has used saline water to kill some plants in order to identify which ones are able to thrive.

“We put a lot of plants in the field and then we put them in fresh water and in sea water and all varieties between it, and then we see which variety is surviving and which variety is dying,” he said.

Working with scientists from the Free University of Amsterdam, Van Rijsselberghe and his team divided a farm into eight plots covered with a network of irrigation pipes.

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