growing food

Agriculture contributes some of the widest gaps between a working fix and its use. A biocontrol cuts aflatoxin contamination by 80 to 100 percent and remains barely used while people get liver cancer. The world's commercial banana crop faces a repeat of the disease that destroyed its predecessor. Other problems are about measurement, such as telling which stage of degradation each hectare of pasture is in, or sensing soil moisture cheaply enough to match how much real fields vary.