the endless march of desert sands,
so I was interested to read that a Norwegian start-up company Desert Control claims that it can fight desertification efficiently by spraying sand with Liquid NanoClay (LNC) and turning it into soil in a matter of hours, farmers have been using clay to increase the fertility of their lands for thousands of years, and has always been laborious and time-consuming, Desert Control managed to overcome this hurdle by making the clay particles in their NanoClay as small as possible, Liquid NanoClay is made with just water and clay, the company’s secret is its ability to turn thick clay into a liquid “nearly as thin as water,” which is then sprayed over the sands, percolating the top layer all the way to a few dozen centimetres, the clay binds to the sand particles and forms a moisture-retaining soil that, while not as fertile as dark soil, can definitely support plant life,
Desert Control currently has its sights set on the UAE, the
technology has already proven its use, turning a barren desert into soil, but
there is still the limitation of cost, CNN reports the cost of treatment ranges from $2 to $5
per square meter (11 square feet), not exactly cheap, considering the vast
areas that need to be treated with Liquid NanoClay in order for agricultural
projects to make sense. However, Desert Control plans to develop units capable
of producing large amounts of Liquid NanoClay, which would bring down the price
considerably,
"If they are able to reduce the price and make it affordable for the least income countries, it could have a really huge impact on food security and the ability of many of those countries to use their own crops,” said Ismahane Elouafi, Director General of Dubai’s International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture. “It could be tremendous.” with 12 million hectares of fertile land being lost to desertification every year, Desert Control’s solution sounds like nothing short of a miracle. Being able to turn sand into plant-sustaining soil in just seven hours sounds unreal, but it works, what is also amazing is that Liquid NanoClay was invented in the early 2000s by Norwegian scientist Kristian Olesen, but I have only just read about it!
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