Some years ago, I visited Ecuador with the Ceiba Foundation for Tropical Conservation. I learned about the challenges posed by using land for cattle farms; a practice which reduces the lifetime of the arable land to about three years. I also learned about multi-crop plantations, which extends the lifetime of arable land to about seven years. The idea I came up with is to plant a series of crops that change from year to year to minimize the depletion of the essential nutrients for each crop. My innovation is to genetically modify the crops so that each crop sequesters the rate-limiting nutrient for the crop that will be planted the following year. At the end of the growing season, the first crop would be plowed under to function as green manure for the next years' crop.

I think this idea will diminish food insecurity at a global level.

This project will require an understanding of techniques of genetic engineering. It will also require students to research the rate-limiting nutrients of food crops, and also to genetically engineer molecules that can sequester those nutrients.