1. The largest industrial concerns were electronics, computer assembly, artificial fertilizers, machinery, metalworking and textiles.

2. Controversy has also surrounded the long-term effects of artificial fertilizer on the soil structure.

3. The solution Crookes proposed was to create artificial fertilizer.

4. They have thus become the animal equivalents of the plants which are force-fed with artificial fertilizers and sprayed with herbicides and pesticides.

5. Paradoxically the ecological problems deriving from the application of artificial fertilizers are often equally complex and extensive.

6. All the soil does is hold the plants upright, while the crop is fed with artificial fertilizers.

7. The second Green Revolution is going to be how we get plants to grow productively with less water and artificial fertilizer, he says.