Carefully targeted payments to farmers could serve as an approach to protect the environment and to address growing concerns about climate change, biodiversity loss and water supply.

Around 1.2 billion people live in areas of physical water scarcity, and 500 million more are approaching this situation.

The hi-tech field of nuclear technology may seem a world away from the poorest developing world farmers struggling to make a dollar a day. Yet nuclear methods applied to agriculture are helping millions of them grow more crops and rear healthier livestock.