The Salt Doctors

The Salt Doctors (www.thesaltdoctors.com) is a social enterprise from The Netherlands with a long track record in both the R&D of crop cultivation under saline conditions, as well as the implementation in the field in various countries worldwide. The Salt Doctors have identified salt tolerant varieties of conventional crops like potato and different vegetables and have extensive knowledge and skills in the production of halophytes like Salicornia as well. By combining smart soil and water management with the tolerant crops, The Salt Doctors are implementing crop cultivation under saline conditions in countries like Egypt, Jordan, Bangladesh and Vietnam (among others). This implementation is a combination of setting up local R&D stations, setting up demonstration trials, training-of-trainers and lead farmers, close assistance during the crop season, and ensuring the availability of seeds for upscaling, among others. By combining the “technical aspects” of crop cultivation under saline conditions with different socio-economic factors, like the market potential of the selected crops, The Salt Doctors help with making saline agriculture both possible and profitable! Besides working on the implementation of saline agriculture, The Salt Doctors are also part of different expert groups like the EU Focus Group on Soil Salinization (EIP-AGRI) and the FAO workgroup on saline agriculture (WASAG-Saline Agriculture). Also, The Salt Doctors have a close network with different universities and contribute to several scientific papers each year. So, we combine practical work in the field with scientific research and are actively involved in different expert groups. All activities focus on developing and implementing scalable solutions in order to provide practical solutions for farmers and work towards large-scale impact.