Microbes and Our Food

There is much debate over the use of pesticides and herbicides and other chemicals used on different crops. While I think it is important to entertain these discussions, I also believe that people fail to realize that maybe the solution lies with another alternative. This idea is where research and government support comes in. Without the support of the government any research is nearly impossible, but there has to be a way to attract the appropriate attention from them first. I found an article that I though hit close to home, literally. The article is about a microbiologist who discovered a microbe in Centralia PA. Sometimes we don’t take notice of the problems effecting our environment until it hits closer to home. This new information that this article tells us about stems from a discovery in Pennsylvania, which is where I am from. In the article there is talk about soil microbes and their ability to possibly grow stronger and more resilient crops. I found this to be great news especially because of the fact that it is a different idea that has not been fully explored yet. Of course it is also important to take into consideration that these soil microbes may not do that job as effectively compared to the widely used chemicals today. I think that despite this, we should look more diligently into this possible solution because we need to start securing our food now for our future. In order to really start supporting the use of these microbes we need more research. I think discussion about this at the FSSD ISGP Conference at Cornell will help get the attention needed to start researching and hopefully get us closer to a solution about how to protect our food. I really encourage you all to check this article out if you are at all interested!   

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-soil-bacteria-microbe-farming-technology- ngfood/