How Soil Symbionts Could Unlock Climate-Smart Agriculture

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By Uta Paszkowski, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: Rising temperatures and more extreme weather are exacerbating inequalities in global food systems. More than enough food is already produced to feed the global population, but roughly 783 million people worldwide currently experience hunger as a result of systemic inequalities related to gender, geography, conflict, and resources. Warming of 2°C will drive an estimated 189 million additional people into hunger. ...Farmers in predominantly high-income countries (and elsewhere, when possible) apply vast amounts of inorganic fertilizers to their fields to ensure high yields. Perversely, however, the synthetic fertilizer supply chain is contributing to the very changes in climate that are acutely harming food production worldwide. For example, synthetic fertilizer application and livestock production together are responsible for up to 70% of emissions of nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas that is almost 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Thankfully, nature offers a solution that is of increasing interest to scientists. This solution—crop-fertilizing soil microbes—could help to break the cycle of synthetic fertilizer use and its attendant environmental impacts and usher in more sustainable food production systems.... 

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