As a part of the collective efforts of the agricultural industry for finding ways of dealing with microscopic agents of disease, there has been an important amount of research devoted to identifying equally microscopic agents for the prevention of disease. Among these, a collection of the most effective bacteria for the prevention and combat of plagues in crops have been termed the 'plant probiotics', for these aforementioned capabilities of building resistance to disease in the plants that host them. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, or PGPR, belong to this group of little creatures. Pseudomonas putida, one of the most commonly used plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. PGPR are bacteria that have co-evolved alongside the plants that host them across a timespan of millions of years, and as such, they have developed an astounding capability for mutual influence. Apart from their straightforwardly positive benefits as stimulants of plant growth, from which they derive their names, and apart from their passive increase of plant disease resistance by augmenting the strength of plants themselves and by out-competing other bacteria, these microorganisms actively perform work as biological control agents on two levels: 1) Producing compounds used by the bacteria to stifle the growth of competing, pathogenic microbes. This is done through the production of a variety of compounds, which a team of Canadian and Chinese researchers has narrowed down to antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides, bacteriocins metabolites, siderophores, toxins, and other microbial blends. These compounds have effects on dangerous microorganisms that go from inhibiting the synthesis of their cell walls (antibiotics) to depriving them of iron (siderophores). 2) Promoting the development of immune responses by the plant. PGPR are capable of triggering, in their host plants, systemic immune responses to disease that have long-lasting endurance and that do not even require the PGPR to interact with a pathogen in the first place! This (discussed here, with more bibliography provided in the source) means that plants do not need to actually get sick in order to develop immunity to broad groups of pathogens, with the PGPR functioning as a sort of plant vaccine. The common positive (both passive and active) effects of PGPR, as well as their diversity and its consequently large span of possible plant hosts and possible pathogens to target, make them a necessary option to consider (and to explore in more depth) for the implementation of any modern biological control scheme. AGENT PROFILE Common name(s): Plant growth-promoting bacteria, PGPR. Often-used species: A wide array, from an equally wide array of genera. Type of predator: Non-predatorial (mutualist relation with host plants). Potential damaging effects: Only registered in sugar beets. Interesting literature on its usage: A general review of the role of PGPR in agricultural sustainability (2016), use against diseases in tomato plants (2020), use against nematodes (2018).

Everywhere around the world, but more so in the developing countries, vast deserts spring up from the ground and begin to cover formerly forested areas of their nations. These deserts, however, are different from the Sahara or the Gobi Desert: from a large distance, they look green and lush. On closer look, however, they are vast extensions of a single cultivated species, almost completely devoid of any significant interrelationships between other species within them. Monocultural oil palm plantations in Indonesia. Palm oil plantations are some of the most striking examples of biodiverse 'green deserts' (© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas). These green deserts (a term originally coined in Brazil to refer to the ever-enlarging eucalyptus plantations in the 1960s) seem rich in life, but their apparent stability and fertility are fictitious: any interruption in the flow of enormous human effort and care that go into their maintenance could turn them into barren landscapes in less than one growing season. That, or any new disease that could spread like wildfire, as happened in the 1950s with destruction the global banana production, in the 19th century with the French vineyard collapse, or as is happening now with the pathogens that threaten the world production of potatoes, soybean, and wheat today, in 2021. Organic agriculture can help to fight this trend. All of the existing data to the moment shows that spaces where organic agriculture is practiced have 30% more species (even in organic monoculture!) than non-organic agricultural land. This trend is also especially significant in what regards some of the most useful creatures for agriculture: earthworms, beneficial bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi, and butterflies alongside other pollinators have all much higher concentrations and a higher diversity of species in organic farms. As organic agriculture builds soil fertilizers, this fertile new soil is increasingly populated by a diversity of microorganisms that create a resilient balance, thus making organic agriculture a much more solid contributor to food security than inorganic agriculture. Biodiversity brings major economic benefits, too. It is widely acknowledged that the economic benefits of not-so-well-known aspects of how an ecosystem works can’t be accounted for, so we do not know by how much agricultural profit margins rise with a 30% increase in biodiversity. We do have a clue, however, thanks to the UN-affiliated TEEB: a nearly US$ 800 billion market across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, personal products, and agriculture depends entirely on biodiversity.

In the struggle to transition to a greener, healthier world, every single victory is a victory for the planet as a whole. Efforts of supranational organizations such as those of the European Union and the FAO are inspiring, but there’s yet nothing quite like a victory to prove that transitioning to better models of agriculture can be done on a large scale. Such is the case of the Indian state of Sikkim, sitting on the slopes of the Himalayas. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and Sikkim's Chief Minister Pawan Kumar, review the state's agricultural products in 2016, one year after it declared its complete transition to organic agriculture. Since the year 2003, and under the then Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, the state began implementing an energetic policy of doing everything in its power to pursue an ambitious goal: completely switching to organic agriculture. In that year, and after its inaugural speech for the program given in the State’s Legislative Assembly, the government took drastic first steps by directly banning the import and export of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, at the same time it reduced gradually the state’s subsidies for their production within Sikkim itself. This was accompanied in 2010 by the formation of the Sikkim Organic Mission (SOM), which became the governmental office dedicated exclusively to the implementation of organic policies state-wide. By the early 2010s (2010-2014), the government implemented a full ban on the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which is coupled with massive investments into the production of organic fertilizers at a community level, and the creation of cooperatives to organize the commercialization of the farmers produces. Among its policies, the government also began widespread training programs and intensive awareness campaigns of the new official agricultural stance of the State. Tea-producing slopes in the district of Namchi, South Sikkim. The state has seen a substantial increase in agrotourism and the services industry since its transition to organic agriculture. Though there have been challenges to the implementation of 100% organic farming (and there still are), the complete commitment of the government to the organic transition proved fertile, when Sikkim has officially declared a completely organic state in 2015. By 2018, three years later, the claims were corroborated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, officially confirming the success of the programs. The lesson from Sikkim’s policymakers to the world, independently of each nation and region’s special circumstances for the implementation of organic policy (Sikkim had it easier due to its relatively low usage of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in the first place, but not so easy if we consider the resources available for one of India’s smallest-GDP states), would seem to be that a consistent and continuous stance of complete government support is essential for a massive transition to a greener world. A greener and a richer world too, as Sikkim expects no less than sixty-six thousand families to reap economic benefits from their transition to organic agriculture.

According to the most recent data on the subject, no less than a quarter of all the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, and from the food chain that brings its produces to the consumers. Considering that such a large impact comes from just one sector of the economy, making whatever changes seem sustainable (and not only in the sense of being environmentally sustainable but economically sustainable too), is essential to act against climate change across the world. Unlike in other highly-emitting sectors such as energy production, however, the ways to decarbonize agriculture are less clear and rely less on the invention of new technologies. Instead, they are more about the adoption of new techniques and the implementation of many strategies dedicated to reduce food waste and change consumption habits, for example. A comparison (courtesy of the Rodale Institute) between soil cultivated using traditional (left) and organic techniques (right). The darker color of organic soil implies a higher carbon content, as a result of better carbon conservation and sequestration practices. Organic agriculture is key for achieving these goals, bringing a whole new set of practices that decrease the environmental impact of agriculture. Such were the findings of a 2018 study by researchers from the universities of Harvard and Sharjah, in the UAE. In their study, the researchers used data from the United States in the period 1997-2010 to assess the difference in emissions between conventional and organic agriculture. Their conclusions were steadfast in their support of organic agriculture’s reduced emissions: "Organic farming practices are by design sustainable in the role they play in maintaining optimal soil health, increasing carbon sequestration, and reducing GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions". They also address clearly the frequently repeated concerns that organic agriculture might in fact be unsustainable, by being based on speculation, questionable, inadequate or non-existing evidence. In contrast, the researcher's state clearly: "After accounting for other sources of emissions and potentially influential observations, we find that one percent increase in organic farming acreage could decrease GHG emissions by 0.049%". According to these calculations, a net increase of 100% in the organic cultivated area could lead to a 4.9% fall in greenhouse gas emissions. That might not sound like much, but to put this in context, however, the United States currently has only 0.6% of its land under organic cultivation. An increase of this to the level of some European states such as Austria, where that figure stands at 25%, could mean an incredible amount of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, potentially turning agriculture into a carbon-capturing industry. The future will decide if this happens, but one thing is clear: there’s potential in organic agriculture to change the world, one hectare (or acre) at a time.

It’s no secret that conventionally-cultivated soils tend to become, by themselves, poor. They’re often managed under exploitative techniques that involve intensive tillage, scarce or absent ground cover, and intensive application of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides, all of which take a toll on microbial diversity, evenness, and richness. The impact that these techniques have on long-term soil fertility is no joke: they’re the reason why the FAO alerted, in 2015, that by 2050 we could have only one-quarter of the cultivable land that we had in 1960. It’s clear that we have to transition from this model to one that is sustainable, both in an environmental and an economic sense (come to think of it, what’s the sustainability of a business that destroys its own productive basis, in the end?). One of the aspects where the impoverishment of conventionally-managed soils appears more prominently is in their lack of microbial diversity: in contrast, organically-managed soils tend not only to exhibit higher levels of general biodiversity but also a staggering 34% to 84% larger microbial biomass in comparison with inorganic soils. This is according to a meta-study that analyzed the results of 56 peer-reviewed papers on the subject, and that also highlights that most of the key benefits of a healthy microbiota (which plays “…an important role for various soil-based ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, erosion control, and pest and disease regulation”, as the study notes) are obtained through time. It’s the prolonged management of soil under organic and conservation practices that makes it build a rich community of beneficial microbes. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria, living in nodules in the roots of a plant. These bacteria are some of the prime biofertilizers that must be brought into formerly-conventionally-managed soils. But if there’s something that we don’t have right now is another century to patch up the errors of the last. If the world is going to transition to sustainable agriculture, something that is going to be key is finding ways of building the microbial blends community of recently converted soils; finding ways of not only placing the microbial inoculators there but also of helping them get established and thrive. Especially since scientists are talking more about the microbiome and less about specific microbes, these days. The area remains, however, comparatively understudied. A search in Google Scholar for publications that mention ‘soil inoculants’ during this year reveals around 112 results: not enough if compared with a search for ‘cryptocurrencies’, that reveals over 8,000 results, or a search for ‘late night TV’, which gives half-a-hundred more publications on the subject for the same timeframe. Enough has been published on it for new organic farmers to read already, but for such an important subject, is less investigated than the patterns of late-night television is not enough. It’s time we took a moment to appreciate the importance of soil fertilizers for building an organic future — and asked ourselves if we’ve been paying them attention enough.

Ever wondered why every organic gardener tells you that you should plant leguminous plants in association with others? Or that you should include them in your crop-rotation scheme? Or that they’re just plain cool? Well, wonder no more. Here we’ll explore the key aspect that makes legumes desirable for the gardener, beyond their individual benefits as food or ornamentation. We’re talking about the nitrogen-fixating capability of these plants, which results in a capability for improving the soil fertility by growing in it and, consequently, in a lot of fields around the world that look like this: Look at all that white clover! The first and most important thing to understand about all of this is that legumes themselves do not actually fixate nitrogen into the soil. What they do is offer a certain group of bacteria a space to live within their roots, thus creating a symbiotic relationship with them. While the plants are alive, thus, they get the advantage of having something akin to a nitrogen-production system (really a nitrogen-fixation system) in their roots, which allows them to outgrow the competition, and after they die all of this nitrogen that they had accumulated goes back into the soil in ways that other plants can use. The nitrogen that these bacteria (called diazotroph bacteria) take and make available for other plants is mostly nitrogen that is present in the form of gas in the atmosphere. Plants can’t use nitrogen directly like this, so they take advantage of the compounds that the bacteria make as a result of their own feedings off this gaseous nitrogen, like ammonia and nitrate. What legumes simply do is make nodules in their roots, which look from the outside like weird growth but are actually similar to beehives for these nitrogen-fixing bacteria. And that’s mostly how legumes are associated with them, and in turn, serve to fix nitrogen into the soil after they die, and why when you uproot your bean plants their roots look like this: Those weird-looking warts are the nodules! We say ‘mostly, of course, because there’s really quite a bit more of science going into this. If you are interested in reading about the process in-depth, take a look at this interesting article here, by a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology of Bremen, in Germany. Happy growing!

Even though it sounds like everything but a problem for many farmers and gardeners who have to face the increasing nutrient depletion of a lot of the world’s soils, over-fertilization is a serious threat to sustainable agricultural practices and the environment everywhere. Not only by causing nutrient runoff into nearby rivers and lakes (with its well-known destabilizing and eventually deadly effects in the life of these ecosystems), but also by increasing the acidity of the soil and reducing the capacity of plants to hold water, burning leaves and roots, and generating high amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O), overfertilization is a serious concern that isn’t being addressed as much as it should. In 2019, a study noted that plants use only up to 50% of all the nitrogen and phosphorus solubilising that is provided to them by fertilizers unless they are grown and fertilized using specific conservation techniques, and their growth is paired with that of microorganisms such as mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria. Yes, somebody probably paid for the nutrients that are feeding all those algae in the lake! The major characteristic driving most cases of overfertilization is the unnaturally high solubility of nutrients in inorganic fertilizers. Because they must be presented in a way that makes them readily available to plants (as producers cannot count on soil microorganisms to transform them into available nutrients gradually), nutrients in inorganic fertilizers tend to be easily carried away with water from irrigation or rain, as well as presented in the form of soluble salts, responsible for causing hydric stress to plants. Organic fertilizers, in contrast, work slowly and slowly release their nutrients through the microbial action of the myriad organisms that thrive in healthy soil. They release these nutrients in such a way that the plants can gradually take them as they need them, thus reducing the waste of nutrients and ultimately leading to larger yields, according to studies made for zucchini, chives, and carrots. Though they are still not perfect and moderation is necessary, one thing is certain: the balance clearly shifts in favor of organic fertilizers when overfertilization is a risk at bay.

The presence of mycorrhizal fungi is a part as vital to sustainable agricultural production as our own intestinal flora is to our nutrition. Mycorrhizal fungi, alongside beneficial bacteria, form the basis of the soil ecosystem and are the first organisms that really break down the nutrients present there into a form that is truly available for plants to use them. But recent research shows that they can also do more: they could be our first line of defense against climate change, acting from within the plants themselves. That is the opinion of a study from last year, the work of an international team of scientists from the universities of Ohio and Vermont in the United States, as well as from Copenhagen, Denmark. After reviewing the existing literature on the subject, the words of these scientists are pretty clear: “Mycorrhizal fungi can increase plant tolerance to abiotic stresses associated with climate changes, which should decrease plant extinction risk and provide time for plant dispersal and adaptation” (p. 7). This is easier to understand if we consider the extent of the addition that a mycorrhizal network (the white lines) means to the roots of a plant (in yellow): In order to establish this, however, the researchers identify three main ways in which climate change affects plant mycorrhiza: through an increase in temperature, through changes in the available rainfall, and through an increment in the atmospheric levels of CO2. And in those three categories, with slight variations depending on the type of mycorrhizal fungi (arbuscular, ectomycorrhizal, and ericoid) the presence of those fungi helped in one way or another to mitigate the impact of climate change, whether it be by increasing resistance to temperature changes or to rainfall availability. As such, “…relative to plants and their roots, mycorrhizal fungi tend to have a wider temperature tolerance, which may reflect their ability to produce protective compounds” and “…mycorrhizal fungi can help plants tolerate rainfall variability.” (p. 7). You can check out the study at its source to see why they concluded this. Although certainly more research can serve to confirm and estimate the extent of the benefits of mycorrhizal associations, one thing is certain: soil biodiversity goes matters all the way to the smallest microorganisms. If we’re going to be fighting climate change, we must be fighting smartly — through ecology.

Last March, the European Commission (the organism in charge of designing the implementation of the EU’s policies) presented a 22-page Action Plan for the attainment of one of the most formidable goals that the Union has set to itself: transforming a quarter of its agricultural land to organic farming methods. It seeks to do so along three main lines: boosting consumption (while maintaining consumer trust on the organic label), increasing production, and taking steps to ensure the sustainability of the sector’s growth, so that the 25% mark is reached once and for good. Even though the EU is not going against the grain on this, with the current trend of growth already predicting a 15% of the total agricultural land being organic by 2030, the aim of the European Commission is to boost this existing market trend with official support. The online version of the Action Plan offers a number of key measures, including: On the demand side, the beginning of massive campaigns in favor of organic consumption and the creation of a European database of organic-certified producers, which aims to ensure consumer trust in the EU organic logo. On the supply side, an increase in the EU resources devoted to supporting organic farming in technical and financial ways, a reduction of the red tape around obtaining organic certifications for producers, boosting local structures for production and consumption within an area (instead or organic products having to travel widely throughout the EU to be sold) and, particularly, helping farmers who are beginning to get into organic agriculture or are interested in transitioning become a part of the value chain. On the sustainability issue, the Plan outlines a general ecologically sustainable approach as the basis of the sustainability of organic farming itself, in which organic farming is made economically sustainable due to it being ecologically sustainable, as the costs of ecological unsustainability begin to catch up with regular methods of farming. Increasing efficiency and yields in organic production, as well as animal welfare, are other parts of the sustainability section of the Action Plan. Trust in the European Certified Organic label might be the spearhead of the industry's growth – as well as one of its main liabilities. A lot of this work will be devoted towards equalizing the status of organic farming across EU members, some of which have an organic land use as low as 0.5% of the total, and some of which have well over 25% of their total land devoted to organic agriculture. The question remaining would be, will it work? Is the EU doing enough to truly be on its way to reaching its organic goals by 2030? According to one of the main advisors for the European Commission, Diego Canga Fano, it might be, if it manages to equalize organic production throughout the EU and ensure that the European organic logo remains a trusted symbol for consumers.

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