Precision Enzymes Farm Menu

XPRIZE

Farms have a "medicine cabinet" of precision enzymes (bioherbicides, etc.) that target pests, diseases, increase resiliency, etc. without damaging soil nutrients and crops.

NickOttens

@CREAIDEALAB, @bhaskarmv, @dhanasreej, do you think this is achievable? What would it take to get it done? And, if it can be done, would it have a big enough impact to count as a "breakthrough"?

bhaskarmv

Sure, it would be achievable and would be a breakthrough.

Not only enzymes but a collection of beneficial bacteria should be provided to all farms.

Role of bacteria and enzymes in agriculture is not well understood and use of bacteria and enzymes is not being encouraged.

In India 'Soil Health Cards' are being prepared for all farms , under a government scheme. Only chemical parameters are tested and recorded, not beneficial bacteria in soil.

In aquaculture some farms use enzymes.

arshimehboob

Agrarian crisis, when comes affect masses and providing this precision enzymes cabinet will likely tackle the problem but this will not be a solution.
Time taken for enzyme activity to catalyse the microorganisms and affordability will be another factor which may affect this

NickOttens

Thank you both for your input! This is helpful for us.

BruceGerman

I suspect that microorganisms will be the big innovation path for the entire agriculture and food sector. I think of them as the silicon semiconductors of the biotechnology era. There are some interesting parallels and some important differences however. Like silicon semiconductors, the deployable power of microorganisms is almost limitless. They have the potential not only to solve our most pressing problems, they provide opportunities to literally redefine humans and how we interact with our environment. Unlike silicon semiconductors, microorganisms are living entities, can multiply, evolve, spontaneously form communities, release a myriad of products both inert and active and without a supportive environment can and will irreversibly die. Humans (plants and animals) all emerged into an existing microbial world and in many ways succeed because of their ability to interact with microbes. As science has developed, we have begun to explicitly control this microbial environment. Our history provides many examples in which humans explicitly manage microbes 'professionally' from beer to cheese, vinegar to penicillin. Now however, the challenges are more urgent and the need to manage and deploy microorganisms is much broader. We need to bioconvert literal mountains and seas of waste, we need to capture atmospheric carbon at a planetary scale, we need to survey our entire environment for toxins and pathogens and we need to fix nitrogen in epic proportions. Perhaps the most important task in the revolution of the modern agricultural, food and health world is to emerge with a system that is integrated into a virtuous resource cycle. The world cannot afford that this generation's revolution leaves its waste for the next generation to clean up.