Microbial Technologies for Sustainable Agriculture

Wednesday, April 15 | 1:30- 5:30 PM | Location: Cambridge Innovation Center

Intensive agriculture over the last century has been a boon to global food security but has depleted many agricultural soils of their beneficial nutrients and microorganisms. Increasing sustainability in agriculture is multifaceted; it involves decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, many of which come directly from cropland and pastures; minimizing harm to the surrounding environment through nutrient or pesticide leaching; and ensuring stability in the global food supply. In unmanaged environments, nature has developed enzymes for nutrient cycling and methods for maintaining balanced ecosystems.

This workshop will examine strategies for improving sustainability in agriculture through harnessing natural processes, in particular through utilizing or managing microbial communities. We will identify research priorities to bring these technologies from the lab to implementation by addressing questions such as the following:

• How are new on-farm technologies scaled from laboratory development to widespread deployment? Where are the snags in this process?
• Which sustainability challenges in agriculture have potential to be addressed using solutions focused on microbial communities (e.g. nutrient delivery, pest management, emissions reduction)?
• What current microbe-based products are available for agricultural use, and what makes these products viable? What approaches have failed, and why have they failed?
• What potential co-benefits are there to using biological approaches to reduce agricultural GHG emissions and pollution?
• What must be known in order for a microbe-based product to be trusted?
• How can we be assured that natural or engineered microbes will not cause unintended harm to soils or the environment? How can we draw on lessons from the past to prevent harmful substitutions?
• What crops or regions should be prioritized for testing strategies that decrease on-field emissions or improve soil health?

This workshop is a collaboration between the MCSC and MIT Climate Project.

Facilitators: 

• Amanda Bischoff, Impact Fellow, MIT Climate & Sustainability Consortium (MCSC)
• Benedetto Marelli, MIT Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Mission Director, MIT Climate Project
• Darcy McRose, MIT Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering