Social Microbiome?

This week I was lucky enough to have a couple of conversations with Tóth Krizstina (who anno started and managed the Gödölye - A Kicsi Szép Shop in Gödöllő). Krisztina shared with me the interesting idea that we can compare the nutritional logistics of what goes on in the soil, as an exchange of information and nutrients via the complex web and interaction of fungi and bacteria with plant roots, which could be a guide or template for us in our food systems.

Few would challenge that our food systems have grown very remote from natural processes - being global, driven by electronic data and the burning of fossil fuels. To benefit from the astonishingly abundant full shelves of apparent extreme choice in our supermarket chains (doesn't really matter much which multinational we are talking about), the price is a terrible alienation from nature. What if our food system mirrored more closely the way nutrients are transported and information on them exchanged as they are in our soils? In such a system, all parts of the food web system would be in constant communication with other parts in the network - whether producers, suppliers or consumers. Each part in the network would be aware of the necessity to cooperate and share what we have in order to benefit from the greater whole. There would be a fuller appreciation that we are in a mutual dependency and the whole system can only remain stable as long as there is a constant multi-directional exchange of information and resources. This is the reality of a healthy soil, and perhaps provides the template for a healthy food system. Thank you for the thoughts, Krisztina!

Source: pexels.com

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