Interview with Dr Angela Sessitsch, Head of Bioresources at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, and Coordinator of the HORIZON2020-funded project “MicrobiomeSupport” about microbiome-based innovations as a bio-based technology that helps alleviate the current food crisis and climate change.
Sylvia Schreiber is a Journalist and Science Communicator.
The microbiome has permeated scientific publications, politics, and the daily lives of citizens. What is the “microbiome”, and why is it important?
Angela Sessitsch: The microbiome is more than just probiotic yoghurt. The microbiome is a vast community of microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, that function and interact with living systems in and around us. Invisible but numerous, these microbes can act like natural armies to fight diseases or buffer Co2 in the ocean or forest. Humans, animals, plants, soil, and water have specific microbiomes. In the last decade, research has highlighted the beneficial properties of microbiomes that enable a paradigm shift towards greater sustainability and resilience. We are now on the verge of reaching farms with these discoveries and applications.
Why are you telling the wider public in this interview now?
Angela Sessitsch: Microbiome research has great potential, but we are one step away from doing it well. Current issues at the European level regarding the proposed regulation of, for example, the sustainable use of chemical pesticides and alternative microbial plant protection products show the problem. Farmers and their organizations fear huge production losses by cutting pesticides by up to 50%, as demanded by the EU’s farm-to-fork strategy. Therefore, we need efficient approval and market access for new microbial products to have sustainable alternatives available. With their properties to control pests but also increase crop yields, bio-based pesticides have the potential to keep farming systems productive and sustainable and, at the same time, protect these systems which is better against future shocks.
What potential do you see in microbiome-based solutions to solve some of our biggest challenges?
Angela Sessitsch: The fragility of our global agrifood systems is not only reflected in the current food crisis and supply chain distortions. The challenges of climate change, global soil degradation, animal welfare, or food-related diseases require more sustainable farming and healthier food and medical products. Microbiome-based agricultural products can replace traditional growth stimulants, make plants and seeds more stress-tolerant and support precision agriculture, helping to achieve European goals Green Deal. Big data represented by new infrastructure, biobanks and digital tools will support this development.
What new applications will be available in three to five years?
Angela Sessitsch: Hundreds of new companies and start-ups are working on microbiome-based solutions to improve soil, plant breeding, animal health, food production and ultimately, human health. In the long list of advanced applications, the main ones that are increasing in market readiness are microbiome-based biocontrol agents; for EU use, 60 have been approved, but many more are in the test pipeline. Next is microbial soil biodiversity improvements to improve fertility and soil carbon capture capacity or bio-stimulants for plant growth. Probiotics are becoming increasingly available for livestock to improve animal health, and there are advances to reduce methane emissions from cattle. Enzymes to ferment foods with additional anti-inflammatory properties or biorefined, nutrient-enhanced crop residues will soon arrive on the feed market, as well as novelties for aquaculture. Thanks to microbial catalysts, Europe now grows large amounts of protein-and-oily seaweed and algae to replace fish in animal feed. All these applications should arrive in the fields soon.
What are the main obstacles for microbiome-based applications in the EU?
Angela Sessitsch: There are three main issues. First, the lack of uniform regulation at the national and EU level prevents rapid market access. The first positive sign is the newly published EU rules that simplify the approval and authorization of microbial biopesticides from November this year. Second, we need more data and research funding biobanks. They help UNITY and leverage research data across the food system discipline. Finally, we need more investment in research, especially in improving the efficiency of microbial application in real-life agriculture. Here, we need field tests under different conditions and across European countries, combined with deep, multidisciplinary analysis. Such trials are underway in other parts of the world. For example, a public-private 20 million US dollar investment in the US aims to understand the potato microbiome, yield, soil health and plant disease risk in real life situations in 9 US-States.
How much money is needed to implement these actions and field trials in Europe?
Angela Sessitsch:I estimate that around 60 million Euros in the next 5 and 10 years will be spent in the EU on dedicated field studies on different selected microbials, initially for the three most important plants. The expected results greatly support the development of more efficient solutions that help to better adapt agro management practices.
What is the most important result of the MicrobiomeSupport project?
Angela Sessitsch: Our project is focused on engaging and networking all major microbiome research and innovation players across the food system in Europe and beyond. We started with a mapping in the research and policy landscape. We have described the microbiome to ensure a common language and summarized microbiome product developments that demonstrate what the microbiome can do. In addition, we address technical issues to keep the field moving, such as recommending biobanking need and multi-disciplinary scientific methods. We then provide focused funding policy recommendations cross-disciplinary research and targeted policy making in other places. Guidance for regulation and education is also provided. We also gather as experts to further support research development and innovationadvising policymakers and addressing citizen concerns beyond the project.
You mentioned the exchange of non-EU researchers. Do you mark microbiome-based innovations in other parts of the world compared to Europe?
Angela Sessitsch: One of the beauties of the project lies in the worldwide network of the “International Bioeconomy Forum”, which joins microbiome researchers and government agencies in six continents: Europe, USA, Canada, Brazil, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and China. In fact, the US, Brazil and New Zealand have recently reported large investments in field trials to test microbiome-based applications in crop cultivation and bring innovations faster to the farm level. Across the US, 40 academic microbiome centers are part of the agrifood eco-innovation. In Brazil, more than 90 new biopesticides are currently being used, and on-farm biorefining crop residues is increasing in Brazil. New Zealand is transforming the entire agrifood system towards sustainability using microbiome-based solutions. With a two-digit-billion investment, the government pays, among other things, farmers’ premiums for environmental credits and supports large kiwi planters in their plan to become carbon-positive by 2030. Europe must learn and accelerate its efforts.
FAO strongly supports microbiome-based agroecology. With the farm-to-fork strategy, the EU Commission expresses the shift of the agenda towards greater sustainability of agrifood systems. Is this enough to sustain the “microbiome” approach to European agriculture and food production?
Angela Sessitsch: The OECD also considers microbiome applications important for the recovery of organic waste in a circular economy and new products from biorefined residues or biomass to replace animal feed. But we also need to increase microbiome knowledge from school age as well as vocational training for farm professionals. Regulators must also be familiar with the importance of the microbiome and innovation ecosystem, ready to protect European intellectual property and support the scale-up of promising products.
If you have a free wish: What kind of support from policy would you like to see to develop important microbiome research in the EU?
Angela Sessitsch:My first wish is for research to extend from the lab to meaningful field trials. As mentioned earlier, this will require funding and investment. My second wish is to understand the link between the environment, food/feed, and human health better. And finally, additional support activities outside of research: regulatory developments and exchange with citizens about their needs and thoughts for a faster use of microbiome applications in everyday life. life.