'Carbon-eating fungi' could be the answer to Aussie farmers' prayers
We know that farming is a major contributor to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, and as our population skyrockets to new heights, the demand for produce will similarly continue to soar.
Farmers make up our country's backbone, providing all of us with the food we eat, the materials our clothes are made out of and everything else in between. Copping the brunt of weather extremes, Aussie farmers have long been calling out for action when it comes to the country's climate fight, and now, a game-changing new program has emerged that could prove to be the answer to their prayers.
Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Tegan Nock, co-founder and COO of Loam Bio, an agriculture start-up responsible for a world-first initiative in which fungi is used to eat "the carbon emissions" from crops, explains how the fascinating scheme works.
The stock market is clearly indicating that management teams have an incentive to participate.
And the overall US labor market climate — one in which a regular drumbeat of white-collar job cuts is contrasted by strong overall job growth — offers additional cover for leaders to make these calls.
Because not only are you matching the industry's ebbs and flows by cutting staff, but you're doing so in a labor market that, in the aggregate, suggests there remains plenty of demand for these workers' services elsewhere.
Back in March 2023, we argued the wave of tech-related job cuts and the swift demise of Silicon Valley Bank taken together showed how the tech industry moves in a tight pack, riding the same currents.
The corporate strategy playbook being used outside the confines of this industry in 2024 shows the inclination to follow is a stronger and deeper force in corporate America than we'd previously given credence.
"So these fungi, they live around the root system of a plant," Nock told Yahoo. "They capture the photosynthetic material that all plants release, plant sugars, into the soil.
"The fungi live in that environment, they capture that carbon that the plant's releasing into the soil, and then they lock it away in a more stable form, that's good for soil health. It also means it's not being released back into the atmosphere."
When most people think of fungi, a mushroom or a mould-looking substance probably springs to mind, but Nock explains what we're talking about here is neither, in fact it's a ground substance that under a microscope looks "stringy". "It's all kind of like, hyphae networks," she said.
Billionaire investors secured
The bush-based business, that's run out of Orange in the NSW Central Tablelands, has already attracted some serious big-name investors, including billionaire Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and Salesforce co-founder and tech heavyweight Marc Benioff.
Nock said it's been "great to be able to see" Loam Bio's huge success since it's inception in 2019, back when they operated with only a handful of staff, to now having 130 worldwide, with divisions in the US, Brazil, and in Canada,
"Loam is a beautiful Australian success story," Nock said. "We ended up rolling the technology out into a commercial entity that now operates across four geographies. We've taken our research all around the world to be able to scale up, to let this carbon-capture technology grow out, [to have] more than just an Australian impact, but a global one.
Win for climate change, farmers and protection against weather extremes
The product is "fantastic from a climate change solution perspective", too, Nock added.
Fellow scientist and one of many women in the team, microbiologist Ruby Pippen, 24, manages Loam’s Australian microbial libraries, and recently relocated from the city to the bush to take part in the "exciting" program.
