On The Spread Of Cyclospora

Any time a new soil or food-born disease comes around I think of the balance of nature. Of the balance of life forms in the soil. It is almost always out of balance in a modern agricultural field. 

So what is the solution? Biology is the solution: microbes, bacteria, fungus, earthworms and other critters, too small and too numerous to name.

I recently read a book about worms. The book and research therein added to my fascination with and knowledge about the worm, specifically its gut . A disease organism has to pass through the gauntlet of the multitude of microbes in the digestive tract. A digestive tract that highly favors beneficial microbes and like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, when confronted by the evil Balrog says ‘You shall not pass!” The disease organism dies a lonely death in the worm gut.

I have a belief that we are still here as humans because nature favors good guys and guts. This worm research, which needs more work and fleshing out, continues in the vein of stand-alone research on microbes. That their balance and flooding of a leaf environment or of that next shovel full of soil is what prevents a disease like cyclospora or any other. 

And we have the beginning of that cycle in our compost: worm castings and bio-char. It takes getting it started and then supporting the effort then eventually it runs on its own, just like undisturbed nature does.

Farmer John