Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: February 7, 2025
Ants for agriculture!
Scientists are working to scale up ants’ biological defenses into a new climate solution for agriculture.
Tell Congress to support R&D of ants for agriculture in the next Farm Bill!
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Reasons For Hope
European wood ants (Formica polyctena) are among several ant species worldwide that have evolved to both spray formic acid as a weapon and host antimicrobial bacteria and fungi on their tiny little feet, both of which they end up spreading across the plants that they live and travel on. They also sometimes eat arriving spores before they can grow. Now, researchers are finding that between the acid, the predation, and microbial “probiotics,” their presence on plants can be a highly effective protection from pests and diseases. Startups and scientists are working to scale up trails of ant footsteps and acid spray marks into a climate solution for agriculture and forestry that can scalably reduce emissions-heavy pesticide use. (Pesticide manufacturing and use is highly emissions-intensive, while some pesticides are themselves minor greenhouse gases, making reductions in pesticide use a win for climate as well as biodiversity).
A biologist in Denmark recently discovered that the presence of wood ants in orchards reduced the incidence of apple scab, a major yield-impacting disease, by 61 percent. She’s already founded ant-leasing startup AgroAnt to commercialize this impact. And in neighboring Germany, forest researchers are finding that acid-spraying wood ants can kill tree-boring beetles. Jay birds even appear to disturb ant nests just to trigger the ants into spraying acid on their feathers, likely in an effort to kill parasites. More studies are finding similar ant impacts on deterring other plant pests and diseases around the world.
We might someday see a widespread agricultural ant industry for pest control services similar to the existing agricultural honeybee industry for pollination services, in which insect owners bring their thousands of invertebrate workers to visit client orchards. This has the potential to become a great nature-based solution to help feed humans without harming the environment!
As you likely know, Congress is still discussing1 the upcoming Farm Bill, a huge investment in American agriculture (the U.S. spends an average of $648 billion per year on Farm Bill programs) that’s up for renewal for the first time since 2018. As with our previous Farm Bill-related policy actions on climate-resilient crops, methane-reducing vaccines for cattle, methane-eating microbes, phytomining, electro-agriculture, decentralized clean ammonia production, and steam seed treatment, the just-getting-started field of ants for agriculture is a brand-new invention and not really on the political radar screen yet. That means there’s a really great opportunity here to tell Congress to use the Farm Bill to help promote its research and development in America!
Tell Congress to support R&D of ants for agriculture in the next Farm Bill!
Love this. "To walk in the footsteps of giants, we must make ourselves small and humble and rethink what really brings value into our lives." - Green Economy Coalition