BVT turns their eyes towards nature for solutions in mitigating phytopathogenic fungi.

A natural relationship vs. an engineered relationship

The world is filled with entities but run by relationships.

Relationships involve the interactions among those constitutive entities.

Each relationship is unique in its own right. Collectively though, they all belong to one of the two categories – natural relationships or engineered relationships.

Natural relationships come from nature and engineered relationships come from men.

The former exists despite men and the latter exists because of men.

Take two natural entities A and B for instance. If a change in A naturally triggers a change in B by default, we can safely say that there is a natural relationship between the two.

A natural relationship is fundamental in the sense that it is independent of our existence. It persists despite us.

That means we can simply focus on A if our goal is in B, knowing that if we get A right, B will follow. And nature will take care of the rest – it’s that simple.

An engineered relationship, however, can mess things up.

For ease of illustration, let’s reexamine this A→B relationship.

Firms can either take a free ride on A→B or they can make some alterations – such as taking A out and replacing it with an artifact C. And if they do so, they are inventing an engineered relationship C→B.  

As this diagram illustrates, A → B is natural, but C → B is artificial. To make C → B work, firms have to deactivate A→B while engineering C→B.

And that’s basically to replace the natural A→B with the engineered C→B.

When that happens, firms get three variables (A, B, and C) to look after and two relationships (A→B and C→B) to manage. That’s when things get complicated … and costly – and the burden will be on the firms and someone has to pay the price.

Yet this practice is not uncommon in the business field. It’s prevalent, especially we look into the agricultural field. 

Fungicides

Conventional agriculture is plagued with phytopathogenic fungi. These fungi can trigger large-scale crop infection, yield reduction, human illnesses, and economic losses. They are the source of devastation for many farmers worldwide.

And yes, nature has a solution.

In nature, one type of fungus can feed on the other type of fungus. That’s one way nature prevents the overspread of phytopathogenic fungi at a large scale.

Conventional agriculture, however, takes a different route. It unplugs rival fungi and replaces them with synthetic pesticides – the toxic chemicals to poison fungi. The problem with this approach is that most of the synthetic pesticides are ineffective and harmful. They are incompetent in eliminating fungi, yet repeatedly overdose crops, farmers, consumers, and the planet with detrimental toxins.

By and large, they are not solving problems but creating them.

That’s why this startup Bee Vectoring Technologies (BVT) decided to go back to nature.

Bee Vectoring Technologies (BVT)

BVT turn their eyes towards a type of rival fungi – BVT-CR7 – for solutions.

BVT-CR7 is an organic strain of a naturally occurring endophytic fungus. This fungus can effectively control plant diseases caused by fungal pathogens such as Botrytis and Sclerotinia, according to BVT. By reintroducing BVT-CR7 back into the field, BVT is making one step closer to the natural system that is at work.  

Step number two is to find a natural way to deliver the BVT-CR7. And for that, BVT decides that this can’t be a job for men, but a job for bumblebees. They develop an inoculums dispenser system via which bumblebees can pick up BVT-CR7 powder and deliver them right to the flower – one of the gateways for pathogens to enter.

No need for spray, no pollution, no maintenance, and no labor involved. BVT simply lets bumblebees take care of the rest.

And when nature takes over, harmony resumes. Things start to work around for the benefit of all involved. That’s when true effectiveness and efficiency manifest to the optimal extent surely and steadily as time unfolds.

Control or submit?

An engineered relationship, by and large, is for control.

Firms want to control. They want to get everything under their control.

Control can be a good thing. It increases reliability and consistency.

But control is also expensive.

It can come at a great cost such as the cost to make artifacts, the cost to engineer mechanisms, and the cost to impose a system. And beyond all these costs is the latent yet profound cost of destruction – the destruction of the order in nature. The cost might take time to manifest, but once it manifests, it can be alarmingly irreversible, destructive, and pervasive beyond the scope anyone can control.

Essentially, control is an effort to undercut the interdependence in an ecosystem. Firms want to make their business self-sufficient and self-reliant. They want to single out their business and run it according to their own will and determination.

But no business can survive in isolation.

We are all part of nature, not beyond it. We come and go, but nature remains.

We can gain the upper hand at the moment, but nature has the final word. As much as we worship and put faith in our own engineered technologies, we need to come to our senses that whatever we try to conquer, time and sovereignty are always on nature’s side.

Nature is powerful and gracious. It is good to those who are good to it.

It provides the ecosystem to sustain all things in it, it provides the mechanism to get things going, and it provides the materials to sustain all our needs.

When we have nature on our side, our yoke is easy and our burden is light. Nature will do the heavy lifting for us and carry us through.

Submit and trust that we will be in good hands and profit from it.