Pertinent challenges in mycorrhizal ecopreneurship for sustainable food production

Abstract

Most existing literature pictures mycorrhizas as the golden grail for food production but almost nobody uses them outside academia. We here explored why this is the case and arrived at the conclusion that the literature does not appeal sufficiently to the needs of the producers and this forms a bottleneck that prevents expansion of mycorrhizal technologies. We identify two reasons why addressing consumers (rather than producers) is a key problem and propose three actions that in our opinion could increase the appeal of mycorrhizal applications. We think that the momentum is there to invest in sustainable ways to develop our societies. We also advocate that mycorrhizal technologies should be part of any changes towards a sustainable intensification and hope that our insights will make experts on mycorrhizas rethink how they communicate their findings.