r/BeAmazed • u/Kaos2018 • Sep 01 '26
Miscellaneous / Others Meet Dr. Mariangela Hungaria
3.6k
u/DoingItForEli Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
this sounds like a pretty big deal that the world should be celebrating
edit: her name is Mariangela Hungria
1.6k
u/Alan-Foster Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Too bad the image didn't have space for her name instead of "Brazilian scientist" /s
Here is the story from the official World Food Prize that she won https://www.worldfoodprize.org/en/laureates/20202026_laureates/2025_hungria/
459
u/IceNein Sep 01 '26
Pretty crazy, seeing as fertilizers are a huge source of CO2 pollution. The standard nitrogen fertilizer is ammonia, which is produced through the Haber-Bosch process which burns natural gas.
273
u/GonzoVeritas Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
Some of the details:
Hungria developed a unique method to validate the effectiveness of co-inoculation of rhizobia and A. brasilense with smallholder farmers, who cultivate soybean on less than 50 hectares and represent the majority of soybean producers in Brazil.
Involving more than 3,000 farmers in a five-year study, her team confirmed that farmers using the co-inoculation made an additional profit of US$111.50 per hectare each season.
They also mitigated an estimated 350 kg of CO2-equivalent per hectare from the increased production and the reduced use of chemical nitrogen fertilizers.
Today, more than 70 million doses of inoculants carrying rhizobia and A. brasilense are sold in Brazil each year. The combination is used on more than 35 percent of Brazil’s cultivated area of soybeans, about 16 million hectares.
edit: If my math is right, that's over $1.75 billion extra in the pockets of farmers. That's huge.
106
u/James_Chandra_Hubble Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
If any other soil scientists were confused, I didn't know this but non-native legumes (such as soybeans) in tropical regions have difficulty forming the nitrogen fixing nodules that all of our soybeans do here in the US and Europe, just on their own with no need for innoculation. The symbiotic nitrogen fixing bacteria doesn't live in the soil in tropical climates very well, so soybeans are nitrogen starved there, and apparently they have to fertilize with nitrogen there (whereas in the US a farmer would be considered crazy to fertilize their soy with nitrogen - it doesn't need it here). What she did was selectively breed strains of the symbiotic bacteria that live better in tropical climates, and selected from avilable types of soybean that would take them up symbiotically most efficiently. So this is a big development for tropical regions producing soybeans but not so much for other parts of the world, since our non-tropical soybeans have no issues forming the symbiotic nitrogen fixing bacteria nodules.
TIL.
23
u/Big_Knife_SK Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
There's a whole subfield of soil microbiology focused on rhizobial symbiotic interactions. There's a huge amount of environmental variation, as well as strain x host genotype variation, and strain x strain competition. It's notoriously hard to translate controlled studies out into the field.
7
u/Exciting_Ad1151 Sep 01 '26
Not a soil scientist, but thank you for sharing and saving my time. I went from being amazed by the headline, to asking who the heck puts nitrogen on soybeans, to finally hitting the reality you summed up very well.
3
u/amnorobotquery Sep 02 '26
I couldn't agree more. Thank you for doing the needful for folk like myself
3
u/GrimCreeper913 Sep 02 '26
I'm going to try to summarize from a slightly more than layman's perspective, because I thought soybean was a crop that helped nitrogen levels naturally.
So far what I get is that there is a nodule(a growth) that grows on the roots of a soy plant, which either creates, or works with, bacteria to create that excess nitrogen. That nodule doesn't develop unless grown in certain "good" conditions related to climate and similar regional factors. So where my inference ends is, is this promoting the same nodules, or is there some other mechanism with this new bacteria being introduced.
I am passingly familiar with the idea of crop rotation for certain nutrients, and the three ladies for a cool symbiotic plant relationship with those nutrients. I just got lost in the "co inoculation" from Ms. Hungria's breakthrough.
Sorry to ask for such, as I know complex interactions can be hard to explain without subjectively difficult terminology, but this is pretty interesting from multiple angles.
2
u/James_Chandra_Hubble Sep 02 '26
Yeah pretty much these bacteria take nitrogen from the air (N2) and turn it into ammonium or nitrates that can be used by the legume. The legume gets colonized by the bacteria and makes a "nodule" in its roots for the bacteria to live in symbiotically.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/rdfporcazzo Sep 02 '26
Tropical farming is not a simple task. The constant rain plus oxisol profile make the nutrients of the soil naturally scarcer than the soil of mild climates.
We see Brazil as one of the 4 main food producers in the world now, but Brazil really struggled with most of its soil.
But EMBRAPA, a government scientific research institute, developed this field a lot, allowing Brazil advancing in the technological frontier of tropical farming.
This scientist, Mariangela Hungria, is an EMBRAPA researcher by the way. She developed her research through EMBRAPA.
63
u/KEPD-350 Sep 01 '26
But is it creating value for our beloved shareholders!??!
35
u/Not_FinancialAdvice Sep 01 '26
I mean, it could. It's not unreasonable to figure an alternative to traditional fertilizers (now selling at high prices due to the Hormuz blockade) would drive the cost basis of producers down, improving their margins.
5
u/worldspawn00 Sep 01 '26
But not those of the oil companies who basically own most of the world's politicians...
17
u/Vergonhalheia Sep 01 '26
In Brasil the agriculture sector is one of the biggest political forces, with a lot of senators and legislators owning huge farms. Private oil companies dont have that much influence here.
10
11
u/silver_garou Sep 01 '26
Yes corporations own most farms.
4
Sep 01 '26
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)3
u/silver_garou Sep 01 '26
Oh don't worry when family owned ranches and farms finally lose their land thanks to their vote for tariffs, corporations will be happy to acquire them.
2
u/SovereignPhobia Sep 01 '26
Family owned farms are generally corporate farms. They aren't losing ground and are more taking a big paycheck if they "lose" the family farm, typically to the chagrin of their inheritors that had been waiting to take over. The real problem with American farming comes from how this system blocks out people from starting new farms and establishing new practices that are more in line with modern agtech.
7
u/WenzelDongle Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Well, yes - if it can replace fertilizer (a huge cost in growing anything), then it will mean less cost in pretty much every production chain that needs a plant, along with eliminating a dependency on natural gas prices.
→ More replies (3)2
3
u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Sep 01 '26
A publication on the matter
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352186423001542
For once the world changing good news look pretty serious. This looks huge to reduce food price and CO2 emissions.
→ More replies (8)7
Sep 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
10
u/Content-Soup9920 Sep 01 '26
It makes everybody less dependent on russian fertilizers.
→ More replies (3)7
u/Healthy-Amoeba2296 Sep 01 '26
I bought a coffee and found my store gal is a farmer, travels over an hour to work, must keep farm going but can't afford it without other job. No farms no food.
→ More replies (2)15
u/GreyGanado Sep 01 '26
One of the guys inventing the process also went on to inventing the gas that was used for the Holocaust.
69
u/RampantAndroid Sep 01 '26
You’re confusing two things.
Fritz Haber developed the weaponized chlorine gas used in WWI.
Zyklon-B, the gas used in gas chambers in the concentration camps, was a pesticide made in the 1920s with hydrogen cyanide (a rather indiscriminate pesticide). While Bosch’s work did contribute to the creation of Zyklon-B, he had no direct involvement in its creation much less in the decision to use it in gas chambers.
Bosch was concerned by the rise of the Nazi party and feared for his and other scientists safety. Bosch was Jewish.
15
u/UncleNoodles85 Sep 01 '26
Only Aushwitz Birkenau and Majdanek used Zyklon B. Treblinka, Belzac, and Sobibor all used CO2 maybe? It was exhaust fumes from a vehicle. In Kulmhof it was from the very truck they drove their victims to the forest in. It was a captured T34 tank engine in Treblinka.
10
u/AvatarOfMomus Sep 01 '26
Vehicle exhaust would probably be carbon monoxide primarily. In general the thing that kills from sustained exposure to vehicle exhaust is asphixiation due to lack of oxygen reaching the organs. The exact chemical process wouldn't have mattered to the victims.
5
u/UncleNoodles85 Sep 01 '26
Yeah I'm not a chemistry guy and I couldn't remember whether it was CO or CO2 that was emitted from exhaust pipes. I apologize.
5
u/AvatarOfMomus Sep 01 '26
I mean, you aren't wrong actually. 'Clean' complete combustion produces CO2 and water (and sometimes other stuff) but most vehicle engines don't combust everything fully, especially older ones, and thus produce a lot of CO which will kill before CO2 buildup gets a chance.
9
u/UncleNoodles85 Sep 01 '26
It sounds like I was wrong and that's okay it gave you an opportunity to correct me and it gave me an opportunity to learn. Going forward now I'm confident I'll remember it's carbon monoxide and I appreciate that.
→ More replies (0)6
u/Babajji Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
There’s pretty badass song about it - https://youtu.be/DxkeOkaVRLo?is=MffXmvwjJh-93N3o Fritz Haber was truly the definition of “duality of man” and a cautionary tale about how far nationalism can push even an extremely smart person. His wife left him and called his later work “a perversion of science”. He fed the world truly, without the Haber-Bosch method we would probably not be alive today, his inventions also killed thousands if not millions in the most barbaric way imaginable. The story about the gassed Russian soldiers still fighting with their eyes exploding and their bodily fluids boiling was the most insane thing I have ever heard done to a human being. FFS just shoot them cried the Germans…
4
u/EamonBrennan Sep 01 '26
The story about the gassed Russian soldiers still fighting with their eyes exploding and their bodily fluids boiling was the most insane thing I have ever heard done to a human being. FFS just shoot them cried the Germans…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AFdwoyNT24
Sabaton also has a really cool song about that.
→ More replies (4)3
u/MagnificentJake Sep 01 '26
That is a fairly "mic drop" historical correction. Well done.
→ More replies (1)5
u/RDUKE7777777 Sep 01 '26
Are you sure? I think it was the gas that was used in the trench fighting in WW1
→ More replies (1)4
→ More replies (1)2
u/GreatMovesKeepItUp69 Sep 01 '26
- That is not true, 2. The Haber-Bosche processed saved literally billions of lives and your life most likely depends on it right now.
→ More replies (3)5
48
u/PeanutConfident8742 Sep 01 '26
Shes helping to solve world hunger and her names Dr. Hungria!?
33
3
u/SideInitial3961 Sep 01 '26
Norman Borlaug was one of the first to go down there and do this, people argued that this is GMO so they criticized it but these people are saving millions of lives by teaching farmers how to increase yields.
3
u/Tearaway32 Sep 01 '26
Would have had no idea who this was if it weren’t for The West Wing.
→ More replies (3)2
u/WerkingAvatar Sep 01 '26
Almost as clever as the "Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs. Four mechanical arms welded right onto his body. What are the odds?"
→ More replies (1)2
u/PhantasosX Sep 01 '26
The thing is that "Hungria" is "Hungary" in Portuguese.
So she is literally "Dr.Hungary"
→ More replies (1)2
u/zuilli Sep 01 '26
In portuguese Hungria is the spelling for the country Hungary, the surname was likely taken up by immigrants from there.
9
3
u/KrispKrispies Sep 01 '26
Kinda love that her name is Hungria though lol it’s kinda fitting for her to discover
→ More replies (2)2
u/adidasbdd Sep 01 '26
Surprised it didn't say something like "Wife of local restaurant owner, Philip Hungria..."
47
u/oroborus68 Sep 01 '26
Yeah,if the fertilizer industry doesn't bury it and carry on business as usual. But they wouldn't do that would they?
61
u/Far-Cow-3343 Sep 01 '26
Fortunately she works for a Brazilian state owned company and Brazil right now has a ridicously small fertilizer industry (before we imported everything) so it is hard for they to do anything.
If she worked for a private company in a country with a big fertilizer sector you can be damn sure no one would know about her discovery now.
→ More replies (2)18
u/Chinerpeton Sep 01 '26
Big Brazil W then
11
u/Far-Cow-3343 Sep 01 '26
Yep! Embrapa (the state owned organization) is almost unknown outside of Brazil, but they were able to make huge parts of Brazil that were considerate infertile for centuries massive agricultural centers, and now a huge part of the Brazilian economy relies heavily on the agro production of these areas.
→ More replies (1)5
u/MakeMeDoBetter Sep 01 '26
Do you know if this shift will impact the deforestation of the anazon?
3
u/Far-Cow-3343 Sep 01 '26
At least in Brazil, the deforestation of the amazon is way different than most people think. There was a government 4 years ago that promoted it, but they aren't in power anymore. Now, deforestation is mainly through illegal operations (that the country is activelly cracking down on it) and wildfires, which the government is trying to deal with but are mostly caused by the increasing global temperatures (something hard for us to take care of alone).
So this discovery will not change much, but be sure that we are working on it! (Well, there are elections this year, and if a certain candidate win, then yeah, it is going to get worse.)
2
u/Driekan Sep 05 '26
Most of the Amazon's soil isn't adequate for crop farming. What deforestation happens for agriculture is mostly for cattle.
As the other poster has explained, it is being cracked down on pretty seriously for years now, and hopefully will continue to be.
14
u/GordolfoScarra Sep 01 '26 edited 4d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Squash chief hat velvet grandfather placid snails lush
→ More replies (11)4
u/PM_ME_CUTE_SMILES_ Sep 01 '26
This literally never happens. We'd never see any innovation if it was true. The fact is, selling life changing stuff makes way too much money not to do it.
2
u/morpheousmorty Sep 02 '26
Not to mention no one has enough of a monopoly on knowledge to want to risk a rival beating them to it.
17
u/Weed_Exterminator Sep 01 '26
Is not a total replacement for commercial fertilizer.
But “the researchers conducted 30 field trials over 10 years in the main producing regions of Brazil. They compared the performance of uninoculated plants topdressed with 100% of the N fertilizer with inoculated plants that received 75% of the fertilizer. They found that both sets of plants produced the same amount of maize.”
9
u/noir_lord Sep 01 '26
So to be that guy, did they test 100% and the cheap bacteria?
Because that’s how we ended up where antibiotics are given to none sick animals in some countries, they fatten better.
11
u/kindanormle Sep 01 '26
I read the published paper here: https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/agj2.21150
They tested with 100% + bacteria and saw 5.6% increase in yield, which is slightly better than the 4.6% increase from 75% + bacteria. See figure #4.
And before anyone asks about the dip in yield at 50%, later in the study you'll find this:
An exception occurred with 50% of N fertilizer supply, with no statistical difference between inoculated and noninoculated treatments.
In short, that particular value is within error-bounds and can be ignored as not statistically significant. Specifically (if you like stats) the interval is −10.0% to +1.4% with p = 0.14, that's basically indicating zero confidence in this stat. On the flip side, the stat for the 75% value (4.6% higher yield) has interval +2.3% to +6.9% with p = 0.001, which is a very strong signal that the value is significant.
Setting stats aside, it's too early to say if this treatment is actually economically valuable to farmers since the treatment itself must have a cost and that's not explained anywhere in any article I could find. If the cost is equal to or less than the fertilizer it offsets, then farmers will jump all over this. Otherwise, the only incentive will be "green incentives" which can still be powerful if governments decide to subsidize it, or if "green marketing" entices consumers to pay more for it.
38
u/CharityAggravating69 Sep 01 '26
Right? I am fu*king amazed by her dedication and consistency.
She deserves a 👑
→ More replies (1)12
u/iamblankenstein Sep 01 '26
that's a huge deal considering the impact the war in iran is having on fertilizer. it's awesome when people put so much effort into making things better for everyone.
16
u/drmarting25102 Sep 01 '26
And something the big fertilizer manufacturers won't want
14
u/GogurtFiend Sep 01 '26
The use of nitrogen-fixing bacteria has been well-known for a while and the industry is adapted around it. The conspiratorial thinking in this comment section is silly.
5
u/obvious_bot Sep 01 '26
its just reddit. They read one headline about some "major breakthrough", don't follow up in any way (even reading the article it's headlining), and then assume that it is some conspiracy when they don't hear anymore about it
5
u/GogurtFiend Sep 01 '26
And if it is something they can't be conspiratorial about, Reddit instantly pivots and shits all over it so that Reddit can feel better about it.
Someone else always has to be wrong or bad and the idiot on the Internet always has to be correct.
4
3
u/Themightysavage Sep 01 '26
So with years of study and research, she managed to do what growing black eyed peas does.
→ More replies (1)4
u/DoingItForEli Sep 01 '26
I thought I read somewhere this was like the holy grail of fertilizer research because no plants did this, turning nitrogen in the air into its fertilizer. They found one type of bacterium in the ocean that did, and that' unlocked this research. Actually I heard that on a science podcast of all things, back when it was cold outside.
4
u/worldspawn00 Sep 01 '26
All legumes host symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots. Beans and clover are often planted in a cycle with other non-fixing plants to prevent the soil from being depleted.
3
u/DoingItForEli Sep 01 '26
after researching this a bit more: You're right about legumes, but that's a different mechanism. Beans and clover don't themselves fix atmospheric nitrogen; symbiotic rhizobia in their root nodules do it for them. The discovery I was referring to is the nitroplast, where a nitrogen-fixing bacterium has become integrated into an algal cell as an organelle, similar in concept to how chloroplasts originated. That's what researchers think could eventually provide a route toward crops that carry their own nitrogen-fixing machinery.
Also I misremembered slightly. The breakthrough was discovering that this particular bacterium had essentially become an organelle inside a eukaryotic alga. That's the wild part
2
u/quarrelau Sep 02 '26
and that's the problem she's solved here. The symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria from non-tropical legumes don't grow in the tropics very well.
She allowed the "just plant peas & soy beans" advice to work.
2
→ More replies (1)2
u/Gingevere Sep 01 '26
Tons of plants are nitrogen fixing. One of the many points of crop rotation is going back and forth between nitrogen fixing and nitrogen consuming plants.
Part of the reliance on fertilizer cones from farmers wanting to monocrop the same field with the same plant year after year.
→ More replies (20)2
u/NewHandlesAreHard Sep 01 '26
It improves the nitrogen fixation of soybeans in tropical climates in certain soils. You could probably apply this to other beans and climates, but you'd have to start over each time. I also doubt you could use this technique on crops that aren't legumes.
It's still great work and very valuable. It's great for Brazil, but you couldn't use this in, say, Iowa or Manchuria.
809
u/Agheratos Sep 01 '26
*Mariangela Hungria
72
u/Poligonia94 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Thanks for adding her name! Crazy it isn't in the media post already
104
u/suchagoblin Sep 01 '26
It is in the title? My understanding is titles can’t be updated so I’m not sure why you’re not seeing it. To be clear, it’s not in the image though.
32
7
u/Throwaway_Consoles Sep 01 '26
Some of it is people correcting the replies, but the people saying, “Surprised it’s not in the title” are probably bots because “I’m surprised it’s not in the title” is historically a well upvoted comment
2
5
u/Robinsonirish Sep 01 '26
They can't, Idk what's going on. It's not just her name that's misleading, reading the article linked above the headline is clickbait(as expected), although the woman is very accomplished and did receive a reward.
7
u/Sea_Buyer6913 Sep 01 '26
I don't get all these upvoted comments where people don't realize it's misspelled in the title.
→ More replies (1)3
8
u/MadeByTango Sep 01 '26
Because the redesign makes half of reddit title blind. Which is why its a bad idea to blindly upvote "can you believe this image?" posts that dont include criticism in the image itself.
14
u/Sea_Buyer6913 Sep 01 '26
No they didn't add her name, they FIXED THE SPELLING, it's typoed in the title.
→ More replies (3)7
→ More replies (10)4
u/crokinhole Sep 01 '26
People won't be Hungria much longer with the way she's improving food production.
632
u/Spare-Competition-91 Sep 01 '26
Corporations: How can we maximize profits on this so people keep paying high prices?
211
u/Positive_Tourist4505 Sep 01 '26
Thanks to Embrapa, a Brazilian state-funded corporation, this technology is public-owned
BTW, I recommend getting to know Embrapa, one of the biggest players in agribusiness research
→ More replies (1)30
u/Exarquz Sep 01 '26
this technology is public-owned
This version but so was the first version of insulinen. That's just not the version we use anymore.
35
u/nhydre Sep 02 '26
Insuline is extremely affordable in Brazil. I recommend fighting for your fights wherever you are
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (1)13
u/quarrelau Sep 02 '26
Insulin is only unaffordable in the USA because of the screwed up pharmaceutical to health insurance structure.
Lots of the patents over 'insulin' (but not all, there have been improvements from synethic insulins over time) come from the delivery mechanisms, which have evolved over time.
→ More replies (1)64
u/Cam_e_ron Sep 01 '26
just sell it for the same price🤣
9
u/PlayfulSurprise5237 Sep 01 '26
Yea I read this and my first 2 thoughts were "this is being used right now?" and "I haven't seen food prices go down with that HUGE cost savings of not buying nearly as much fertilizer"
6
u/GateauBaker Sep 01 '26
Produce is already so cheap, most of the price is from every middleman it takes to get to your store.
5
u/PlayfulSurprise5237 Sep 01 '26
Makes sense. Well call me when we figure out how to bioengineer cultivars to grow in the same regions as they're eaten.
Potatoes are way too damn expensive.
65
u/Ohkaz42069 Sep 01 '26
Or shut it down entirely so people have to keep buying fertilizer.
25
u/kelpyb1 Sep 01 '26
Inb4 Monsanto buys the patent and ensures nobody can manufacture it
16
u/EndIsrael Sep 01 '26
Good news another comment says that they can't because the Brazilian government was involved so it's public domain.
→ More replies (2)11
u/SaltKick2 Sep 01 '26
Insulin was also "sold" (given) to the University of Toronto to make it free and cheap for the world, yet drug companies have managed to make billions upon billions from it and prevent people from getting life-saving treatment.
Granted, the original patent was realistically untenable for actually mass-manufacturing insulin, but as I understand it though, beyond just the drug companies being incredibly greedy a massive amount of money goes to middlemen between insurance and drug companies
→ More replies (1)4
u/Ravena__ Sep 02 '26
Still, you can get insulin for free in Brasil in the public health system, or for really cheap at drugstores. The fact that Americans pay that much in not only insane, but literally a choice
3
u/sciphale Sep 02 '26
In Brazil, insulin costs 500% or even 1000% less than in the US. It's incredible how capitalism has managed to appease things in the US; the people just accept it.
8
u/DeleteWolf Sep 01 '26
Most Corporations should actually be in favour of this.
I mean ... this makes things the supply side of food production cheaper and more effective, especially now that fertilizer prices are so high because of the Iran War, so this doesn't actually hurt anyone's bottom line, quite the opposite even, except the people who sell fertilizer.
Or, as I said, the people who used to sell fertilizer.
→ More replies (4)2
278
u/1stAtlantianrefugee Sep 01 '26
Why do we see things like this on social media but never outside in real life?
150
u/jtb234 Sep 01 '26
It's a lot easier to make things work at a smaller scale lab environment. Once you try to scale it up to a point it's actually viable things often break down.
A good example of this is the stuff NileRed does for his videos. Recently he made ethanol from air... through a lengthy complicated process that wouldn't scale up in any reasonable way.
→ More replies (6)58
u/serjoprot Sep 01 '26
That example isn't really that, there are a lot of "gasoline from air" "fuel from plastic" processes. It's not that they don't scale up, you put more energy in the process itself then what you can get from the fuel you produced, even at lab scale
→ More replies (7)28
u/robgod50 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
I was thinking the same. But then again, maybe it is really big news in farming circles - I'm just not in those circles.
I also heard there's a cancer vaccine going through trials at the moment. Fucking huge news - bit only if you have cancer. 🤚
Edit: it seems a long way from commercial viability.... My Google search results:
bacterial CO₂-concentrating mechanisms have the potential to completely transform global farming, but it will likely take another decade to reach commercial fields.Computer models predict that successfully introducing these bacterial components could increase crop yields by up to 60% while significantly lowering the amount of water and fertilizer required.However, translating this from a lab breakthrough to global agriculture faces major hurdles.
21
u/MedicoFracassado Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
It's important to note that her techniques and bacteria linneage are already being used in Brazil in more than 35% of the soybean crops.
We use inoculation in 85% of the soy crops, and co-inoculation in around ~35%.
3
u/GogurtFiend Sep 01 '26
But I was told that her innovation was being suppressed by evil corporations! That's why none of us know about it, after all.
6
u/mean11while Sep 02 '26
I run a vegetable farm. Nothing described in this post is new. She worked on these incremental improvements over decades, and they're now considered common and standard. I innoculate my legumes with specific strains of bacteria that help the plants grow better. It's cheap and effective and farmers have had access to this for decades, now, which is why you don't hear about it.
Your Google search is bizarrely wrong. Why is it talking about concentrating CO2? She optimized naturally occurring bacteria that take nitrogen from the atmosphere and turn it into plant food ("N fixation"). It will not take another decade of research; these bacteria have been doing this for millions of years, and her improvements have been used for decades.
→ More replies (2)3
u/Suyefuji Sep 01 '26
Research might get accelerated if Trump's Middle East Pissing Contest keeps neutering major fertilizer shipping lanes
4
u/1stAtlantianrefugee Sep 01 '26
Thats just like the thing that came iut a bout a technique to regrow teeth in adults. Sounds great but we'll never see it in our lifetime in real world application. Or they will roll it out and make it so expensive that the people who need it won't be able to afford it.
10
u/SalutLesAmies Sep 01 '26
Thats just like the thing that came iut a bout a technique to regrow teeth in adults. Sounds great but we'll never see it in our lifetime in real world application.
You might never see it if they find something wrong with the drug during human trials, but the last news was that they were starting phase 2 trials. It rarely takes a lifetime between phase 2 trials and commercialization.
2
8
u/AlwayHappyResearcher Sep 01 '26
Because real life is much boring, this title is sensationalized for more clicks, likes, upvotes, shares, etc.
Involving more than 3,000 farmers in a five-year study, her team confirmed that farmers using the co-inoculation made an additional profit of US$111.50 per hectare each season.
Which is still good, but it is not "replacing fertilizer" anytime soon.
2
u/burf Sep 01 '26
Why not? Once a farmer is out of fertilizer, why would they not go for the cheaper thing that's also better for the environment? It's not like EVs where the market needed people to stop driving cars they're likely to hold onto for a decade.
2
4
u/ParalimniX Sep 01 '26
Why do we see things like this on social media but never outside in real life?
Even if this was rampant in real life how would you know? Do you deal with nitrogen fertilizers on a daily basis or is it a common part of your daily chats?
→ More replies (1)5
u/atreeismissing Sep 01 '26
Because you only pay attention to social media. How many people in this comment section actually read science articles from industry related news publications?
3
u/Ill_Brick_4671 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
It's annoying, because nitrogen fixing bacteria are genuinely an effective way to increase N to plants and improve health and yield.
What they are not is the complete replacement for fertilizers that this post (and the World Food Prize bio) makes them out to be. Yes, fertilizers cost are expensive and bacterial applications cost much less per hectare. They also provide way, way less N and no other key nutrients (like phosphorus or potassium), which is why they're a supplement not a replacement. I've seen estimates that out the value at about 20% of total nitrogen, which to be clear is still really good! But it's not a total replacement for fertilizers like the bio and this infographic suggest.
So yeah, they're great and they'll absolutely become part of staple agricultural practices going forward. Are they single-handedly ending the fertiliser industry and defeating climate change? No.
6
u/Traditional-Park-353 Sep 01 '26
Algorithms tend to boost sensationalist stuff that's missing context to the top. That's why.
3
u/TeaInASkullMug Sep 01 '26
Someone has to pay to build a factory to make it and distribute it. Advertisement, logistics. Thats the free market baby. You might have a bucket of supply, but one region might need 8 millions buckets a year.
3
u/lzwzli Sep 01 '26
Because manufacturing it, storing it, transporting it, promoting it, accounting for all other environment variables across the world is not a snap of the fingers
3
u/Middle_Draft9152 Sep 01 '26
I am using nitrogen fixing bact eria in my local reforestation project when planting saplings. Also different types of fungi and bacteria which are beneficial for soil and young saplings.
So it's real and it's mass produced not only in Brasil, also in Russia :-)
7
u/Cormophyte Sep 01 '26
Because it's never as effective or revolutionary as the meme image pretends. Science is incremental.
5
u/GreatMovesKeepItUp69 Sep 01 '26
And if it actually is revolutionary and effective like GLP-1s, people just shit all over it instead and try to find ways to make it sound shitty.
→ More replies (1)8
u/jaws4671 Sep 01 '26
Easy, big pesticide paid the news companies to not spread the news.
8
u/Traditional-Park-353 Sep 01 '26
... plausible, but I'll counter you with "or the algo on your social media platform of choice is boosting sensationalist half truths for monetary gain."
6
u/InfusionOfYellow Sep 01 '26
Your conflation of pesticides and fertilizers reassures me that you are a trustworthy expert.
→ More replies (2)3
u/ilicstefan Sep 01 '26
Pesticides have nothing in common with fertilizers. They are used to eradicate pests, fertilizers are pretty much food for plants.
In fact this could make pesticide companies earn more money. More crops, more things to protect from pests.
2
u/OnceMoreAndAgain Sep 01 '26
Presumably because news companies track data on what topics bring in views and what doesn't and this type of content must not sell well enough.
Politics sells. Natural disasters sell. Sex sells. Celebrity gossip sells. Science presumably doesn't sell.
I've always been of the opinion that people who complain about the content of news are complaining about the wrong people. Instead of complaining about the news companies, you should be complaining about the general audience's preferences. Companies meet demand, not vice versa.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (9)2
u/Gingevere Sep 01 '26
- Scaling up the process being too difficult / costly.
- The version you see on social media being completely overstated.
89
u/ExistentialAngsty Sep 01 '26
Is her name really Hungria?
Universe definitely has a sense of humor
33
10
11
6
u/hurricane_news Sep 01 '26
Person named Hungeria.
Could potentially solve world hunger
Bravo, Kojima
→ More replies (1)2
u/Somehero Sep 02 '26
Called an aptronym, or in this case specifically an anti-aptronyn or inaptronym.
30
26
u/GordolfoScarra Sep 01 '26 edited 4d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Tub existence sparkle nutty ribbon safe bells vegetable
5
u/mean11while Sep 02 '26
Comment sections like this are terrifying to me. I think subs like this are especially unlikely to float comments that actually know anything about the topic to the top.
→ More replies (5)3
u/GogurtFiend Sep 02 '26
No, no, she's totally being silenced. That's why her innovation is widely used, why she's publicly famous, why she's receiving the World Food Prize, and why everyone on social media is talking about her!
30
u/santasnicealist Sep 01 '26
I'd have to look into her specific research more, but the title seems a bit sensationalist. Nitrogen fixing bacteria and research into it has gone on for a long time and these are used in conjunction with nitrogen applications by commercial farmers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizobium
https://sustainablebrands.com/read/novozymes-monsanto-discover-microbes-that-can-boost-corn-and-soybean-yields
39
7
6
u/ThisIsALine_____ Sep 01 '26
World Food Prize?
5
u/Hot-Special-571 Sep 01 '26
Not to confused with the world hot dog eating championships. I know, it's just so confusing.
60
u/CellPuzzleheaded99 Sep 01 '26
And she will vanish suddenly....
52
u/MateSilva Sep 01 '26
She is a researcher from the brazilian national agriculture research program EMBRAPA, I met her in a congress last year, the country is pouring money in her research.
4
u/AggressiveCuriosity Sep 01 '26
None of that matters to these people. They say stuff like this because it makes them feel smart even if they know absolutely nothing about how anything works.
They "learned" how the world works from a George Carlin routine. It was easy, it made them feel like they know something other people don't and they've been holding onto that feeling ever since.
→ More replies (7)14
u/Geschmak Sep 01 '26
She won't. People have been making such groundbreaking discoveries for 100 years.
→ More replies (4)6
u/Affectionate-Yak5280 Sep 01 '26
The article says Brazil has already been using her system for years
8
23
u/ThisIsALine_____ Sep 01 '26
Why? There's not really "big fertilizer." The farming industry is enormous and this would only cut down their costs and boost their profits.
What makes you think they'd be against this and want to use fertilizer that's more expensive?
17
u/CellPuzzleheaded99 Sep 01 '26
There was also no big oil once.... Agritech companies have become big corporate systems and you don't want things to change. Farmers are more and more owned by those farms and their compulsory ecosystems. That's why it's so hard for farmers to change. So these inventions will be 'kaltgestellt' by said companies or they will enjoy the reduction in costs. You as consumer will never pay less
→ More replies (8)7
u/InfusionOfYellow Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
The nation generally and reddit specifically are chin-deep in conspiratorial ideation.
7
→ More replies (18)2
→ More replies (2)3
u/TheSigma3 Sep 01 '26
What's the obsession with people who make scientific breakthroughs "vanishing"? When has that actually happened recently
→ More replies (2)
5
9
5
u/Loud_Flatworm_4146 Sep 01 '26
It should be a rule to post a link to a source. Commenters shouldn’t have to do the work for the original poster.
4
u/GogurtFiend Sep 01 '26
I have never seen a comment section so full of conspiratorial nonsense outside of something related to politics. Apparently I am supposed to believe that companies have a vested interest in ensuring innovations that make them money - such as Dr. Hungaria's work - are suppressed as much as possible, so that they can make less money.
Somehow Dr. Hungaria is receiving public attention and prizes for this, and is showing up all over social media, and her invention has saved billions of dollars, but she's also being suppressed by le evil corporations which is why nobody knows about her work.
2
2
u/soulsteela Sep 02 '26
These are the same people that think imgrunts r stealing muh jobs and claiming welfare at the same time , ya know Schrodingers immigrant!
7
u/IgnantWisdom Sep 01 '26
Somebody tell me how I’ll never hear about this again because of some massive roadblock to mass adoption that is not listed in this article.
→ More replies (1)5
u/VermicelliOwn6502 Sep 01 '26
Brazil uses it on test farms.
It grows out of control and mutates.
The air becomes a higher % oxygen.
Cockaroaches get bigger and bigger, demand personhood rights.
4
5
u/Psy-Kosh Sep 01 '26
So what's the current status on this awesome thing actually making it into actual use?
5
4
u/Traditional-Park-353 Sep 01 '26
Just to be clear, nitrogen fixing bacteria already existed in nature, it's just that she improved them. Also this tech isn't universally adopted because it's only useful in certain crops/climates (e.g, it's not widespread use in the USA for that reason).
2
2
u/GrumbleAlong Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
She found that applying this strain to soybean through an inoculant every year could increase yields by up to eight per cent compared to the use of synthetic fertiliser.
*link source
2
2
u/Far-Cow-3343 Sep 01 '26
For people saying big fertilizer will buy it or kill her: it won't happen. The patent is public owned by the Brazilian government, and it is impossible for them to buy it (unless they buy/create a patent in other countries, but that another story) and her study in not only her: It is done by a state owned institution of research in Brazil. Unless they want to start a very big mess, nothing will happen (also, her research has been know for more than 1 year i think).
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Large-Barracuda7699 Sep 01 '26
It's a great achievement 👏 and Congratulations to her for her great Work
2
2
2
2
u/Excidiar Sep 01 '26
Behold: The underpaid scientist that actually deserves to be a billionaire instead of the ones we have.
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Qwirk Sep 01 '26
She won this award in May of last year (2025) and her contribution is still under study.
Actual article: https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/05/13/g-s1-66186/world-food-prize-brazil-bacteria-farme
•
u/BeAmazed-ModBot Subreddit Bot Sep 01 '26
Did you find this post really amazing (in a positive way)?
If yes, then UPVOTE this comment otherwise DOWNVOTE it.
This community feedback will help us determine whether this post is suited for r/BeAmazed or not.