“Biologicals used to be the uncool kid in the classroom,” said Prem Warrior, a senior technical advisor at Syngenta, “but now every company in the world wants to do something with them.” According to Research and Markets, the global agricultural biologicals market is currently estimated at $14B and is expected to double by 2028. Microbes are critical to agriculture. They are what make nutrients in the soil available to plants. Our relationship with them is one of tight co-dependence. Intentional alteration of the soil microbiome by genetic engineering is a scary undertaking fraught with risk, yet government oversight is minimal. The fact that all of Big Ag is after a piece of this is cause for concern. The stakes are huge. Soil microbes took millennia to reach the balance we have now. But we’re confident we can make a few quick changes and bask in our brilliance with our targeted results. Trouble is, no one knows what all those results will be when these super microbes multiply infinitely and reorganize the order of things. That’s one genie you can’t stuff back in the bottle. This scares me.