Anyone who is truly paying attention has recognized the vehicle that got us here will not be the one we continue on with in this journey. Clearly that statement could go in many directions but honestly it explains a tremendous amount about the fog that we must see through.
Today, though, I am going to address the health care system, not only in human medicine but also in animal agriculture. In my opinion, the dependence on pharmaceutical companies must come to a screeching halt.
I remember the day that I read about a college professor at the University of Missouri talking about the negative impact of the local Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. He mentioned the impact was so bad you could already find antibiotics in the soil in the neighborhood. That statement sent me digging for the facts because I knew that antibiotics were actually made from fungus in the soil.
From the Journal of Nature:
It is well known that fungi remain one of the most important resources for the discovery of new bioactive compounds. It is thought that fungi rank as the second biggest kingdom of organisms in nature and that as many as 1.5–5.1 million fungal species exist. From the history of drug discovery from microorganisms, fungal secondary metabolites have provided a number of important drugs, such as the antibiotic penicillin, the immunosuppressant cyclosporine and the antihypercholesterolemic agents lovastatin and compactin.
Fungi was the base and the DNA modification has given us a new layer of antibiotics but just like in the beginning of man, soil is the source of what has been a treatment for disease. In fact, the story I love about soil relates to why I keep a pile of soil close to our farrowing barn. Any time we spot nursing piglets with loose stools, we throw a scoop of soil on the mat in their crate and their digestive issue is fixed in no time flat.
Recently, our youngest and I spent 45 minutes walking the woods that I walked as a kid in west central Illinois, looking for tasty fungus. Yes, the morel mushroom hunting experience is happening now. Landri and I were not successful in our endeavor, as the season was a little earlier in May this year, but it got me to thinking about how much we love and appreciate fungus.
Did you know that ivermectin, too, was sourced from the soil in Japan and said to be from a fungus?
As reported by the National Institutes of Health:
Discovered in the late-1970s, the pioneering drug ivermectin, a dihydro derivative of avermectin—originating solely from a single microorganism isolated at the Kitasato Institute, Tokyo, Japan from Japanese soil—has had an immeasurably beneficial impact in improving the lives and welfare of billions of people throughout the world.
God gave us all of the tools we truly need for healthy living. It has become apparent that we have just allowed the drug companies to take something very simple and create a dependence for human beings on their recovery and marketing programs. I suggest that in our path forward we should all get our hands dirty and figure out how we can find the mushroom in our own backyards.
Editor’s note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not represent the views of High Plains Journal. Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].