[brenschluss]

Have you thought about the potential harmful side effects this might cause, and what are your thoughts/strategies on it?

‘Controlling the environment to make things better’ has a spotty history (DDT, Monsanto, etc), and I would evaluate good biotech/agtech by how they are actively thinking about these issues.

[jbacher]

The microbes we're using as products come from the soil. The tech to identify them uses understanding the interaction between microbes, so that we can thoughtfully determine which microbes are best suited for a product - we can exclude candidates with any known toxicity issues or negative externalities.

Biological pesticides have a much lower threshold for regulatory approval specifically because they are deemed safer than chemical pesticides.

Customers like replacing their chemical pesticides with our product to lower residual levels of chemicals on their produce. Other countries have more restrictive MRLs (maximum residue levels) permitted on imports than the US does, so products like these are valuable.

[carapace]

To me it sounds like your 'consortia' are much like what Permaculture calls 'guilds': sets of species that work together synergistically.

[jbacher]

I'm not familiar with Permaculture, but yes, that sounds right.