Welcome
Dr. Caitlin Rering is a chemical ecologist at the USDA ARS who studies microbes, insects, and plants.
Her lab aims to develop sustainable tools for agriculture that can help balance the needs of people and the environment.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Smith
Our wisest pursuit
Agriculture is the most important interface between humanity and the environment.
Through our agricultural practices, we have enormous impact on the natural world.
In turn, the environment affects us – contaminants make their way into our food, affecting our health, and disease and pests reduce food supply, contributing to hunger and raising prices.
Over 50% of US land is devoted to agriculture. This offers an opportunity: by changing the ways we produce food, we can preserve human and environmental health.
“Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness”
-Thomas Jefferson
Microorganisms:
sustainable tools for agriculture
Farmers need tools and technologies to combat pests and diseases that threaten their crops. Unfortunately, many of the tools used today have unintended consequences for human and environmental health.
Microbes and their metabolites are at the center of Dr. Rering’s research; she is fascinated by these invisible, pervasive creatures and their interactions with insects, plants, and one another. Moreover, she is convinced that microbes represent a largely untapped source of sustainable crop protection products. Her research is devoted to exploring this premise.
By exploring the interactions between plants, insects, and microorganisms, we can discover new ways to tackle real-world agricultural problems.