Is there an engineering solution for this, or is it something beyond that?
For instance, could we have almost everything that pushes water to plants contain some kind of low-cost sensor that sends data about the water going through it back to some base station for analysis?
We would need to spend some money to:
* develop the technology
* deploy the technology, including ensuring either the sensor can be self-powered (solar?) or we can hook up electricity to the water outputs easily (and electricity + water = not an easy solution!)
* monitor the data
However... all of this seems do-able if we want to reduce health problems like this.
I imagine, like most everything, it comes down to tradeoffs: how frequently do outbreaks like these happen? What is the monetary cost when they happen? Would constant monitoring tech like this actually help us detect it? Who would pay?
I'd argue this is exactly what something like the FDA should be helping with - ensuring our food is safe, and that means helping deploy state-of-the-art sensors to reduce the chance of contamination. With government money going to some group that can make this a reality, the risk of developing this on their own and hoping that food producers would choose to pay for it goes away.
For instance, could we have almost everything that pushes water to plants contain some kind of low-cost sensor that sends data about the water going through it back to some base station for analysis?
We would need to spend some money to: * develop the technology * deploy the technology, including ensuring either the sensor can be self-powered (solar?) or we can hook up electricity to the water outputs easily (and electricity + water = not an easy solution!) * monitor the data
However... all of this seems do-able if we want to reduce health problems like this.
I imagine, like most everything, it comes down to tradeoffs: how frequently do outbreaks like these happen? What is the monetary cost when they happen? Would constant monitoring tech like this actually help us detect it? Who would pay?
I'd argue this is exactly what something like the FDA should be helping with - ensuring our food is safe, and that means helping deploy state-of-the-art sensors to reduce the chance of contamination. With government money going to some group that can make this a reality, the risk of developing this on their own and hoping that food producers would choose to pay for it goes away.
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