Author: Darío Sánchez, PhD
One Health is the idea that your morning slice of bread, the soil it came from, and the health of people, animals and ecosystems are all part of the same story.
It is an approach that refuses to draw artificial lines between human medicine, veterinary care, plant health and environmental science, recognising instead that these domains are tightly woven together.
The Wheatbiome project steps into that story by looking at the invisible microbial life that lives with wheat and using it to grow more resilient crops, healthier food and a lighter footprint on the environment.
One Health Starts in the Field
The unifying approach that balances people, animals and ecosystems.
In 2021, the One Health High Level Expert Panel developed a formal definition: One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognises that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants and the wider environment are closely linked and interdependent.
The concept grew from concerns about zoonoses, pandemics and antimicrobial resistance, but it now explicitly includes plant health, food systems and the state of soils and water as part of the same health equation.
In that broader view, a wheat field is no longer just a production unit: it becomes an ecosystem node that connects soil organisms, crops, livestock, wildlife, water quality and human diets. The decisions made on that field about fertilisers, pesticides, rotations or varieties ripple through microbial communities, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity and, ultimately, the security and quality of food and feed.
The unseen majority: microbiomes as connectors
At the centre of this story are microbiomes, the communities of bacteria, fungi and other microbes that colonise soils, plant roots, leaves, grains and even our own guts. In wheat, these microbial partners help plants capture nutrients, withstand drought and disease and shape grain composition, while being themselves shaped by climate, soil type and farming practices.
When those microbiomes are disturbed through intensive chemical inputs or climate extremes, plant health and grain quality can suffer, with knock-on effects along the food chain.
Conversely, when they are managed as allies rather than as a black box, they can reduce the need for external inputs, support biodiversity and make agroecosystems more resilient to shocks. This is where One Health and microbiome science start to overlap in very concrete ways.
Connecting soil, plate and gut microbiota
Thinking in One Health terms means following wheat well beyond harvest. Once grains leave the field, their microbiomes and biochemical makeup influence how they are processed, how much is lost as waste and how the final products interact with the gut microbiota of humans and animals.
Plant-based foods and feeds rich in certain fibres, bioactives and fermentation products can act as prebiotics, modulating gut communities that in turn are linked to metabolic, immune and even mental health.
This does not mean that changing a wheat microbiome will magically cure disease, and the science is still emerging and complex. It does mean that every step, from soil structure to fermentation of by-products, can be tuned with One Health in mind: less waste, safer food chains and microbial interactions that support rather than undermine health across species.
What Wheatbiome Brings to One Health: A Soil-to-Plate Research Perspective
Wheatbiome is a Horizon Europe project built around this soil-to-plate perspective, with wheat microbiomes as the connecting thread.
The consortium brings together 13 partners from academia, industry, food system actors and public bodies in several European countries, a deliberate mix that reflects the cross-sector nature of One Health itself.
At its core, the project maps how soil and plant microbiomes vary with climate, soil properties, wheat genotype and farming practices in contrasting European case studies.
By comparing, for example, conventional and organic management under Mediterranean and Atlantic conditions, Wheatbiome aims to understand which microbial configurations support resilient, nutritious crops and which conditions put those configurations at risk.
This knowledge feeds into a decision support system intended to help design more sustainable wheat systems under changing climates.
From resilient crops to healthier foods
The project does not stop at agronomy: it follows wheat into processing, fermentation and upcycling of by-products, tracking how microbiomes and processing choices affect food and feed quality.
By studying microbial fermentations, Wheatbiome looks at the release of bioactive compounds, immunogenic peptides relevant to coeliac disease and other molecules that bridge plant, microbial and host health.
In parallel, the consortium explores how wheat components such as prebiotics, probiotics and bioactives interact with human and animal microbiota, and what this implies for health across the food chain.
Rather than promising quick fixes, the project positions these insights as building blocks for future wheat-derived foods and feeds that are both more sustainable and more supportive of gut and immune health.
Closing loops and listening to society
One Health is also about how societies value and govern their food systems, and Wheatbiome explicitly includes that dimension. The project assesses how farmers, processors, retailers and citizens perceive microbiomes in food systems, and what opportunities or concerns they see in microbiome-based innovations.
It also looks at ways to recirculate wheat by-products through fermentation and other processes, turning potential waste into resources and reducing pressure on land, water and energy.
In doing so, Wheatbiome embodies a One Health mindset: it treats knowledge about microbes not as a niche curiosity, but as a practical tool for aligning environmental, economic and health goals in European wheat landscapes. The wheat field becomes a meeting point between microbial ecology, nutrition science, farmer know-how and public expectations.
Wheatbiome Will continue Advancing One Health
For researchers who do not usually work with wheat or microbiomes, One Health can sometimes feel abstract or confined to clinical or veterinary realms. Wheatbiome offers a concrete case where a staple crop, its invisible partners and the people who depend on it are studied as one intertwined system, from soil pores to gut microbiota.
As the project progresses, new datasets, case studies and tools will emerge that can be connected to wider questions in ecology, public health, microbiology and food systems research. For anyone curious about how One Health looks when traced through a field of wheat, this is an unfolding story worth following. You can keep up with the latest findings and developments at the Wheatbiome project news section.
