Team:NTHU Taiwan/Human Practices

Human Practices

Overview

The consideration of how our project is responsible and beneficial to the world is one of the most important aspects of the whole project. We aim to make our product not only be well designed and beneficial to the potential users and the environment but also legal and ethical. Here are the efforts we put to bring our project beyond the lab and be influential to the real world.

Experts

Stakeholders

Policy

In order to enhance our project, we think that it is necessary to have opinions from professors and experts. We consulted as much expertise as we could. Having their insights into our project had huge effects on our progress.

Design Integrated Associated Prof. Yu-Chun Lin, NTHU Research: Molecular Biology In the early stage of our project, we reached a consensus to build a thermal-sensitive system. Yet, there was no consensus on where to apply it. We started to seek others' advice and did research on the current problems in Taiwan. When we explained our concept to Prof. Lin and sought out his advice, he told us about “MELiSSA”. MELiSSA, which stands for Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative is a Closed Ecological Systems that can provide enough nutrition for all organisms in the system. It is motivated only by the Sun, which is heat and light. Even though MELiSSA is too ideal for current technology and is almost impossible to build the whole system, we really liked the idea of life-supporting based on temperature. Hence, we decided to take this concept and seek for potential applications. Integrated Prof. Hsien-Sheng Yin, NTHU Research: Molecular Virology, Protein X-ray Crystallography, Structural Biology Prof. Yin is the chairman of the Department of Life Science, NTHU. He correlates with the design of our sensing system. Firstly, Prof. Yin introduced us the concept of agriculture automation. This led our dry lab to consider applying this concept to ameliorate the issue of aging in agriculture. Secondly, he informed us of the category of texture data that is meaningful in agriculture. To specify, the pH value, EC value, humidity, and temperature. This better shaped the design on the sensing system and guided our selection on the texture data we targeted. Moreover, Prof. Yin introduced us to Prof. Huang for our problem in the selection of data transmission methods. He also recommended us to contact with C.O.A and the farmers' association to make sure our product is responsible. Integrated Associate Prof. Wen-Liang Chen, NCTU Research: Proteomics, Immunochemistry, Immunodiagnosis, Antibody engineering While we designed our sensing system, Prof. Chen thinks that the texture data we collected don’t represent the texture quality intuitively. Hence, it is important to analyze the data to give our potential user a better picture of soil texture. Thus, we researched how to analyze soil texture by texture data. Meanwhile, we found out that NCTU Formosa did some research on soil texture last year. We contacted them and they provided their experiment data to us. This helped us analyze and calculate the amount of nutrition in the soil. Integrated Tsing Hua Distinguished Prof. Nen-Fu Huang Research: IoT Based Smart Agriculture, AI Analysis for MOOC Learning Behaviors, Network Security We had difficulties in selecting the transmission method of texture data. Thus, we consulted Prof. Huang, an expert in the application of IoT. We consulted him on our design and described the functions we needed for the sensing system. We want the data transmission range to be large since we want it to be able for farmlands. Additionally, data transmission has to be energy-efficient for better maintenance and reliability. Prof. Huang initiates us to “LoRa” and some of its application. We found it perfect to meet the needs of our design. Hence, we applied the LoRa system into our sensing system. Read more details in LoRa.

Experiment Integrated Associate Prof. Chin-Yu Chen, CCU Research: Structural Biology, protein-DNA interaction and single molecule study Initially, we wanted to modify our promoter with a random mutation. However, Prof. Chen thinks it takes time and fortune. With her opinion, after reading some literature, we selected some ideas to ameliorate the promoter. For more details, please read Design and Improvement. Prof. Chen is the first professor to question why we use lipaseA since the variation of activity varies with temperature is a common characteristic of enzymes. The main reason is that the product of lipase A is fatty acid, which can regulate the binding strength of known promoters. Moreover, the activity curve of lipase A matches the temperature range our project is interested in.

Process Associate Prof. Ya-Tang Yang, NTHU Research：Bio-MEMS, Nano Optical Manipulation Prof. Yang questioned us on the required time for the protein to synthesize. He mentioned that if the downstream protein doesn’t express immediately, the fertilizing progress would be behind schedule. Thus, we did experiments on the reaction time when fatty acid induces our downstream protein. The result displays that the downstream protein expresses almost immediately. (Read more details in Result.) Thus, we were convinced that we could achieve precise fertilizing.

Networking Prof. Lin-Yi Chen, NTHU Research: Cell and Molecular Biology, Signal Transduction, Mechanism of Cell Differentiation Prof. Chen helps us a lot in building a network with experts. Prof. Chen had a connection with many professors and she advised us on which experts might have a similar research project with us. That leads us to the talks with Prof. Zhang, Prof. Yin and Prof. Lan.

Safety Integrated Prof. Ying-Ling Liu, NTHU Research: Polymer Science and Engineering / Energy and Environmental Research In the Taiwan iGEM meetup, some of the iGEMers had concerns on the bio-safety of our device. At that time, our fertilizer device is a package containing bacteria, fatty acid, and urea. The package is wrapped in filters to prevent the release of bacteria o the environment. It is safe under normal situations, but we had to consider “accidents” that could potentially compromise the bio-safety of our device. Some of the iGEMers were worried that the package is easy to wreck and there would be no way of ensuring bio-safety if the package was damaged. Considering the responsibility and the consequence, we took this question very seriously. We soon recognized that our device might be prone to vandalism and we don’t have a safety design to handle that. Moreover, if we use the filter as an outer package, it would be too expensive to make our product unaffordable. Thus, we decided to redesign the device and ensure that we are building a safe device. We decided to build a fertilizer tank so that it is not easily broken and is a better solution to prevent the bacteria from releasing into the environment. Prof. Lio is a master in polymer separation membranes. While we ameliorate our design by building a fertilizer tank, Prof. Lio helped us to ensure the fertilizer tank was indeed safe and helped us refine parts of the design. First of all, Prof. Lio reminds us that fatty acid is a surfactant. In other words, it is oil soluble. Thus, the hydrophobic membrane does not perform well-filtering oil in the first layer of the fertilizer tank. However, we needed the oil to stay in the first layer. Therefore, we mixed oil and agar to keep the oil in the first layer. The other improvement is on the problem of bacteria blocking the membrane pores. Prof. Lio inspected our fertilizer tank to see if it was practical from a chemical plant's aspect. He thinks that the bacteria will block the pores and the device will not work at all. For that reason, we culture the bacteria within agar. In this way, we can ensure that the reaction can proceed and the bacteria will be trapped in agar. After our adjustments on the design, Prof. Lio confirmed that the fertilizer tank is operational and safe. Read our design in Fertilizer Tank. Gif 1. Our first Design Gif 2. After we reconsider our design

Reference

1. Hendrickx et al.(2005). Microbial ecology of the closed artificial ecosystem MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative): Reinventing and compartmentalizing the Earth's food and oxygen regeneration system for long-haul space exploration missions.

While designing FarFarmIA, we find it important to engage with the stakeholders, since we want to produce something beneficial and applicable. Stakeholders, such as farmers or fertilizer producers, are the ones FarFarmIA will interact with and have an impact on. To gather their opinions, we conducted several conversations and interviews.

Interview with the farmers in Southern Taiwan:

In consideration of the must-have functions and the needs of potential users, we designed an interview to get close to the stakeholders' opinions and thoughts. Therefore, we can better shape our product to fit the needs.

We interviewed Mr. Huang, the leader of the youth-peasant-team in the Southern Taiwan, and his father, who is an experienced farmer. They planted rice as a major source of agriculture earning. This interview focuses on the experience of farming and the current situation in agriculture.

Key questions of the interview:

Q: From your point of view, what are the major issues in the current agriculture?
A: I think the biggest problem is that we lack the working force. Many young people in the village went to work in the city. In the harvest seasons, I have to hire foreign workers to do the works.
Q: Why do you think that young working forces refuse to work on farmlands?
A: It is simple! Because it is not an easy job. You have to wake up early every day and work under the heating sun. The farm work is exhausting and few consider it a nice way to gain a livelihood. I think young people would rather work in a place where there is a.c. (Experienced Farmer)
Well, I didn’t choose to be a farmer when I started working. But about 6-7 years ago, my father had some physical conditions since he was aging. I had little choice but to come back home and help my father out. Fortunately, the government in Tainan had a policy encouraging folks under 45 years old to work on the farm. The government provides subsidy and agriculture lessons for the young farmers. I am part of the project now. (Leader of youth-farmer-team)
Q: What work do you consider arduous when farming?
A: Basically, farm works included weeding, watering, fertilizing and sprinkling pesticide. Among the all, fertilizing and sprinkling are the most tiring. Sprinkling pesticide is harmful to health. Some of the farmers are deploying unmanned aircraft vehicles to do the work now. On the other hand, fertilizing does not harm human health. However, the work is not efficient. Currently, there is no product helping us fertilize our land. It is because fertilizers have to be directly applied to the soil, or else the nutrition would be lost.
Q: On average, how much fertilizer do you use each year?
A: It depends on the crop variety and the growth period. Take rice as an example, in this area, we harvest rice twice a year. The first season takes 4 months and the second season takes 5 months. During the first season, it costs about 15,600 NTD per hectare.
Q: What kind of fertilizers do you use? What are the reasons you choose to use the product?
A: We use “＃5 Organic Compound Fertilizer (Nitrophosphate Route)”. It is a kind of chemical fertilizers. We use it because it is cheap and effective.
Q: How do you decide the amount of fertilizer use or when to fertilize the crops?
A: Basically, I will look at the crops and check if it is growing well. If the crops are not growing as expected, I will fertilize more.
Q: Have you ever fertilized the crop base on the temperature since it is an important factor that affects the crop growth?
A: Actually, not really. We don’t really do that. However, the Production and Marketing Group did give us some lectures and mentioned something about that. They said that crops absorb different amounts of nutrition under different temperatures. We shouldn’t apply too much fertilizer when the temperature is low. Yet, it is not convenient to measure the soil temperature and calculate the amount of fertilizer use every time. I think it is troublesome.
Q: Will it be helpful for you if fertilizer can provide enough nutrition for crop growth and prevent nutrition loss or over-fertilization?
A: It would be great! When we fertilize, we usually fertilize more than the suggested amount. We are afraid that the crops will die because of not having enough nutrition. We know that fertilizing too much might be bad, but in our opinion, it is better than dying crops. So, I think it would be nice to have this kind of fertilizer.

Integrated

In the interview, we recognize there are two main issues in our current agriculture industry. First of all, the lack of working force. In the village where Mr. Huang lives, the farmlands are mostly managed by the seniors. This is not an individual case. According to COA 2018 Year Report, the working force in agriculture is aging year by year. The main reason is that young working forces refuse to work in the farmland. Due to the lack of working force, the senior farmers aren’t able to retire and have to keep on working in the farmland. The industry is not sustainable. Further research on the situation, suggested that the low intention of working in agriculture is caused by the inefficiency of farm work. This leads us to think for ways to ameliorate the situation. In other words, this is the motivation for us to create a robotic arm to help manage the farm in an automated way.

The other issue is over-fertilization. Over-fertilization causes side effects to the environment. It will eventually result in a loss of soil health and quality as well as a loss of productivity. Although farmers know that fertilizing too much might harm the land, the fear of dying crops compels them to fertilize more than the suggested amount. We took this in mind and thought to ourselves: “Can we design a fertilizer that can provide just enough nutrition of crop growth?” In this way, the farmers can grow crops without harming the land and the use of fertilizer can be more efficient. Moreover, agriculture could be more sustainable for future generations. With the concept in mind, we tried to apply a thermal sensitive system in fertilizer and produce FarFarmIA. The basic idea is that since temperature is the major factor of nutrition needed for crop growth, we just need to adjust the number of nutrients released base on temperature, the absorption rate of crops can be matched. With this mechanism, we can prevent the side effects caused by over-fertilization.

Essential Smart Nitrogen (ESN)

Meeting potential need is not the only aspect when designing our product. Knowing our competitors and seeking our value are also important. We made an effort into understanding the fertilizer market after we came up with FarFarmIA. Then the product, ESN came to us. ESN is a controlled-released fertilizer that releases the nitrogen-based on a mechanism -- diffusion. ESN value themselves as fertilizer to reduce N-loss, while we value ourselves as fertilizer to prevent over -fertilization. The two are actually the same concept. We both want to improve the nutrition-use efficiency of fertilizer.

Since ESN might be one of our biggest competitors, we contacted them to get up to speed about their mechanism and how they value their product. We communicated with Alan Blaylock, Ph D., a senior Agronomist in ESN by e-mail. Below are the key points in our conversation.

• ESN is designed to decrease nitrogen loss while providing a continuous nitrogen supply to the crop through the critical growth stages. The benefits of this may include improved nitrogen-use efficiency, reduced environmental impact through reduced losses to air and water, greater crop yields and quality, more flexibility in nitrogen applications, and greater profitability for the grower.
• ESN can be used on many crops. They have conducted research on many of the common agricultural crops. The greatest benefit of ESN will occur under conditions conducive to nitrogen loss where conventional soluble fertilizers are subject to loss and lower nitrogen efficiency. ESN may not be suitable for very short or very long growing seasons in hot environments where the release rate is not a good match for the particular crop or environment. In many cases, this can be overcome by proper application timing and/or blending with other fertilizers.
• Some nitrogen loss mechanisms are more sensitive to temperature than others. For example, leaching is relatively independent of temperature while denitrification, as a biological process, is quite dependent on temperature.
• Ammonium nitrogen naturally converts to nitrate nitrogen in aerobic soils. This process releases the hydrogen ions from the ammonium resulting in acidification.
• All living organisms need nitrogen – it is the key element in proteins. When nitrogen is deficient in the soil, soil organic matter declines resulting in loss of soil health and quality as well as a loss of productivity.

Integrated

It wasn’t until ESN that the concept of controlled-release fertilizer came in our sight. Controlled-release fertilizer is designed to increase nutrient use efficiency. ESN is the leading controlled-release fertilizer factory. It is important to understand how the market values its product with similar functions to FarFarmIA. If a product can do the same thing FarFarmIA does more efficiently, there is no way the stakeholders would benefit from our product. Therefore, finding the value of FarFarmIA, pushing the envelope in current mechanism and making FarFarmIA unique from other competitors is essential.

Through the communication with ESN, we were up to speed with the marked. We mentioned that ESN smart fertilizer had a similar function to us, but there are some limitations to the mechanism. ESN smart fertilizer releases nitrogen at a general rate of the crop absorption rate. The rate was designed to fit some of the major crops, such as wheat. Although it can be applied to other crops, it might not be as efficient under those situations. ESN smart fertilizer release rate is not flexible to adjust due to the difficulty and the cost to adjust the coating. Prosperously, this is not an issue for synthetic biology. Thus, we designed FarFarmIA to be flexible for adjustment. Theoretically, by little change in the sequence, we can fit any kind of crop growth rate. In other words, FarFarmIA can not only be applied to major crops, but also perform well on fruit trees and various crops. Moreover, the downstream can be adjusted to release different kinds of nutrition, while most fertilizer factory provides only a single source of nutrition, like nitrogen. Again, the mechanism is not flexible to adjust. Thus, we designed FarFarmIA to be a flexible fertilizer and can be applied to various crops.

Realizing the agricultural policy is an important aspect to ensure our project being responsible. We consulted the Farmer Association and C.O.A to have a better understanding of agricultural policy and current situation in agriculture.

Consulting the Council of Agriculture (C.O.A), Executive Yuan R.O.C

“The Council of Agriculture is the competent authority on the agricultural, forestry, fishery, animal husbandry and food affairs in Taiwan. Its responsibilities include guiding and supervising provincial and municipal offices in these areas.”₁ Many experts have suggested us to engage with C.O.A for confirming our project could benefit society. They think that our project needs back up from not only the farmers but also the government. Thus, we contacted C.O.A. These are the learning from the talks:

1. Encourage Environment-friendly Farming

   Based on the New Agriculture Innovation Promotion Program, one of the key policies is advocating environment-friendly farming and developing innovation agriculture. C.O.A is now on the progress of decreasing half of the usage of chemical fertilizer in ten years. According to their survey, they noticed that chemical fertilizer has been abused. Over-fertilization would harm the land eventually. For that reason, they are giving lectures to farmers, in order to teach them how to use fertilizer correctly. Moreover, they are providing subsidies for environment-friendly fertilizer.

2. Develop Innovation Agriculture

   C.O.A encourages new technology to apply in agriculture. One of the ultimate goals is to expedite industry structural transformation and create a favorable environment for young talents to return and work in agriculture. For the purpose, C.O.A provides a 40% subsidy for new types of farm machinery. They believe that applying new types of farm machinery can increase the efficiency in farm work.

3. The side-effects of over fertilization can be soil acidification and soil alkalization

   In C.O.A’s research, the side-effects of over-fertilization vary in hillsides and plains. Nowadays, fertilizers are mostly neutral. It contains both acidic material and bases. On the hillside, soil washing happens and bases in the fertilizer will be washed out. Then, acidic material remains and causes soil acidification. In contrast, bases will remain in the soil while plants absorb acidic material-nitrogen-on plains. This causes soil alkalization.

Visiting the Farmer Association in Taiya District, Taichung

To get closer to insights from government institutions, we visited the Farmer Association in the middle of Taiwan.

Key points during the visit:

1. Working Population Aging and Fertilizer use inefficiency are serious problems in Agriculture.
2. The government had great concern on current agriculture issues and supported farmers to apply organic fertilizers in the farmland.
3. What kind of crops can we apply our fertilizer?
4. Orchid is sensitive to over-fertilization. Although it absorbs nutrition frequently, it absorbs only little each time.

Figure.1 Photos with the consultant of farmwork, Taiya Dist. Farmer Association, Taichung

Integrated

Talking to the C.O.A and visiting farmers association had major influences on our project.
We confirmed that over-fertilization and lack of working force are issues that happen not just only in small regions, but also nationwide. Thus, we aim to design our fertilizer flexible to apply on any kind of crops. By that, we can be a countrywide solution of over-fertilization despite the numerous variety of crops growing in Taiwan.
Furthermore, our project has supports from agriculture policies. We had ensured our sensing system design compliances with new-type farm machinery regulation. This would make our sensing system more affordable for farmers.
The most important thing after the talks and visits is that we understand our limitations. After engaging with the farmer association and C.O.A, we considered selecting a kind of crop for demonstrating the effect of fertilizer. In view of the fact that proving might be better than saying. Accordingly, we searched for data on the plant's growth rate under different temperatures. However, we came to a barrier. We found out that if a crop has low economic value or is thin on the ground, it will be extremely hard for us to find a reference paper. We might not be able to modify the fertilizer for those crops since we have little knowledge about them. In conclusion, our fertilizer will be able to match the growth rate perfectly once we know well about the crop. Or else, it will take time for further researches on crops to produce a fertilizer matching the growth rate.

Reference

1. Overview-Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan R.O.C