Cooperation

Current Strategies Adopted in Taiwan

Chia-yi Lunwei Fruit and Vegetable Marketing Cooperative

Chia-yi Lunwei Fruit and Vegetable Marketing Cooperative healthy seed potato tubers management model

1. National agricultural authorities (agricultural research and extension station) produce healthy basic potato seeds (G1) by tissue culture
2. Chia-yi Lunwei Fruit and Vegetable Marketing Cooperative carry out generational productions of seed potato tubers through this model.
3. Form basic potato seeds (G1) to super elite potato seeds (G2) production in Lunwei Farm’s greenhouse facilities.

Greenhouse design

1. The design of the greenhouse includes double gates to block the outside environment and disease vectors efficiently.
2. The raised seedbed can reduce cross-contamination from the floor.
3. To prevent contaminations, the facilities utilize clean cultivation containers, sterile soil media and water purification equipment to control water quality.
4. Producing of elite seeds (G3) from super elite seeds (G2) in net house on the Chia-yi Lunwei farm

Sprouting of healthy potato

1. Professionals separate sprouts from seed potato tubers in case of contamination.
2. The structure design of net house to prevent the occurring of pests and diseases
3. Cultivation in screen house
4. Bumper gravest of original seed of potato

Produce certified seed of potato by field cultivation and good management on Chia-yi Lunwei farm

1. To cultivate on suited field and to manage by separated areas
2. To monitor closely and manage infected plants
3. To harvest seed potato tubers and realize inspection and sampling
4. Produce consume potato by field cultivation and good management on Chia-yi Lunwei farm
1. Spraying pesticide
2. Mechanized operation mode
3. Team management

Diversified product development

1. Customized cutting process: diced, shred or chipped
2. Automatic weight grading machine custom products standards
3. Analyze the ratio of weight and size of potatoes and the issue of differentiation; making improvements to standard controls and production stability
4. Professional collection management
5. Refrigerated warehousing

Voluntary certification program

1. Reducing infection and improving breeding quality by cultivating seed potato tubers through consistent operational regulations
2. Barcode management and formal certification has also been adapted to control quality, quantity, registration and tracing.
3. Achieving “Taiwan good agricultural practice” and a “Taiwan agriculture and food traceability system”
4. Publishing information, accepting the need for professional certification and implementing a transparent, traceable and historical cultivation system for the purpose of agricultural product safety
5. Barcode provide information about traceability and production site, producer and production management

Application the detection device into the farm

1. Monitor the moisture by the conductivity
2. Detect salicylic acid to make electric signal to inform farmers
3. Spraying Defensin when the potatoes get infected

International Cooperation and Development Foundation (ICDF) and the Republic of Honduras

Technical cooperation with

1. Taiwan ICDF
2. Directorate of Agriculture Science and Technology, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Taiwan)
3. National Agricultural Health Service, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Honduras)

Potato is a staple food in Honduras. However, the country lacks a healthy seed potato production system, which forces the farmers to import seed potatoes from Guatemala and other countries further afield. In addition to the high price of such imports, the supply of high-quality seed is unstable, as a result of which domestic production cannot be increased. The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Honduras, is attempting to foster local production of healthy seed potatoes and disease detection technology in order to gradually reduce imports. The ultimate goal is to thereby reduce production costs and increase local farmers’ yields of fresh potato that yields meeting domestic demand.

Following project appraisal, the country’s main challenge was identified as the lack of a domestic seed potato supply system. The core problem is that the agricultural sector has not established a national seed production system, nor does it have the technical capacity for disease certification. Given that a seed potato production program has not been developed in Honduras, local farmers must use seed imported from foreign countries, as a result of which producers have boosted direct production costs, since they are not able to guarantee the quality of such seed.

Another project we are going to do is to implant our detection device into their farms.

The main content of this project will include:

1. Establishing a seed potato reproduction center and a healthy seed production and supply station.
2. Enhancing the skills of technicians, strengthening seed reproduction technology and enhancing the cultivation techniques of seed potato producers and local farmers to form a seed potato reproduction system.
3. Adjust a seasonal production of seed potatoes through the introduction of trial studies, seed collection groups and management training, raising production to provide a stable supply of 650 tons of seed per quarter.
4. Making use of our device to their farms in order to suppress the late blight disease.

Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute and Academia Sinica

Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute and Academia Sinica are two of the most well-known research institutions in Taiwan. We signed a contract to get the pathogen, Phytophthora infestans, from Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute and learn how to infect the potato. In our prevention stage, we cooperate with Academia Sinica on the FYVE experiment.

Farmer Outreach

We decided to work on potatoes out of all crops, because like rice and wheat, it’s planted all over the world. Common diseases found in potatoes are bacterial wilt, bacteria soft rot, ring rot and late blight. Recently late blight becomes the most severe disease out of all. We went to interview potato farmers in Taiwan to find out what kind of potatoes they were planting and learned the two main types of potatoes planted in Taiwan are Kennebec and Tainung No. 1. These are the farmers we interviewed. video 1. video 2.

Varieties

1. Kennebec

Kennebec is bred by the United States Department of Agriculture, and is the most common processed potatoes in United States and Canada. Kennebec can be used in making French fries, potato chips, while Tainung NO.1 cannot. Kennebec has shallow and evenly distributed tuberogemmas, thin and yellow skin, green sprout, oval-shaped tubers, and light leave color. Kennebec has a big tuber size, which is generally preferred by people in Taiwan.

However, Kennebec can be easily infected with potato late blight. Now, the best method to prevent infection is to use healthy seed potato to plant, which requires the renewal of potato seeds every year. With a roughly 80 to 100 days to harvest, Kennebec has a shorter planting time than Tainung No.1. It can crop about 25 to 30 tons of potatoes per hectare. Other advantages of Kennebec over Tainung No. 1 are shorter cultivation period, and Taiwan farmers are more familiar with how to plant it.

2. Tainung NO.1

Tainung NO.1 is bred by Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute. It has light yellow and oval-shaped tubers, shallow tuberogemmas, smooth skin, purple sprout, dark green and glossy leaves and smaller stem and leaves comparing with Kennebec. It has strong resistance to late blight, but is susceptible to common scab. It also has very weak thermo-tolerance, so it can’t be plant under high temperature. The best sowing time in Taiwan is during the bottom of October to the top of November.

The biggest problem for Tainung No.1 is reducing sugar produced by starch reacts with asparagine and produces acrylamide under high temperature. Excessive intake of acrylamide may cause cancer or damage nerves. Tainung No. 1 takes about 120 days to harvest, and can yield about 32 to 39 tons of potatoes per hectare. Because potatoes can’t be process and the farmers aren’t familiar with how to plant Tainung, 80% of the farmers still choose Kennebec over Tainung No. 1.

Growth and harvest of Tainung NO.1:

Seed

Potatoes are suitable to grow in wet and cool environment with big temperature difference, sufficient sunlight, and fertile soil. Central South in Taiwan is the best location for such conditions. We visited Taichung, Yunlin and Chiayi, the largest three planting areas of potatoes in Taiwan.

The majority of potatoes are asexually produced. Therefore, the source of seed potatoes determines potato production. Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) and Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station (TSS) are the major agencies responsible for breeding new species and examining healthy seed potatoes.

Healthy seeds potato have to first pass the three-staged certification and production before entering the market. Taiwan Seed Improvement and Propagation Station is responsible for preparing tissue culture and breeding original seed. Farmers associations in different areas will then breed the following generations. After four to five generations, they will sell the tubers to the farmers so the farmers have enough cardinal numbers of potatoes to produce potatoes that meets the demand of the consumers. There is about two thousands hectare of farmland in Taiwan, capable to produce about two to three tons per hectare.

Difficulty

The shortage of healthy seed potato supply

Currently only 60% of healthy seed potatoes are produced in Taiwan, and the remaining 40% are mainly from imports. This leads to several serious problems. First, since potatoes are mainly asexually produced, it’s easier for virus/disease to influence the next generation, thus decrease thirty to fifty percent of production. The imported potatoes, however, do not go through three-staged certification and production system, so it’s more likely to carry pathogens. The uninspected potatoes will also deliver pathogen to healthy seed potatoes by hybridization, and lead to new diseases. Imported potatoes that carry the pathogen is what cause the late blight outbreak in 1997, the largest outbreak in Taiwan.

The short planting period

High temperature inhibits potatoes growth, so farmers need to harvest their potatoes before March. Limited by the space of frozen storage device, there is a period of blank supply in August.

The pressure of opening imported potatoes

Because the shortage of potatoes in Taiwan, potato factories often end up importing potatoes. Therefore, agricultural agencies are pressured to allow the import of potatoes. However, to avoid disease from transferring, it is better to prohibit importing potatoes from places that have similar environments with Taiwan. Also, over-reliance on imports would affect local farmers’ contract farming and income.

Law Regulation

We genetically modified our potatoes in the prevention stage of the project, so we carefully read through and abide by GMO regulations to ensure our project is legal. Also, we advocate for juristic modification.

GMO planting regulation

In Taiwan, there are two procedures to test GMO products. One is called “genetic characteristics investigation”, which tests if the gene sequence that will be transplanted constantly express generations. The other one is called “biosafety assessment”. For this we assess the environment to see whether or not our GMO potatoes would cause an effect on their ecology.

Environmental regulation

We checked environmental regulations to see whether or not spraying defensin is feasible. We inspected the restrictions on pesticide use, in order to understand the juristic restrictions we’ll face in the future.

GMO food regulation

Our ultimate goal is to supply healthier, safer, and cheaper potatoes to the market. Therefore, we need to learn the regulations on GMO food and how they are inspected. Since Taiwan’s government is still setting rules for GMO food regulations, we voice our opinions to the government. We contacted with government officials and suggested them to comply with WTO labeling method on GMO food. The new law was passed in 2015 June.

WTO regulation

• The significance of international trade regulation appropriateness
• To reconcile different system of values and policies
• To construct a reasonable systemic thinking
• Genetic modified food management measures including
• Labeling
• Check and registration
• Tracking system
• The principles of SPS and TBT agreements in WTO

Rule

As a member of WTO, Taiwan is required to comply with the following two rules:

1. What is SPS?

It is short for Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.

• The principles of scientific evidences: Every country can have its own standards, but related regulations and methods to quarantine should follow scientific evidences.
• The principle of necessity: It is a necessary to protect human and other creatures’ lives or health.
• The allowance of temporary measures: When the scientific evidences are not sufficient, members can adopt some temporary measures to quarantine and check. However, members should try to get more information to carry out objective risk assessment and inspect the temporary measure within certain days.
• The principle of non-discrimination: The measures cannot inhibit the products from same or similar countries or treat them unfairly (inclusive of hidden discrimination).
•  The principle of international standard: It encourages the members to adopt the international standard and suggestion. However, if members can offer scientific evidences, such as proper risk assessment, they can adopt stricter protecting measures.
  
  
2. What is TBT agreement?

It is short for the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement.

• The purpose of TBT is different from SPS: One country can adopt necessary measures to ensure the quality of export goods or protect human or other creatures’lives or health and also prevent fraud. The principle of non-discrimination: Under the same circumstances, it is allowed to adopt every proper measure if it will not cause any inequality or hidden limitation. It is also called Most Favored Nation (MFN).
• The principle of necessity: Ensure the technical regulations and standard including packaging, labeling and contents declaration. Comply with technical regulations’ procedures and standard to open up international trade
• The principle of avoiding unnecessary detention: Determine if it complies with the procedure, including sampling, testing and examination. And also making assessment, certification, promise-complaint, registration, approval and legalization should avoid unnecessary detention.

Possible controversies caused by labeling regulations

On industrial aspects

The new law lowered the permissible amount of unintentionally mingled genetic modified ingredients from five to three percent. Importers must purchase devices and improve the process to reduce unintentionally mingled genetic modified ingredients. In Taiwan, the amount of imported non-genetic modified agricultural raw materials is 100-fold less than other Asian countries. If we lower the permissible amount of genetic modified ingredients, it will also lower the amount of non-genetic modified raw materials. As a result, it will impact our current used food supply. Non-genetic modified materials are more expensive than genetic modified materials, so the price may incline due to the regulations.

On legal aspects

The purpose of labeling regulation is not only for food safety but to provide consumers with the chance to choose GMO products. According to the Food Sanitation and Safety Regulation, authorities should satisfy the human right of pursuing food safety and sanitation and also the right to know about the product they’re purchasing. It must comply with EU standards to label the genetic modified food. Furthermore, labeling problem is involved in TBT agreement. Consumers’ right is established in Treaties of European Union. Consumers are not the passive beneficiaries of food safety policies but the subjective participants. Consumers’ right includes health protection, safety, economic interests, information power, educational right and option agreement. Labeling regulation is a sort of food identity. The purpose is to improve option agreement for consumers.

The disputing point

The discrimination between intentional and unintentional

Everyone who adds genetic modified materials intentionally into a product, within any amount (even though it is lower than three percent), should label the product with “genetic modified” sign. To consumers, intentionally or unintentionally generally won’t make a difference if the genetic modified materials are fewer than three percent. Therefore, is it really necessary to differentiate intentional and unintentional? Besides, there are no sufficient evidences indicating lower percentage (three percent) of unintentional genetic modified addition achieves a different effect.

The labeling object changes from the result to the producing procedure.

For high-level processed products, even though they do not include genetic modified sequence, they still need to label “The product is processed by genetic modified materials, yet it do not include genetic modified ingredient”. There is no procedure to examine if the sources contain genetic modified materials for high-level processed products. However, we can examine the sources by strict tracking system.

The legal basis of check, registration and border inspection

According to the Food Sanitation and Safety Regulation, if the material before didn’t pass risk assessment, genetically modified food can’t be sell to the market.

In terms of the registration before the product are sell to the market, if our nation has the raw material certified by certain international standards, the raw material can be processed to processed food without another certification .If the raw material is not given the certification, it cannot be used to be the material of processed food in our nation. TFDA does sample survey on commercial available food every year. They check if those foods comply with labeling regulation.

Border inspection

According to the Food Sanitation and Safety Regulation, imported genetic modified products with the certification should be classified into Customs Classification of Products Columns. Importer should apply inspection to the authorities and declare the information of the products.

The estimation of border inspection

Both domestic and foreign companies should carry out inspection, so it complies with the principle of non-discrimination. However, there is no genetic modified raw material produced in Taiwan, therefore, the regulation only effects foreign companies. Moreover, in order to avoid our product being hold under inspection, we must go through the risk assessments that take an average of a year to go through. It is necessary to focus on the number of the cases reviewed and the time that takes for assessing in order to avoid unnecessary detention.

Tracking

The purpose:

• When there are problems on food safety, it’s easier to know the source fo the product
• Enhance monitoring quality
• Strengthen risk assessment under the concept of prevention
• Correct labeling ensures consumers to get correct information for them to select.
• The information circulation between companies is the basis of tracking.

Conclusion

The genetic modified food regulation in Taiwan does not violate SPS or TBT in general. Some details can be adjusted to avoid controversy. The food safety regulation should clarify consumers’ right to know and select by implanting the labeling system. It can not only strengthen the food safety system but ensure the coordination to international trade regulation.

Economic

According to one farmer we interviewed, economic benefit is equally important to fighting the late blight disease. Therefore, we need to show that our improved potatoes are beneficial to the farmers.

Price

The potatoes produced in Taiwan have over eighty percent of market share, and the output value is about six hundred million NTD, roughly twenty million USD. The average price of potatoes is about one dollar per kilogram. It will increase to its peak in November and then decrease.

Marketing

Potatoes are either sell as fresh or processed potatoes. The latter one accounts for the majority. The planting period is about 90 to 120 days. After harvest, the farmers can either sell it or store them in the fridge under 4 degrees Celsius up to two years. Since farmers are able to predict the production of potatoes, selling potatoes is a programmed marketing.

Phases

We can generalize the stages of processed potatoes marketing into three parts: planting phase, harvest phase, and storage phase.

•  Planting phase: This is around August to November. Farmers started to prepare for planting potatoes. The potatoes produced previous years are almost sold out, and the fresh ones aren’t cropped yet. Therefore, potatoes reach its highest price in this phase.
  
  
•  Harvest period: It is about December to March. In this phase, the potatoes in the first period are successively cropped. Those potatoes will influx in the market, so the price is decreasing.
  
  
•  Storage phase: It is about April to August. In this phase, in addition to supply the demand of the market, the most parts of potatoes will be stored to be frozen vegetables in order to balance the price of vegetables responding to the insufficient supply of summer vegetables when we meets some typhoon or other disaster. The price in this phase will slightly increase back to the average.

Public Outreach

For education, we put in a lot of effort in promoting iGEM’s central value and how our project will affect our society. We go to school from primary to senior high (and of course university) to tell them how we can use the biobricks to build a new biological system. We even made a picture book to let younger kids understand what we have done. Furthermore, we published article on magazines to educate the public about related issues and iGEM. We taught children on the basics of synthetic biology and iGEM. Videos 3.

To make the public know more about our iGEM project, we submit a piece of writing to Scientific American. We mainly introduce what iGEM is, how this project really works, and the reason we put our effort in potato late blight. We also have a brief introduction of potato late blight. Furthermore, we depicted our everyday life in lab and how we conduct paper research. We want to emphasize that science is not only staying in the lab but it is also essential to pay lots of effort in policy and practice to raise public awareness.

Newsletter

Newsletter is a publication which is released by Amoy. The contents of newsletter include introduction of team and project, and a question. The question we deal with is the current situation and the future of synthetic biology. We investigated statistics in IGEM to examine the current situation of synthetic biology. The following is what is written in newsletter.

Distribution of iGEM Teams

The United States, followed by China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, respectively, has the greatest scientific output in the field of biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology. With a few exceptions, countries with the most paper published in this field also has the highest number of iGEM teams. However, the country currently with the most iGEM teams is China, not the US. Although the US is the origin of iGEM and has increased steadily in participation, the growth rate of Asia’s participation is substantially faster than US’s.

By comparing the number of iGEM teams in different countries and regions in 2015, we are able to deduce two factors that influence the abundance of iGEM teams: economy and education. The hypothesis of population directly correlating to the number of iGEM teams is incorrect, as demonstrated in the iGEM population in Asia. With a total of 102 teams in Asia, China with 55 teams, Japan with 9, and Taiwan with 9, are the three Asia countries with the most iGEM teams. Although China has one of the largest populations in the world, however, Japan and Taiwan have considerably less. This shows that the number of iGEM teams is not directly correlated to population. On the other hand, economy is strongly correlated to the number of iGEM teams. GDP, or Gross domestic product, is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country. According to trading economics, China had a GDP of 9240.27 (USD billion) in 2014, no doubt the largest GDP value in Asia. Japan in 2014 had a GDP of 4901.00, easily standing as the second strongest economy in Asia. Taiwan, although with GDP of 489.21, however, it is experiencing a steady GDP annual growth rate of 3.47% in 2013, and 3.38% in 2014. Egypt and South Africa both have a significantly larger population than Taiwan and Japan, yet they only have one iGEM team each. Looking into their GDP value, Egypt had a GDP of 271.97, with a decline of GDP annual growth rate. South Africa’s GDP was 350.63, with a low GDP annual growth rate.

Another factor that contributes to the number of iGEM teams is education. This year the United States has a total of 60 iGEM teams. California with nine teams, along with New York and Massachusetts, both with six teams, are the three states with the most iGEM teams in United States. On the contrary, Oregon, Colorado, and Illinois each only has one. By comparing this data to the major universities distribution in United States (see Appendix A), the three states with the most teams – California, New York, and Massachusetts – all have a high distribution of major universities. While Oregon, Colorado, and Illinois with only one team have no major universities. The positive correlation of prestigious universities and the number of teams shows how education is an important factor.

Growth of iGEM Teams

　　　　Over the past five years, there has been a growth of iGEM teams throughout the world. Two major factors for the growth of iGEM teams are the development of synthetic biology and the quality of education. USA has been the leading position of synthetic biology R&D ever since the early 2000s, meaning it has the most synthetic biology institutes in the world. As a result, USA has the most iGEM team every year. Other countries with advanced synthetic biology research such as Germany, France, Japan, and UK have more iGEM teams than the other countries in their regions. In fact, countries in the top ranking on GERD (gross expenditure on R&D)—US, Japan, Germany, China, and UK respectively—all have more iGEM teams than other countries do: China and Japan have the most teams in Asia; Germany and UK have the most teams in Europe in the past five years. The numbers of iGEM teams in these countries have been growing steadily as their research in synthetic biology developed throughout the years.

　　 　　According to Appendix B, the development and investment in GERD is proportional to the growth of iGEM teams in a country. For example, the number of iGEM teams established in China grew steadily over the past five years from 17 teams in 2010 to 55 teams in 2015. As shown in the graph below, the percent of increase in GERD has been growing rapidly in China ever since 2004, thus providing an explanation for the growth in iGEM teams.

　　　Education also serves as a factor of the distribution of iGEM teams. According to QS World University ranking, 47 out of the top 50 university in biological sciences major have participated in iGEM in the past five years. Therefore, we conclude that higher ranking universities in biology related major tend to establish iGEM teams. Schools with better reputation and funding for biological science have more incentive to join the iGEM competition.

　　In conclusion, the two main factors for the growth of iGEM team numbers are the development in synthetic biology and education. Further research and improved education on biological science are incentives for school to join iGEM competition.

Synthetic biology’s future

Synthetic biology is bringing together engineers and biologists to design and build novel bio-molecular components, networks and pathways, and to use these constructs to rewire and reprogram organisms will change our lives over the coming years, revolutionizing our lifestyles. Using stored information and basic materials to grow very complex things, synthetic biology strives to make molecular biology more like engineering, with characterized materials and parts put together in predictable ways. One of the most amazing things about synthetic biology is how advanced the tools and components of its trade have already become. A continuously growing collection of genetic parts that can be mixed and matched to build synthetic biology devices. With demonstrations on synthetic cells, scientists now have a lot of tools to edit an existing genetic sequence on a computer, use DNA synthesizing machines to create it in fragments, and stitch these together in the lab. However, it’s still difficult to predict what cells will do after they’re altered. Researchers are often stymied by cells’ natural drive to grow and live as they please, which in many cases must be overcome to harness them for certain use in an efficient method. One of the biggest hurdles lies in the creation and assembly of starting materials, modular bits of DNA that code for a particular function and are synthesized in the lab. Creating this DNA is time consuming and expensive. Like any commercial product, it must be designed, built, and tested. Even making relatively small changes can take a lot of work, time and money.

DNA synthesis has to be cheap, fast, predictable, accurate, and open to all, including researchers whose labs lack equipment or funding.

The engineering of genetic circuits, biological modules, and synthetic pathways is beginning to address these crucial problems and is being used in related practical application. If human beings could similarly learn to build and control novel living systems, synthetic biology could then trigger a biotech revolution.

Camp

In order to promote IGEM, we invite high school student to come to National Yang Ming University. We introduce the current situation of synthetic biology and let them know more about IGEM. After that, we introduced our project to them and answer any questions regarding iGEM or our project itself. Later we distribute IGEM into four parts and introduce one by one. The four parts are wet lab, dry lab, wiki and policy & practice. By this, they can clearly understand what will do if they join in IGEM. The schedule is as following.

2015/08/15 (Saturday)

10:00~10:30 Check in
10:30~11:00 Introduction of IGEM Introducing what IGEM and synthetic biology are
11:10~12:00 Introduction of our 2015 NYMU iGEM project Including NYMU team presentation and Q&A
12:00~13:00 Lunch pizza
13:00~13:30 Lab tour
Introducing the environment of the wet lab
13:40~14:10 Introduction of wet lab
Introducing basic knowledge of DNA cloning and what will be done in wet lab
14:10~14:40 Introduction of policy & practice Introducing the importance of policy & practice and how to do it
14:50~15:50 Introduction of dry lab Showing what modeling/simulation is and why we do modeling
16:00~16:30 Introduction of wiki
Introducing what wiki organization is better
Introducing good wiki examples and show how they are organized
16:30 Go home

To know the efficiency of the camp, we make a questionnaire. We find out that the percentage of thinking this camp is helpful is over 60% in every aspect.

Non government organization/ public

We contacted lots of non government organizations, not only to promulgate our project but also to get support from their resources, in order to get public’s attention. We also attended numerous forums to gather opinions from different perspectives.

"Buy Directly From Farmers"

“Buy Directly From Farmers” is a group dedicated to Taiwanese farmers since 2010 and officially registered as a social enterprise in 2014. Our goal is to connect the potato farmers with this association to provide a solution for a sound environment, creating a harmonious relationship between the city and countryside. We want to bring positive change into the world by letting them understand how their lifestyle and eating habits impact the environment, industry structure and the way that food is grown. We believe only the cooperation between potato farmers and consumers will result in a comprehensive environmental and food evolution. We hope our efforts will jumpstart new jobs for a new generation not only for potato industry but the whole agricultural system, providing youth with viable options in their hometown for a sustainable and promising future in agriculture.

Goal

Our concrete appeal is to

1. Create a new value and enhance the new position of agriculture.
2. Reduce the pollution of the chemical pesticide gradually
3. Solve the problem of imbalance in non programming marketing and over production
4. Increase information of transparency of farmers, empower farmers to have more confidence and hold responsibility in their products
5. Rebuild a better and fair relationship between farmers and consumers
6. Create new jobs for new generation, provide youth with viable job opportunities in their hometowns instead of forcing them into cities
7. Improve the quality of life through Eco-friendly agriculture
8. Create a new generation of consumers who place priority on a healthy and sustainable environment and in turn by themselves

Forums

We participate a lot of forum in order to tell others about reducing pesticide use, potatoes species improvement, how to defend late blight, gene modify technology and so on. We exchange our idea with the participants and also adjust our projects based on their . We tried to exert our influence toward farmers, government, researchers, and the public. We hope that our project can practically carry out and make good use.

Abroad

Our team member Amy went to Germany this summer. Since the main crops grown in Germany are potatoes, she talked to people she met about our project “Fight the Blight”. She introduced our project and iGEM with professors and native instructors, asking some questions about the issues on GMO in Germany. She also asked for some advice on our project design and shared creative ideas with local people. Although Germans mostly are opposed to consuming genetically modified food, they still look forward to the progress of our project and gave us warm encouragements.

John Tung

We invited the manager of food and nutrition group in John Tung Foundation. She advocate that the consumers have the right to be clear to know the ingredient in the product in order to choose the thing they want, such as GM food labeling, which can ensure consumers know more information about the products. We also call on the regulations of the usage of pesticide. We hope that pesticide management can meet the same standard to the GM food regulation. Moreover, at the planting and processing stage, we also need to do some monitor on both GM and pesticide products.

Introducing iGEM to high school students

This year two of our team members went back to their high school to introduce iGEM to the TGS high school students. First, we brief them on what iGEM was; these high school students did have biology class and had a pretty good idea about what we were working on. Then everything went smoothly and we were really happy that they showed great interest in the project and the teachers were willing to lead an iGEM team next year.

Late Blight in China

Background

Our project this year is an integrated disease control on potato late blight, a disease caused by the infection of Phytophthora infestans and is one of the most devastating diseases from which the potato suffer. It causes more than 17 billion USD of losses in grain production; locally, the potato late blight results in over one billion USD of agricultural losses in our country. We have launched an investigation into the genetic varieties of potatoes, breeding of new strains, current cultivation methods and status quo, disease control on potato late blight, and economic circulation as well as government policy and legislation in mainland China.

Potato has been cultivated and bred for 14000 years and was first discovered and planted by indigenous people of South America. It was introduced to China via Silk Road in the Ming dynasty. French calls potato "pomme de terre", which literally means “earthen apple”; Russian calls it “the second bread”. There are more than 150 countries that plant potatoes, with total planting area more than 21.55 million hectares and the total yield over 3.2 hundred million tons. The planting area in China is about 3.5 to 4.7 million hectares, accounting for 23-33% of the planet’s surface area. The total production of potatoes in China is 60 -70 million tons, which is about 18% of the total production and is the highest in the world. Currently the production density is 15 thousand kilograms per hectare in China; yet according to the research of experts, the theoretical production is 40-80 thousand kilograms per hectare. According to research, potatoes contain the most vitamins among crops. In America and Europe, the average consumption per person is over 80 kilograms per year. The average consumption of potatoes in China is about 32.1 kilograms, with the three major provinces producing potatoes being Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Guiyang.

From data analysis, we know that the ratio of the input to the output is 1:4 for potato,1:2.5 for soya, and 1:2 for barley. One hectare of potato gives us twice the production of crops in equivalent and three times the output value of crops. The water use efficiency of potatoes is eight times that of wheat and corn. 60% of arable land in China is in water shortage, and is only suitable for planting potatoes to obtain high yield. There are ten provinces with planting areas over 20 thousand hectares: Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Gansu, Heilongjiang, Chongqing, Shan3xi, Sichuan, Shan1xi, Yunnan, Hubei.

Potato

Potatoes grow better under cool conditions. The best temperature for the sprouting of tubers is at 18°C, and the suitable temperature for stems and leaves to grow is 17-21°C. The lowest bearable temperature is 7°C, while the highest bearable temperature is 25-27°C. In germination period supernumerary water supply is not required. However during blossoming period the requirement for water will reach the peak; once the water supply is not enough, the tuber cannot grow big enough. Excessive rain fall in the later stages of growth will make the potatoes more susceptible to infection.

Variety

Imported varieties

• Atlantic: late-maturing variety, anti-PVX and PLRV, high starch content, storable. Mainly used for frying potato chips.
• Faudio-videoorita (also known as the Dutch potato): precocious high-yielding variety, anti-potato virus Y and leaf virus, potato virus A and tumor disease immunity. Storable, good eating quality.
• Gannongshu One: early-maturing variety, growth period of about 65 days, resistant against leaf virus, early blight, ring rot disease, and late blight to certain degree.
• Taiwan Redskins (imported from Holland): late-maturing variety, deep purple stems, develop moderate infection of late blight with tubers more resistantt, moderately anti-scab, drought tolerance, high yield.

Domestically bred late-blight-resistant varieties

• Zhongshu five: early-maturing variety, resistance.
• Yue potato one: late-maturing variety, high resistance to late blight, anti-degeneration.
• Kexin one: late-maturing variety, drought and flood tolerant.
• Kexin thirteen: late-maturing variety, good eating quality.

Domestically bred non-late-blight-resistant varieties

• Dongnong 303(particularly early-maturing variety, flood tolerant, but sensitive to late blight.)
• Zhongshu two (particularly early-maturing variety, anti leaf virus.)
• Zhongshu three(early-maturing variety,70 days to heaviest, good eating quality.)
• Kexin four(early-maturing variety,70 days to heaviest, somehow anti disease.)

Currently there are several ways to obtain new varieties. Firstly, after screening and identification, introduce new varieties from other countries and find out what can be used for production and directly popularize it. Secondly, cross breeding by artificial hybridization conserves beneficial traits in hybrids, the main methods of which are relative hybridization, interspecific hybridization, far source hybridization and so on. Thirdly, radiation breeding uses physical methods to induce mutation. Fourth, natural variability selective breeding and natural seeds seedling breeding.

Current Situations on Potato Breeding

The world's major cultivated types of potatoes are tetraploid species and the heredity is complex. As the choice of genotypes can only rely on the selection of phenotypes, the efficiency of choice is poor.

Common breeding methods are pedigree act and backcross methods, yet these methods have difficulty in making breakthroughs. Other methods include wild type hybridization, which is a method transferring diploid wild type into tetraploid; this method provided resources and expanded the potato gene pool, but its drawbacks are difficulties in hybridization and infertility. Somatic cell hybridization is an effective way to solve hybrid incompatibility.

Another method available nowadays is genetic engineering, which helps transfer genes that benefit survival—for instance resistance genes—into the potato varieties we have. Isozymes can be used to evaluate and identify different varieties of potatoes.

Late Blight

The one billion annual loss in China

For the 2014 late blight, Yunnan, northwest, north and northeast China are main areas suffering from this epidemic, the incidence area are over 233 hectares.

Use of resistant varieties is one of the basic measures to prevent potatoes from late blight; however the mainly used varieties are always not resistant to late blight. Potato late blight spreads rapidly under suitable conditions, and the most commonly adopted strategy is the use of fungicides, which may lead to other severe problems such as environmental pollution, development of resistant strains, etc.

Prevention of late blight

Sowing prevention:

Breeding resistant varieties is one of the efficient ways to prevent late blight. Since the seed virus is the only source of infection, lands without virus can greatly reduce the infection rate. Prevent continuously growing crops of the Solanaceae family, apply crop rotation with plants of the Brassicaceae family for more than three years. Prepare soil, choose high terrain and planting land with good drainage, elevate potassium concentrations to increase resistance. In each stage closely monitor the sowing seeds: eliminate infected tubers; small seed sowing is recommended.

Growth prevention:

Earth up the potatoes in the late growing period to keep spores from infecting tubers. Once the stem is infected, mow it immediately and harvest after 2-3 days of exposure to sunlight. Rational close planting can improve ventilation and light conditions and reduce humidity in the fields. Apply protective drug prevention before the onset of the disease and adopt chemical treatment after the onset. In early stage of late blight, immediately remove the infected plant. Spray pesticides within 30-50 m of the infected plant.

Storage prevention:

One week before harvest, kill the seedlings, clean out the stems and leaves, clear them out of the fields, and choose a sunny day for harvest. Enhance ventilation during storage, with the temperature controlled between 1-4 °C and the humidity no higher than 75%.

Trading

The cost of planting potato is about 11226 RMB(CNY) per hectare, the average total revenue is about 14344.5 RMB(CNY) per hectare, average gross revenue is about 3118.5 RMB(CNY) per hectare. It means the net revenue of 1 kilograms potato is 0.15 RMB(CNY).

From place of production to the market, the expenditure is shown below: First, cost of acquisition, 15-20 RMB(CNY) per ton. Second, cost of transport, 272.1 RMB(CNY) per ton. Third, cost of handling, 37.6 RMB(CNY) per ton. Fourth, cost of marketing, 25 RNB(CNY) per ton. Fifth, interest of broker, 15.9 RMB(CNY) per ton. Total 368.1 RMB(CNY) per ton.

National policy and related units

Nowadays, one of the main problem is that fund investment from the government is in serious shortage. Currently private investment has excelled 2 billion RMB(CNY) but governmental investment is less than 0.2 billion RMB(CNY). It takes about 10 years to breed potato varieties; yet as the governmental investment in science and technology is rather scarce, this section seems more like a nonprofit research. China launched a subsidy program in 2009, 500 RMB(CNY) for stock seed per 1/15 hectare, 100 RMB(CNY) for first grade stock seed.

The money subsided is less than 1/3 of the cost. What is more, potato varieties degenerates quickly and should be renewed in time. It makes more money using virus-free seeds, about 150-200 RMB(CNY)per 1/15 hectare. Without the subsidy of government, peasantry would not like to buy the virus-free seeds.

Future Work

• Replace the constitutive promoter with a specific promoter that’s induced by phytophthora infestans
• Transfect the construct gene into the potato
• Purify Defensin for real life applications
• Setting up the spraying systems in the field