Team:NCHU Taichung/Implementation

Implementation

Climate Change and Rice Straw Burning

In recent years, climate change has slowly been paid attention to.[1] It can cause many problems, such as increased temperature, early or delayed flowering season, and increased evaporation. Studies have shown that rising temperatures are one of the main culprits for the decline in rice harvests.[2] After we interviewed the farmers, we discovered that we were in a negative situation for a long time. In Taiwan, farmers often dispose of agricultural waste easily by burning, such as the burning of rice straws. In this way, a large amount of greenhouse gases has been produced, which has worsened climate change.[3] It was for this reason that we realized that something must be done to improve the whole situation.

How can we help with Rice Straw Burning: Circular Agriculture!

We found that after the farmers provided rice to consumers, the additional rice straw was often no longer used and discarded. This non-recycling model resulted in a large amount of waste rice straw,[4] which means that resource recycling has become very important. Therefore, in our system, we have added the concept of circular agriculture,[5] hoping to make rice straws useful, so that society does not have to bear the negative effects of burning it, such as driving safety, health and environmental damage.[6] We hope our project can achieve a positive cycle.

How to implement our project in to real world

In our project we use cellulosome to decompose rice straw into saccharified straw liquid and use it to culture an artificial endophyte, which can produce PQQ, a kind of promotion that can foster plant growth.

Security

To reduce the burden on farmers, we can use intelligent agriculture to provide farm managers with a reference for business decision-making. Use smart monitoring to observe and regulate the growth of plants, reduce the burden of farm operations and reduce labor demand.[7] Establish a more efficient farm management model.

Our challenge

We need to learn about private and official information to improve our project.[8] To implement it in real life and enable farmers to use it, we visited many places, including the Info-Tech Services and farmland. After observing, we expect to build a collection center near the farm to gather all the surrounding farmland waste and treat it together to reduce the carbon footprint. The waste is provided by farmers, and we feed back with plant growth promoters. [9]

In terms of security, we have done a lot of research. Finally, it was discovered that gene leakage is one of the main culprits that cause harm to the environment, and there are many uncertainties. Therefore, to be able to implement our project, the PQQ plant growth promoter produced by our project does not contain any bacteria. This way, the doubt of gene leakage can be eliminated.

In our project, we also encountered a lot of challenges. In our integrated HP part, after interviews with farmers, we learned that collecting rice straws is a big problem. For the average farmer in Taiwan, there are only a small number of farmers who can afford the cost of large equipment. Therefore, most of it will still need lots of manpower. As a result, the labor cost is relatively high, so the farmers suggested that we consult the Environmental Protection Agency whether it can use the funds of a program called the "Air Pollution Fund" currently used to deal with air pollution to subsidize the cost of collecting rice straws. In addition, the distribution of material transportation costs is also an issue that we must consider when implementing.

Reference

  1. Hanoi to cease straw burning starting 2021. 2020. Phan Anh. From: https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/hanoi-to-cease-straw-burning-starting-2021-4165596.html
  2. Lin、Kuo and Wu。2011。The Breeding Strategies and Developments of Stress Resistant Rice for Global Warming in Taiwan 。農業試驗所特刊。第156號。66、67
  3. 台東縣環境保護局。2021。稻草再利用網路平台。取自網路www.evec.com.tw/straw/
  4. 林素禎、黃山內、簡宣裕。2010。農業知識庫稻稈掩埋對水稻生長與稻田土壤理化性質之影響。取自網路https://kmweb.coa.gov.tw/knowledgebase.php?id=165914
  5. 倪禮豐。2005。[水稻廢棄資材之利用]。取自網路https://kmweb.coa.gov.tw/knowledgebase.php?func=2&type=13304&id=22620
  6. 農民學院。2018。[苗栗縣]收穫稻草免燒了-苗栗場開發新速效分解菌!。https://academy.coa.gov.tw/theme.php?theme=news&id=news_1538031220
  7. 朱盛祺、王志瑄、蔡正賢。苗栗區農業改良場 特刊第 4 號 ISBN：978-986-5449-92-6。取自網路 https://www.mdais.gov.tw/files/mdais/web_structure/6051/A01_1.pdf
  8. 環保局。2017。外埔堆肥廠轉型綠能生態園區專案報告。取自網路https://www.rdec.taichung.gov.tw/media/209492/762716152971.pdf
  9. 行政院農業委員會苗栗區農業改良場。2021。https://www.mdais.gov.tw/files/mdais/web_structure/6027/A01_1.pdf
  • nchutaichung2021@gmail.com
  • NCHU iGEM Team
  • igem_nchu_taichung
  • NCHU_Taichung
  • NCHU, Taichung, Taiwan