Team:Wageningen UR/Human Practices
Integrated Human Practices
“Not one brand of stakeholder can fix the problem” – Dr. Beth Ventura, animal welfare scientist
The importance of human practices
One can develop something new, but innovating responsibly, that is something different. Responsible innovation implies the consideration of the role a product or process would have in society. For Cattlelyst to serve nature and citizens, we integrated ideas, wishes and needs of our stakeholders. We have taken our project to farmers, politicians, legislators, experts, and ethicists, and with their involvement, we have been able to shape our project. On this page, you can follow our integrated human practices journey in detail.
Curious to read more about the interviews we did? Click on the pictures.
Understand the problem
Truly understanding the problem you want to solve is half of the solution. Some people would even argue that problem defining is the most important half. Guided by the iGEMers guide to the future, we were able to understand the breadth and depth of the nitrogen crisis by creating a problem tree (Figure 1). The problem tree illustrates links between causes and consequences surrounding the problem: there is too much reactive nitrogen in the atmosphere. More information about the causes and consequences can be found on the Background page.
“Given one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes finding the solution.” - Albert Einstein
Dealing with plenty of complexity, we used the problem tree to assess where a SynBio innovation could be most impactful. We found that in the Netherlands, 60% of total released fixed nitrogen consists of ammonia and 90% of this originates from animal husbandry [1]. To halt the ammonia emissions, the Dutch government is threatening to reduce livestock held by half and as a result, many farmers will lose their businesses.
Define a good solution
Hitting two birds with one stone
Once we knew that the livestock sector was the largest contributor to the issue, we decided to focus on ammonia emissions specifically. This choice was particularly relevant as farmers have been placed in a bad light over the past decades, yet, not only because of their contribution to the nitrogen crisis. Farm animals, cattle in particular, produce considerable amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that directly contributes to global warming. We wanted to know whether there is a need to focus on both gasses. Therefore, we interviewed experts researching livestock and environment at Wageningen University & Research (WUR): Dr. ir Karin Groenestein and Rik Maasdam.
Current technical solutions for one gas are simply not suitable for the other. Dr. ir Karin Groenestein illustrated this issue, if one wants to mitigate ammonia emissions, manure could easily be stored in an air-tight vessel. Unfortunately, a closed space causes methane concentration to build up, risking explosion of the storage tank which is dangerous for both animals and humans. Nevertheless, we cannot afford to reduce methane emissions and neglect ammonia emissions, “that is out of the question” stated Dr. ir Karin Groenestein. She also introduced us to other challenges of the livestock sector, namely the emissions of nitrous oxide, odor and particulate matter. Together with ammonia and methane, these are the so-called Big 5. These interviews strengthened our commitment to convert both methane and ammonia, thereby hitting two birds with one stone.
Why do we need Cattlelyst
During our interviews with Dr. ir Karin Groenestein, the company Lely, T. Hoefnagel, Fons Janssen, Prof. Dr. ir. Peter Groot Koerkamp and Rik Maasdam we also learned about the current solutions equipped to reduce livestock’s methane and ammonia emissions. Think of mechanical separation and storage of the solid and liquid phases of the manure, animal diet modifications and animal masks. Being taught about these approaches, we learned about their shortcomings, which allowed us to design a suitable solution to tackle the problem.
Current solutions for ammonia
Ammonia escapes when manure and urine come into contact. The enzyme urease, originating from cattle manure, quickly converts urinal urea into ammonia within two hours. A technique to limit ammonia emissions is mechanical separation of manure and urine, which should occur continuously. Although manure can be continuously collected manually or by robot, small amounts containing urease can accumulate in small crevices. If this comes into contact with urine, urease activity will result in ammonia production.
Preventing ammonia from being formed is technically very challenging with mechanical methods, according to Dr. ir Karin Groenestein, and is simply not efficient enough. Other separation techniques include: cow toilets and cows being potty trained, which directly affects animal behavior and increases the workload of the farmers. You are a farmer 24/7, hence additional tasks would decrease the amount of time spent to other tasks. Thus, these methods can be considered as time consuming. Although all of these methods can decrease the potential of ammonia being produced, they provide no solution when ammonia is produced.
Another alternative to reduce the ammonia emitted from cows is diet modification. By lowering the amount of protein in their feed, less urea will end up in the urine. This plan was initially proposed by the Dutch government as a potential measure to lower ammonia emissions in the Netherlands, but farmers protested against it. Hence, it would impair the animal’s health and reduce the quality of the milk, which was also backed up by veterinarians. Eventually, the minister of agriculture, decided to cancel this plan.
Lastly, chemical ammonia filters, referred to as air scrubbers, have already been implemented in chicken and pig stalls according to Volt party member Fons Janssen. All the air is fed through these filters and by means of a chemical reaction, the ammonia is removed. For these systems to work, closed stalls are required, which is accepted for poultry and pigs stalls. However, for cattle, closed systems are generally not accepted. This is because natural ventilation ensures proper cooling of cattle according to Korstiaan Blokland from Lely. To circumvent investment costs and impairing animal wellbeing by closing up existing open stables, Lely developed the Lely Sphere. By means of negative pressure the system can remove the air from the manure storage. Subsequently, the ammonia is removed through a chemical filter placed outside of the stall. Although the Lely Sphere is applicable to contemporary cattle stalls, it is not designed to remove methane as well.
Current solutions for methane
There are two sources of methane for farm animals: the manure and the gastrointestinal tract. The vast majority of methane emissions originates from the gastrointestinal tract, hence we aimed to develop a system reducing these methane emissions specifically.
A solution directly aiming at reducing enteric emissions are masks for animals to wear. When methane escapes through the cow’s breath, it is oxidized in situ. We interviewed Dr. Beth Ventura, animal welfare ethicist at University of Minnesota. During this interview we learned that cows are very behavioral animals. Cows are inquisitive, very social, and very sensitive towards changes. Hence, they could not feel comfortable wearing a mask to capture methane. To preserve animal wellbeing it is imperative for us to develop a solution that does not invade the animals’ day-to-day life.
Another possible way of limiting enteric methane emissions is by modification of the cows diet. Various feed additives are being investigated for their methane reducing abilities, such as seaweed and nitrate supplements. However, using feed additives comes with risks. The amounts of additive ingested are hard to regulate and overfeeding can cause toxicity or even death. Moreover, the emission reduction is mostly temporary [2].
By also visiting the farm of F. van Boxtel, we realized that although multiple technical innovations are developed towards the right direction, they do not tick all boxes yet.
But, what does a good solution look like?
We talked to dairy farmer Durk Bakker to gain understanding of what he thinks are important qualities of a good solution. His willingness to invest in Cattlelyst depended on three things: efficiency, increased animal welfare, and time. Time is very precious he told us, You are a farmer 24/7, and all additional tasks are simply added to the already busy daily routine.
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Through our conversations with stakeholders we were able to identify core characteristics of a good solution:
Labor intensity
Separation techniques can be a 24/7 job, which steals away time that could be spent elsewhere on the farm. And still, ammonia can escape from the cattle stalls.
Conversion efficiency
Current measures to prevent ammonia production are not fully effective. Due to the quick dynamics of urease, ammonia can still be produced and escape. We learned from Dr. ir. Karin Groenestein that by 2030, the required reduction for ammonia emissions is 85% and for methane a reduction of 55%. In 2050, methane emissions should even be reduced by 95%. However, she also stressed that this is very hard to attain by the livestock sector. Capturing the enteric methane of cattle is technically difficult.
Safe
A solution should be safe for the cows, the farmers and the environment.
Preserving animal wellbeing
Cows are very behavioral, we learned that devices affecting their day-to-day life impact animal wellbeing.
Combined solution
Tackle multiple issues with one solution, none of the existing implementations are developed towards all or the majority of the big 5: ammonia, methane, nitrous oxide, odor and particulate matter.
Ideation
With our human practices work we were able to demarcate what our innovation should look like to fulfill the desired role for society. Responsible innovation requires to fully understand this role. Thus, there are 5 characteristics to be taken into account when developing our SynBio solution.
When reading about the big 5, we learned that biofilters have shown to be successful in removing odor and particulate matter. Given that biofilters depend on microbial communities we saw the opportunity to extend these filters with microbes capable of removing methane and ammonia, the latter without producing nitrous oxide. At the moment, biofilter systems for ammonia and methane have their limitations hampering their implementation.
- Microbial ammonia removal
A complex process which heavily depends on the interplay of two distinct microbes operated in completely different conditions.
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Click here to read more
arrow_downwardTo remove ammonia with bacteria, nitrification/denitrification based biological systems are most widely implemented. In these systems, nitrification and denitrification still occur separately [3,4]. The overall process is costly and complex as nitrification requires heavy aeration, and denitrification often requires the addition of a carbon source.
- Microbial methane removal:
Generally, methane conversion rates are too low for feasible implementation of such systems.
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Click here to read more
arrow_downwardTo further investigate the methane biofilter design, we interviewed prof. dr. ir. Peter Groot Koerkamp, professor agrotechnology at WUR. We learned that biofilters reducing methane emissions have been studied in great detail, and saw one being developed with natural methanotrophs on the farm of F. van Boxtel. Nevertheless, the models predict that the size of these systems is a great bottleneck for implementation. To decrease the size of a biofilter, the rate of conversion of methane should increase, by 10- to 20-fold. The need to increase the conversion rate provided the rationale to why we are engineering our bacteria through synthetic biology. The Cattlelyst bacteria are designed to convert more methane within the same time. This directly translates to smaller biofilters, which will increase the applicability of these systems.
To overcome these challenges, genetically optimized bacteria became part of our biofilter. An obstacle to the biofilter design was raised by Prof. dr. ir Peter Groot Koerkamp, Dutch cattle stalls are naturally ventilated, making it difficult to direct methane into the biofilter. He recommended us to talk to Cécile Levrault, PhD candidate at Farm Technology Group at WUR, who is developing a hood system that catches cow breath, read more about the hoodsystem in the interview with Cécile Levrault! We visited Cécile’s farm and learned more about the application of this hood system and together we came to the conclusion that connecting Cattlelyst to the hood system would enable us to treat methane emissions from the cow breath. Read more about the macroscale design/technical implementation of our biofilter system on the implementation page.
Another core pillar of our project is to preserve animal wellbeing. We learned through our conversations with demonstrating farmers and Fons Janssen that animal wellbeing stands high on both the societal and political agenda. Given that our biofilter is placed outside of the stall, it will not directly impact the animals. Whereas, solutions revolved around potty-training the cows, giving them feed additives or letting them wear methane masks would physically affect the cows. Another interesting aspect of the hood system that Cécile Levrault mentioned, is that the cows more frequently lie down in the hood cubicles when compared to the normal cubicles. This distinct behavior suggests that these systems make the cows feel comfortable, Dr. Beth Ventura, animal welfare ethicist, agreed to this point made by Cécile Levrault. In a nutshell, we strongly believe that having a biofilter will not jeopardize animal welfare, even with a hood system connected to it.
With Cattlelyst we can remove ammonia once it is produced. Constant separation of manure and urine is technically very challenging, a solid 24/7 job. By converting produced ammonia, the necessity for the farmer to constantly separate manure from urine is removed (remember how? Check out link to existing solutions). This saves time, time that now can be spent on preserving the quality of our milk or the health of the animals.
Whereas ”drink well, live well" is a renowned saying for people, ”live well, drink well" is a mantra lived by dairy farmers. We learned from all farmers we spoke to that the health of every animal is monitored on a day-to-day basis. Cattlelyst revolves around a synthetic microbial community. To preserve animal’s, and farmer’s health, we selected two non-pathogenic bacteria to live in our biofilter. Furthermore, to limit any exposure to our GMOs, we modeled and developed a multi-layered safety system. To learn more about this system, (safety by design). With this system built-in, the bacteria will die upon accidental escape from the biofilter.
To determine the conversion efficiencies of Cattlelyst, we modeled the overall biofilter system. Since by 2050 reductions of 85% and 95% are required for ammonia and methane, respectively, the model was used to identify the biofilter dimensions that are needed to achieve these conversions. More information about these dimensions can be found (here).
Project evaluation
We find that the design of a biofilter allows for meeting important stakeholder values: one solution tackling multiple problems, ensuring animal welfare, labor intensity, safe to use and efficient conversion. With the input from all our stakeholders we were able to shape the Cattlelyst design. We presented our project during several guest lectures to evaluate our project together with students and the public. Read more about these lectures on our educational page. On top of that, we simulated an inter-stakeholder meeting to gain a deeper understanding of the role Cattlelyst would play in society.
With the help of, Dr. Zoë Robaey, assistant professor in Ethics of Technology, we first set-up this inter-stakeholder simulation. Read more about how we set-up this workshop in our guide. During this workshop we asked the participants to embody perspective of our stakeholder groups: farmers, politicians, synthetic biologist, vegan activists and competitor companies. We asked them to prepare a short statement regarding their view on Cattlelyst, to present in a simulated city council meeting.
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Read all about the city council meeting here
arrow_downwardIt is time for the initial statements, since you have to implement this system on your farm, farmers, go ahead.
FarmersWe say yes to Cattelyst, because then we can keep our business. At the moment, we can’t get permits for farm expansions due to extra nitrogen emissions. Arguments against: 1. High price for installation and 2. changing of filters could be expensive. There are no subsidies at the moment, so how are we going to pay for it?. 3. Price of dairy would stay the same, with and without Cattelyst. Farmers with Cattlelyst with the same amount of cattle would have a lower margin.
PoliticiansIn favor of Cattlelyst, because having this can save a lot of jobs. If we can keep the amount of cattle, we can keep the amount of farmers. Moreover, we can make sure that export is maintained, which will make sure the Netherlands remains competitive in the export of agricultural products.
Synthetic BiologistWE HAVE GREAT INTEREST IN THIS PROJECT. We want to raise awareness and increase GMO acceptance. Cattlelyst is a great start for this, opening doors to other amazing Synbio applications. Sometimes technical solutions fall short, where Synbio can overcome these.
Vegan activistNot in favor of Cattlelyst. It promotes keeping cows indoors, which is not animal friendly according to animal welfare regulations. It will reduce net emissions of cows, but will spark interest in increasing the amount of cattle a farmer has. So net, not much less emissions. A lot of animals in a limited space will increase spread of disease, which is not healthy for cows and people around them.
Competitor companiesWe have two perspectives in this stake. We are interested in working with Cattlelyst or buy the company. We can offer large resources to continue your work or we can buy the idea, under their name, using our broad resources. However, can also work against them and say that proving the efficiency of Cattlelyst takes too long.
Now it is time for the rebuttals, everyone, respond!Competitor company: We already have a solution working. Is our solution not good enough?
Politicians: If this is an option that possibly works really well, we should just try it. We need to comply to European goals set for climate action so all help is needed.
Competitor: We need to be included!
Politicians: Both solutions are not mutually exclusive.
Farmers: How are we going to pay for all this? We do not earn a lot of money…
Politicians: There is money available from both the EU and the Dutch government, for sustainably solving the problems of the livestock sector. If the solution is going to help us solve major parts of these problems, we are willing to invest a lot of money into these solutions to lighten the burden the farmers have on their shoulders.
Vegans:One of the main issues, it will decrease the emissions on short term. This method allows them to have more cows, which we don’t want. More cows, more disease, bad for animal well-being.
Farmers: You forget the fact that the amount of cows the farmer has, is limited by the size of the stall.
Vegans: What about having less cows per square meter than is allowed now? Having sick cows can affect the quality of your product. Then consumers can decide to not want your product anymore.
Politicians: If the regulations are altered, then farmers are given more space to expand their farm, in such a way that they have bigger farms to have the same amount of cows. Farmers are adapting to become more animal friendly, and environmental friendly. How can farmers get enough money to expand their farm as milk prices are not rising.
Due to time constraints, we had to leave the discussion here…
During this simulated debate, money and investment costs were mentioned most frequently. Another discussion point raised by the vegan activists was whether sustaining the amount of livestock with Cattlelyst outweighs the positive effects of lowering the amount of livestock. These positive effects being, among others, improved animal welfare and a lower ecological footprint of the sector. This social dilemma we have illustrated/shed a light on in our ethics page.
Project refining
During the lectures and the inter stakeholder simulations, three questions came up frequently. To answer these, we had to go the extra mile. We did that by reshaping our design as well as engaging with more stakeholders.
Is it even allowed to use GMOs for an application like Cattlelyst?
Generally, GMOs are considered a threat to the environment and human health, which makes the first question raised a very important one to consider in the SynBio field. We should ensure that we are not jeopardizing the local surroundings with our GMOs. To learn more about the GMO regulations that would apply to Cattlelyst, we talked to senior risk assessor Dr. Cécile van der Vlugt. She explained to us the two categories of GMO regulations, namely ‘contained use’, which is the case in a lab, and ‘introduction into the environment’. Cattlelyst would fall into the second category. Contrary to popular belief, introducing GMO’s in the environment is possible in the EU, as long as the necessary safety measures are met and possible risks are minimized adequately [5]. Read more about this on our implementation page.
What happens to the safety system when the cows leave the stalls?
Every year, when the weather allows, part of the farmers let their cows graze outside in the field. During these moments, less methane will enter the biofilter. As an inherent biocontainment method, we developed a methane dependent kill-switch, to kill the bacteria when the methane concentration inside the biofilter drops. Thus, when the cows go outside, we might risk losing our Cattlelyst bacteria in this situation. To overcome this challenge, we implemented a dual-input mechanism that makes sure the bacteria are only killed when both the methane concentration and the cell density are low. This way, when the methane concentration temporarily drops but the bacteria are inside the biofilter, they remain alive. Do you want to know how we did this? Check out our Safety By Design page!
How are farmers going to pay for this?
To find out if farmers are willing to invest in such solutions, we interviewed Durk Bakker, a dairy farmer. After presenting our project, Durk mentioned: "you cannot go green, if you are in the red", meaning that one cannot invest in something new when you are in debt. At this moment, profit margins for the milk industry are really low, thereby rendering the farmer with little funds to invest in technological solutions. Given that nothing is for free in this world, we wanted to explore other options for financing Cattlelyst. To understand the role of finance and society, we conducted an inter-stakeholder consultation.
Social embedding of Cattlelyst
We spent a lot of time understanding the problem, defining a good solution, designing Cattlelyst, and further refining our system. But, what about the future? Nearing the end of our project, there were still some questions unanswered:
- If regulations allow, would implementation of GMOs on a farm be a dealbreaker?
- Is investment in Cattlelyst a shared or individual responsibility?
Leaving these questions unanswered could stand in the way of Cattlelyst’s future role in society. As SynBio ambassadors, we could only provide one perspective. To bring our human practices work to the next level, we brought together multiple stakeholders to find answers, during our Inter-stakeholder consultation.
Are GMOs a dealbreaker?
To facilitate this discussion, we theoretically developed three physical designs for our biofilter to discuss different scenarios. These scenarios differed in level of GMO containment, from fully contained to free microbes in the soil. With these scenarios, other factors of influence were discussed, like investment costs, technical maintenance, space uptake, performance control and conversion efficiency.
We first presented our project, the implications of the designs, and answered most pressing questions before we dove into discussion. We asked the stakeholders to choose one of the scenarios and explain why they chose it. The majority, represented by Carina Nieuwenweg, Jeroen Heck and Cécile Levrault picked the most contained option, as this followed current GMO regulations. Interestingly, Heleen Lansink, a dairy farmer, picked the least contained option. This was because she did not see the need of implementing yet another technology on her farm. She also believed that the soil should be used to recycle nutrients with our microbes in there. Heleen Lansink believes this could have wider support. Overall, the sentiment towards our optimized bacteria was that their positive effect on nature outweighed the risks of spreading into nature. However, intuitively, the majority of the stakeholders preferred the most contained option as the effects of synthetically engineered microbes are not fully understood at the moment.
Is financing Cattlelyst an individual or shared responsibility?
First, we provided them with an overview of various stakeholders that are involved in the problems of resolving around methane and nitrogen, such as farmers, supermarkets, consumers, politicians, etc. Our invited stakeholders were asked to point out who of these should carry the financial burden of solving these problems. Interestingly, not one of the stakeholders believes that farmers should be the ones that have this responsibility.
Jeroen Heck: “It is a problem for all of us, so it doesn’t make sense that only a farmer needs to invest in a solution. The consumer also needs to pay more. They should pay the true price, which includes environmental damages."
By making products more expensive, farmers will get higher margins on it, which they can invest in new innovations. However, this would also create incentive to produce more product, and therefore to get more cows. Something we cannot sustain anymore. Is there another way to help the farmers financially without coupling this influx of money to the product?
A solution for this could be to put a price tag on ecosystem services, Heleen Lansink suggested. If contributing to cleaner air and biodiversity could be financially supported, farmers would have a better opportunity to produce more sustainably.
At FrieslandCampina certain products now get the label ‘on-the-way-to-planet-proof’, for which higher prices can be asked. Extra money is asked from retailers, which put the product on the shelves. With this they can pay more to farmers who are doing exquisite work on certain aspects, like methane and ammonia emissions. This is a way to spread environmental costs over the consumers.
Jeroen Heck: "Consumers are talking about sustainability, but not a lot of them are acting like it. Most consumers still buy the cheapest products and are flying around the world, yet saying sustainability is very important. Here is also a role for the government .You need some kind of border, otherwise people will do more and more and more. If you can build the incentive to produce more sustainably, it would be realizable."
Fons Janssen responded to this immediately, he mentioned that the Dutch government is very divided, and because of that it is difficult to tie the knot for specific solutions. There is simply a set amount of money to be invested in such solutions. He said that by building a crisis-package, including different solutions for the farmer to pick between, could fit the current political system as well as sustain implementation of new innovations.
All in all, the unanimous opinion of the stakeholders was that the financial burden should be a responsibility shared by all, not only the farmer. These days, almost everyone is inclined to choose the most product in the supermarket. Most of us are unaware of the hidden costs of the product. By implementing true pricing, representing the ‘actual’ cost of producing a product, sustainable food production can be achieved collectively.
By interacting with our stakeholders we were able to define, shape, evaluate and refine our project Cattlelyst. We truly enjoyed learning more about wishes and needs of society and the role our innovation could play in it. Looking back, we believe we have taken a responsible approach in developing an innovation by including stakeholders in our design decisions, anticipating potential futures of Cattlelyst and together striving to make Cattlelyst have a positive impact on society and the environment.
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References
arrow_downward- F. Oktober, “Depositie Van Stikstof in Stikstof in,” 2019
- “Carbon farming: reducing methane emissions from cattle using feed additives | Agriculture and Food.” https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/carbon-farming-reducing-methane-emissions-cattle-using-feed-additives (accessed Oct. 06, 2021).
- Y. Wang, D. Wang, Q. Yang, G. Zeng, X. Li, Wastewater Opportunities for Denitrifying Anaerobic Methane Oxidation, Trends Biotechnol. 35 (2017) 799–802. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2017.02.010.
- C. Kampman, T. L. G. Hendrickx, H. Temmink, G. Zeeman, and C. J. N. Buisman, “Denitrification with dissolved methane for energy efficient wastewater treatment,” Environ. Sci., 2012.
- Fact Sheet: Questions and Answers on EU’s policies on GMOs, (available at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/MEMO_15_4778).