Out of the 17 goals we initially believed that our project could address six. These were the SDGs numbered 1, 2, 9, 10, 15 and 17. Especially goal 2, Zero Hunger, spoke to us on a deep level. It is the goal that forms the core of our project, because our main theme is to achieve food security and promote sustainable practices in agriculture. Through this we want to contribute to ending hunger in the world and everything we have done within the project circles around this topic.

Another goal that we immediately connected with was goal 15, Life on Land, which relates to the wellbeing of terrestrial ecosystems. One of our aims with CropFold is to reduce the use of pesticides, which in turn halts biodiversity loss such as the decrease in pollinators. As the human population on Earth still grows, we will need more cultivation areas to cater to it. That is if agriculture can’t be made more efficient. Our target with CropFold is to battle inefficient food production, and in that way promote sustainable use of our limited resources. Enabling better yields from the cultivation areas we already use can furthermore limit deforestation.

Moreover, goal 1, No Poverty, and goal 10, Reduced Inequalities, could be seen to be addressed with CropFold. We believe that improving food security and the efficiency of food production will also aid in ending poverty. Improved yields should lower the price of food, which should decrease food poverty. The proposed implementation of our bioassay is additionally designed to be accessible also in the developing areas where poverty is still widespread. The assay is also developed to be an easy-to-use method for pathogen detection that does not require specialized laboratory equipment or expertise nor storage conditions that are unfeasible to maintain in warmer climates. Therefore, its usage does not differentiate between farmers of wealthier and poorer regions or in remote areas. We also hope the adoption of our system would reduce food inequality as more yields are saved.

We also couldn’t forget about goal 9, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. For us this ninth SDG is important as we are fostering innovation through wanting to inspire more people around the world to solve problems with innovative solutions. Our project also promotes shaping the agricultural infrastructure towards more modern approaches for dealing with pathogens in sustainable ways.

Lastly, we want to highlight goal 17, Partnerships for the Goals. Throughout this entire iGEM season we have actively sought out partners and collaborated with others from different corners of the world to strengthen our project. These partners have become a vital part of our journey and together we have worked hard to enhance the sustainability of our projects.

Goal 2, Zero Hunger, includes ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition in targets 2.1 and 2.2. Target 2.1 highlights the hunger of the poor people as well as the ones with vulnerable situations. Target 2.2 is concentrating on ending all forms of malnutrition, including children under 5 years. More specifically, target 2.2 is aimed for adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and older people. We also find the target 2.3 important to double the agriculture productivity. We think that by reducing the food waste, including infected crops, productivity of agriculture would increase. The subgoal 2.3 also includes the doubling of income of small-scale producers. We state that the early detection of plant pathogens could reduce the costs by reducing pesticide use and by increasing productivity. We find this goal 2 to be the ultimate one considering our project.

Goal 9, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, includes sustainable industrialization. According to the UN, industries with higher technology are more resilient in crisis, when compared to lower-tech ones. We are aiming to increase the crisis resiliency of agriculture through this pathogen detection. The research in the field of agriculture supports the target 9.5., by upgrading the technological resources in this field.

Goal 15, Life on Land, states that nearly 90% of the world's deforestation is due to expansion of agriculture and as a part of it, 49,6% is due to cropland expansion. We state that by increasing the detection of plant diseases and thus increasing the efficiency of agriculture, the need for sacrificing new areas for fields might be lower. According to this goal, the preservation of species is utterly important. We state that by early detection of pathogens, the need for excessive pesticide use would decrease and thus alleviate the harmful effects.

Goal 3, Good Health and Well-being includes target 3.9, which promotes the reduction of the number of deaths and illness from chemicals. Since pesticides can cause health problems to humans (Aktar, Sengupta & Chowdhury, 2019; Connolly, 2013), we argue that our method of plant detection could contribute to enhancing the health of humans.

Goal 12, Responsible Production and Consumption, was after a deeper inspection very relevant for our project. Generally according to the UN, the unsustainable behavior regarding the production and consumption is driving climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Basically too much food is wasted every day. Although the goal is concentrating the most on what happens after harvesting, before reaching the market and the loss that happens at the consumer level, the sub-targets were important for us. One target, 12.3, promotes to reduce the loss along the production as well. The target also states the importance of chemical management and their harms when released to air, water and soil. We hope that the detection of pathogens would decrease the use of pesticides and thus the amount of released chemicals.

Although we find CropFold promoting general welfare across the world, we were wondering about the distribution of the final product. We have designed the product to be easy to use and hopefully affordable as well as accessible to all farmers. Despite the good intentions, the price of the product might still be too high for some farmers. Even in Finland, according to farmer Petri Riikonen (read more from our Integrated Human Practices page) the price paid for the crop producers by buyers is low. We think that this makes agriculture less profitable and the purchasing of further equipment less likely. We hypothesize that the situation in other countries might be even worse. Furthermore, if the financial situation of the farmer is poor, we think that it might be more cost-efficient for the farmer to purchase pesticides rather than detection equipment. This solution is obviously not beneficial for the environment. This might create an equality gap between the farmers and different countries, which would be against the goal 10, Reduced Inequalities. Thus, in the future it would be crucial to ensure easy and affordable access to plant pathogen detection methods. For future teams, we hope to leave note that the distribution of the product must be evaluated carefully so that no equality gaps would rise.

The inequality circles to the goal 4, Quality Education. The use of plant pathogen detection requires knowledge of the detection system. It is not given that everyone is familiar with the concept of detection. In addition, it is not obvious to have access to materials that introduce these possibilities in the field of agriculture. Thus, the usage of detection methods requires more equal opportunities for education as well. If education is not supported in developing countries, we state that it would create an even deeper gap between the developed and developing countries.