Introduction
In order to make sure that our product will be available for public use, we researched regulations about genetically modified organisms to make sure our product can be distributed in Taiwan, where fusarium wilt is currently a big problem. We also did market research on potential customers and ways we can manage our business, supported by drylab’s economic model, in order to estimate how our product would do if we were to distribute them by selling to individual farmers.
Fusarium Won't
We created our own customized liquid inoculant, which is a mixture of our probiotics along with beneficial ingredients such as earthworm casting, protein hydrolysate, and kelp that helps with probiotic uptake; to prevent any nutrient insufficiency, we also added essential nutrients for plant growth; further encouraging the rapid microbial colonization at the rhizosphere. Our wetlab and drylab team worked together to develop the prototype for the product, and the theory and design can be found in the hardware page.
Hardware & Implementation
To implement our inoculant, Fusarium Won’t, we’ve decided to integrate our solution into already established farming practices, such as drip irrigation; more details regarding implementation can be found on the implementation page. In the process of integration, our team has designed products in which our inoculant will be contained; for more details, visit the hardware page.
Marketing Plan
In order to better distribute our product, we designed a marketing plan to understand our targeted customers and an economic model to figure out how fusarium wilt will influence the market. Our marketing plan details our revenue model and predicted profits, allowing us to better fine-tune our product and how we intend to market and sell it. In the marketing plan, we organize potential customers and competitors to figure out how Fusarium Won’t might perform on the market. We decided on a primarily B2B model because institutes like TBRI can do more in-depth analysis of our probiotics and distribute it better because people would trust an established government institute more than a private business. We plan to start our business by contacting TBRI and other banana institutes so we can quickly spread our product to most farmers in Taiwan through them. With the Marketing Plan and economic model we can ensure that both the farmers and us benefit from the product.
The embedded PDF of the marketing plan can be found here.
Regulations
Our team’s goal was to create a biopesticide that can directly defeat F.oxysporum. To achieve our goal, we will be using genetically modified microorganisms (GMOs) in our products. Since we are implementing our products directly to the banana plants, we will need to ensure the safety of the people who consume bananas. Therefore, there will be a lot of regulations on this kind of product because it’s highly related to food safety.
There are three laws that we need to follow in order to implement our product in the field. “Guidelines for Standard Specifications of Pesticides” is a guideline for normal pesticides to follow. The guidelines for biopesticides will be slightly different and stricter from the “Guidelines for Standard Specifications of Pesticides.” It will include more precise and strict tests for biopesticides. Therefore, this page will focus on the following two regulations on biopesticides.
“Guidelines for physicochemical properties and Toxicological Tests of pesticides” is mainly about the regulations on the physicochemical properties of biopesticides. The guidelines particularly indicate that if we want to implement GMOs in our product, we need to provide a detailed explanation of our mechanism. In addition, we also need to give detailed information of other substances in our pesticides. Furthermore, we need to follow the “Microbial Preparation Pesticide Toxicology Test Items Amendment Regulations” for the toxicological tests. It’s mainly about the effects of our GMOs and substances on the human body and also on our target crop.
"Guidelines for Field Tests of Pesticides" is mainly about the rules we need to follow while doing the field tests for our product (biopesticide). Before conducting a field trial, a field trial design document (Protocol) should be drawn up. The Protocol should include our application method, the management of our GMO product, and the specific crop that we are going to test. For the application method, we will need to provide a detailed explanation of the composition of our pesticide. Since Taiwan doesn't have a clear regulation on efficacy tests for the field trial, the guideline mentions that the test should refer to the relevant test guidelines of the European Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). After the trial ended, we should submit a comprehensive lab report about what happened during the field trial, especially the explanation for the results of different tests.
References
行政院農業委員會. “農藥理化性試驗項目”全國法規資料庫 , 28 October 2021,
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行政院農業委員會. “農藥毒理試驗項目”全國法規資料庫 , 28 October 2021,
Link to Source 1
Link to Source 2
行政院農業委員會. “農藥田間試驗準則”全國法規資料庫 , 7 November 2019,
Link to Source 1
Link to Source 2