Understanding the Problem and Empathising
How it all began...
One untimely heavy downpour is all that it took to flood the fields of one of our team members in a small village called Vangaon, in Maharashtra, India. The next day, the accumulated water started causing his crops to slowly wither and eventually die. All the efforts put in the past few months to cultivate the crops were wasted, and the worst part was that since this event was unpredictable, nothing could be done to prevent it.
This was not the case of only one farm. When our team member approached the owners of nearby farms, he found out that all their fields were also flooded and destroyed! This water could be pumped out, but the time taken to remove the excess water exceeds the time needed to harm the biota. With the recent changes in climate patterns, the unprecedented rainfall has become a common occurrence according to many of them. Quite a few times, even bad irrigation practices has resulted in the soil becoming clogged and anaerobic.
The problem of waterlogging is often overshadowed by the problem of drought, which is often misinterpreted as the sole outcome of global warming and climate change. In fact, after interacting with the ones running the local farmer community center (called Krishi Vigyan Kendra or KVK), we realized that the aftermath of waterlogging was just as disastrous. Not only are the crops of that harvest wasted, but along with that the soil begins to degrade, salt depositions begin to form crusts and with time, the land becomes unusable. The lack of attention to waterlogging and the immediate effect it has on our lives, inspired us to take up this multifaceted problem for our iGEM project this year.
Waterlogging has been an issue since humans probably began practicing agriculture, but with recent times the severity and unpredictability has gotten worse. So it made sense to look up the existing methods applied to mitigate this problem, before brainstorming for new solutions. For this, we approached social science researchers, who had records of various measures used to reduce the severity of waterlogging, only to find out that the most widely used one was to create barriers around the field. However only the farmers above a certain economic level could afford to do so. This indicated that the new solution would have to be cost effective, if we wanted a majority of those affected by this to actually use it. We also realized that any innovative idea always takes time to be implemented in the society primarily because setting up the production, marketing, acceptance and usage of it is a gradual process. Azospirillum brasilense, a nitrogen fixing bacteria, found in the rhizospheres of many plants, is already a well distributed bio fertilizer in our country for the innate benefits it provides, and at the same time it is also one of the few soil living microbes, which are studied extensively in genetic labs. This ushered us to come up with a novel biofertilizer, which would contain genetically modified Azospirillum brasilense as our chassis organism, designed to reduce the stress caused by waterlogging in plants.
During abiotic stress conditions, such as that of waterlogging, plants tend to release a gaseous compound called ethylene, which helps them to survive the stress at the time. But after a while, even when the water has been removed, this very compound causes the plants to start withering away. We decided to introduce a gene which would target breaking down of a precursor of ethylene into Azospirillum.
The general public is usually skeptical about having genetically modified organisms introduced into the environment, as quite often, they have the potential to disturb the native flora and fauna. So in order to ensure that our chassis breaks down the precursor of ethylene only during waterlogging, we decided to have a hypoxia induced mechanism as an integral part of our project. It would ensure that during times of waterlogging, the gene would be functional, and the rest of the time Azospirillum would be a general fertilizer, adding benefits to the soil. This would ensure that our approach is both responsible and sustainable for the environment.
Waterlogging is not an issue which affects only a very specific family of crops, or that it is prevalent only in a certain type of soil. It is a widespread problem, whose impact varies in degree depending upon the environmental conditions of that area. Discussions with a representative of a synthetic biology company, helped us understand how important it is to account for the functionality of our product at different regional, climatic and crop conditions. Throughout our iGEM cycle, we tried to use this input to research more into the effect of our innovation at various conditions. For instance, we decided to incorporate climate modelling as a part of our dry lab, so that we could identify the range of waterlogging’s impact. This is one of the factors that would eventually help us determine quantitatively the amount of biofertiliser a particular area would need. Detailings like these would ensure that our solution is practical and user friendly.
Overview
India is a global agricultural powerhouse—we are the largest producers of pulses and spices as well as the second largest producers of rice, wheat, cotton, sugarcane, fruit, vegetables, and tea [1]. Unsurprisingly, the principal source of livelihood for nearly 60 percent of India’s population of 1.3 billion people is agriculture [2]; it is one of the most critical sectors in India, contributing to 18% of India’s GDP.
Agriculture is also the cornerstone of Maharashtra, a state in India where the IISER Pune iGEM team is from. Nearly 82% of the rural population depends on agriculture—comprising cash and food crops—for livelihood. The main food crops of Maharashtra are mangoes, grapes, bananas, oranges, wheat, rice, jowar, bajra, and pulses [3].
Unfortunately, India has the rank of 71 on the Global Food Security Index (2021) out of 113 nations. Our food security depends on producing cereal crops, as well as increasing the production of fruits, vegetables, and milk to meet the demands of a growing population with rising incomes [4]. The considerable threat of climate change has increasingly been affecting food security, and more so does waterlogging—an aspect of climate change that is very rarely spoken about.
Climate change models are also suggesting that the frequency and severity of heavy precipitation may increase in the near future all over the world. Waterlogging is an unfortunate effect that climate change has on our planet. Global warming causes waterlogging to be even more unpredictable in its nature, making it troublesome to solve. Places that were previously drought-prone areas are caught unaware when they suddenly receive torrential rainfall [5].
Waterlogging refers to an excessive accumulation of water in the soil near plant roots that negatively affects plant and soil health. In plants, waterlogged soil causes exaggerated stress responses, releasing harmful amounts of ethylene. This results in the destruction of macromolecules and inhibition of photochemical processes—causing low crop productivity, loss of chlorophyll, and cell death.
Moreover, waterlogged soil is often depleted in nutrients due to leaching, and is enriched in deposited salts. Together, this makes land affected by waterlogging unusable in the long term.
Maharashtra is one of the worst affected states by waterlogging—the 2020-21 sugarcane crushing season had a hampered start as waterlogged fields made harvesting it very difficult [6].News articles regaling the plight of farmers in Maharashtra as waterlogging ruined their crops and wreaked havoc on their lands, are commonplace. In 2021, a 1 billion USD compensation package was given to farmers in Maharashtra as their land was damaged by intense rainfall [7]; more than a million hectares of cropped land—comprising sugarcane, paddy, soybean, maize, and cotton—in Maharashtra was devastated due to flooding [8].
Having personally witnessed the effects of waterlogging in a teammate’s farm—a ruined harvest and sludge-filled land—the team was even more motivated to tackle this issue. Looking into the issue further, we realised that the human population is expected to grow dramatically and farmers must increase their production by a staggering 60% by 2050 in increasingly limited arable land. Preventing land degradation due to waterlogging becomes an immediate necessity.
The total foodgrain production in the country is estimated to be 291.95 million tonnes. This appears to be something to be happy about but as per the estimates of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), the demand for foodgrain will increase to 345 million tonnes by 2030 [9].
Roughly 14% of the Indian population was undernourished as of 2020, according to State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. The Global Hunger Index 2021 placed India at the 101st position among 116 countries [10]. The loss of 16,000 to 26,000 million kilos of food can be prevented in India alone, by just fending off waterlogging. Achieving ‘zero hunger’ by 2030 is a tremendous challenge, and needs a multi-dimensional approach for overall sustainable agriculture and food systems in the country.
Science and Society
Science is a brilliant tool to help solve a plethora of modern day problems. However, it is important to engage with people and understand the extent of their comfort when it comes to how innovative science can be. A people-centred approach is desired but it’s more than simply conversing with them. It’s knowing how to ask the right questions and how to interpret things correctly.
In order to do justice to the issue of waterlogging and truly help those affected by it, we needed to ask the right questions. And in order to do that, we needed to understand the right problem.
Prof. Bejoy K Thomas
Professor Bejoy K Thomas is an Associate Professor at IISER Pune, teaching Humanities and Social Sciences. He is an interdisciplinary social scientist interested in problem driven research on environment and development. He is also the Chair of the Centre for Water Research at IISER Pune. Prof. Bejoy’s research involves academics as well as practitioners which is why we sought him out; he would best be able to convey to us how to approach our solution.
Prof. Bejoy asked us to think about what exactly our solution provides—would it help solve waterlogging as an issue or would it help mitigate the severity of the issue? He asked us to consider whether we would want to pursue tackling waterlogging itself as the issue as what we currently have is a safety net for the overarching problem. Being able to solve waterlogging as a whole would be amazing but farmers right now need an immediate solution; waiting for a solution for waterlogging and climate change is not feasible.
After speaking to Prof. Bejoy, we also re-thought how we wanted to portray our solution; rather than helping out with torrential floods where the structural integrity of the plant itself was damaged, our solution would benefit the situations where the structural integrity of the environment was impaired. This was something that he stressed to us multiple times.
He also advised us to diversify our pool of stakeholders by trying to contact farmers from different parts of the country and not just those affected by waterlogging.
Prof. Kartikeya Srivastava
Professor Kartikeya Srivastava is a professor in the Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU. His research interest lies in breeding of oilseeds and vegetable crops, and biotic and abiotic stress breeding. He has worked on the impact of waterlogging on maize.
He advised us to really think about how the public perceives genetically modified organisms. He told us how the public is not aware of all the regulatory processes and stages that scientists need to go through before releasing GMOs. He also spoke of how people think GMOs tend to cause allergies—even though allergies are caused due to a variety of reasons—which results in wariness towards GM products. He said that we should focus on labelling exactly what kind of modifications have been done on the product rather than broadly calling it ‘genetically modified’; he brought up that politics and bureaucracy play a major role in the branding of GMOs.
Similar to Prof. Bejoy, Prof. Kartikeya also brought up the fact that waterlogging was of two types: long term and short term; the intensity of short term waterlogging also matters. He advised us to specify what type we were focussing on and test it out.
S M Nuruzzuman Manik
S M Nuruzzaman Manik is currently working as a professional casual worker at Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania. He is working on the project “Abiotic Stress Tolerance" funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), Australia. He completed his PhD in Agriculture from Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania in 2022. He acquired a Master of Science in Crop Cultivation and Farming System. and is also experienced with management of varieties of crops such as, barley, wheat, Arabidopsis, and different tobacco varieties.
When we spoke to Nuruzzuman, we wanted to know why people don’t seem to focus on waterlogging as a problem. As we’ve mentioned before, a lot of research has gone into drought and heat-tolerance, but not as much into waterlogging related problems. He told us that this is due to a geological factor: some places are very prone to waterlogging and others not so much. For example, Tasmania faces high amounts of rainfall, especially during the winter months but Adelaide and Queensland face lots of drought and heat stress issues.
He also confirmed with us that waterlogging is unpredictable, and oftentimes, farmers' feel that there’s no way around it. Crops have their own seasonal cycles, and simply trying to avoid times when one is sure waterlogging is most likely to occur, is not a feasible solution.
We wanted to know more about why mechanical barriers can’t be the simple solution for waterlogging and Nuruzzuman informed us that it's more than simply erecting physical barriers. Soil management requires proper research and development—and unfortunately, there are not enough minds thinking about this right now. He was very enthusiastic about soil management and suggested that adopting better soil management practices can also go a long way in helping crops. According to him, the output can be increased by 15-20% just by using smarter agronomic management practices.
As someone who has worked on genetically modified crops before, he also had advice for us when it came to the implementation of our project (which you can read more about below).
Dr. Madhumita Kothari
With any synthetic biology innovation, the legal and regulatory aspect of it is as time-intensive and difficult as the scientific aspect. As a team, we wanted to cover all our bases and ensure we had the most viable product that we could envision. This means that apart from ensuring our solution was solidly backed by science and experts, it also needed to pass through regulatory bodies and be accepted as a product for use by society.
This is why we met Dr. Madhumita Kothari, who has 23 years of experience in Dispute Resolution, Arbitration, Risk Consulting, International Contracts, Service Matters, Gender Issues (POSH LAWS), Family Laws and Mediation. She has worked both in-house as well as with law firms advising clients on a variety of commercial and family disputes and has built specialization across several industry sectors such as shipping, aviation, power, infrastructure, healthcare, retail, software, education and insurance.
We wanted to run our project through her and get her feedback on how to go about with our implementation of the project. She told us that scientific rules tend to be very ambiguous. She informed as that contacting patent boards and appellate boards would be done by the institute (in our case, IISER Pune), and not by the individual themselves.
She stressed up the fact that our idea should not pilferage from other patents or papers. Her last piece of advice for us was to turn our product into a startup as going into the industry with this product would be not desirable; we would face lots of hurdles and might end up being caught up in those.
Integrating Concerns and Feedback
Engaging With Those Affected
The burden on farmers increases tremendously when there is no feasible solution to an unpredictable predicament like waterlogging. This puts a greater pressure on an already skewed food supply-demand balance.
Waterlogging is a double blow to our farmers: it decreases agricultural productivity by 30% and leaves a saline layer that makes the land untenable for a year. In addition to this, waterlogging is highly unpredictable, which makes any preventive measure impractical; this can result in farmers losing their entire livelihood in one blow. Such a financial shock cannot be absorbed by the majority of our farmers and any effort alleviating this problem is very important to our farmer community.
We reached out to farmers in the Kosbad region with the help of Prof. Ashok Bhoir from Krishi Vigyan Kendra. We spoke to quite a few farmers from nearby regions and this was extremely invaluable for us. We saw their fields, which were waterlogged at that very moment—and this wasn’t the extent it could reach. During the monsoon season, their fields could not even be used. For some of them, the land was waterlogged throughout the year and they couldn’t grow any crop other than rice; in fact, during the monsoon, they couldn’t even grow rice due to how bad the situation was.
It was very difficult for these farmers to manage their fields as tractors were unable to enter their land and bullocks often got trapped in the soil. In their region, the soil was medium black which meant that aeration of the soil was also reduced as the soil becomes compacted due to waterlogging.
We spoke to the farmers to also try and understand their fertiliser usage; what type they used, what their choice of fertiliser depended on, and what crops they used these fertilisers on. Most of the farmers used either chemical fertilisers or cowdung as a fertiliser. They weren’t particularly fond of organic fertilisers as they take a long time to work and show results; this made us realise that a product which works fast and efficiently is what farmers needed.
They told us that apart from waterlogging, another major issue they faced was salinity and leaching; this was also why they were hesitant to use biofertilisers. They felt that even if they used biofertilisers, it would simply get washed away and wouldn’t be able to provide any benefits. All the farmers expressed their concern about whether it would even be possible for future generations to continue farming in such lands.
After speaking to them, we realised that this was something that we needed to figure out how to incorporate—how would we get the biofertiliser to remain in place during waterlogging?
With the help of Dr. Shiraz Wajih and team, we were also able to connect with farmers from Punjab and Haryana. They told us about their experience with waterlogging and how it has affected their lives. We knew that we needed to figure out a way to ensure that our biofertiliser stays in place after listening to all these farmers. Below are the narratives from some farmers and we have also included an English translation below!
My name is Haridev Prasad Maurya. I am a resident of Vikaskund of the village Hallajot. I have about 6-7 bigha of land. We grow grains and vegetables. We use a lot of techniques for farming as per the weather. We grow rice and maize. We also grow vegetables like bottle gourd and bitter gourd. When there is less rainfall we grow coriander and spinach. We have some problems with farming. When there is a lot of rain there’s waterlogging and after that these crops get infested with pests. Some crops get destroyed by storms as well. We use the fertilisers made by scientists to save our crops.
Earlier I faced heavy losses due to waterlogging but now I use new techniques and while there are some losses, they are much lesser. To overcome waterlogging, we make beds some of which are higher, which we use as nurseries. For the pest problem, we use the techniques taught to use by the GG Institute. We use different kinds of fertilisers and we only use the pesticides that the institute taught us how to make. This has made sure that our crops are pest-free. For waterlogging also we use special kinds of fertilisers which keeps our soil healthy even in these conditions.
I am about 60 years old. Earlier there were storms that lasted for about 15 days but now in just 2 hours there is more rainfall which damages our crops more. We use good seeds for better yield and we kill all the pests using the homemade pesticide and we keep the soil healthy using various fertilisers. All this increases our yield.
I am Ram Niwas Maurya, village Rakhukhor, [...]. I own 3 acres of land, which comprise three layers, one acre is the highest, then another below it, and the third one below that. I grow groundnut in one of them, bachada, ton, etc.; in the lower ones, I grow rice and Samba masuri, which in late is also grown. Problems on the farm include animals like Neel Gaya, and pests, that damage crops.
Waterlogging during heavy rains, which wash away the manure, makes it difficult to move the tractor across the field. Later on, the sowing and germinating of seeds would become very tough. 20 years ago the climate was very different, in less time we face heavy rains and hot sunny days. Heavy rains fill up the field which damages the crops resulting in a loss. Waterlogging resultant loss is then compensated for by growing more groundnut. Due to this change in climate, the water that was earlier being utilised timely now gets wasted.
My name is Pappu; I reside in the Bandh Gram Sabha, jila Kaudhia, Gorakhpur. My farmland is 3 bigha, between the river and the bandh. I cultivate sesame, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, cauliflower, ladyfinger, and the like. The problems encountered in agriculture are mainly weeds, pests, small animals, and Neel Gaya. My field is waterlogged; even trying to grow rice doesn't always work. Animals like bears and Bhant destroy almost all the crops. Due to this, we face a loss of 30 thousand. To compensate for this, we once again cultivate vegetables and some wheat and somehow reduce the loss.
When the field is waterlogged, we can’t use manure, so there is almost no cultivation. If we leave the manure, the urea will flow away as waterlogged fields also have flowing water; if it rains, the entire crop is destroyed. Sometimes the rain is heavy, sometimes not, sometimes it rains for a month, sometimes for two, the temperature the rainfall that used to be there ten years ago is no more. Nature has changed its course. Earlier rainfall was known to happen in specific months, but now the weather is unpredictable. Sometimes it's sunny, other times, we face heavy rain, which destroys the crop, and we only face loss with no gain.
My name is Vinay Kumar Gautam, I am a resident of Jindapur district. I have one acre of land. Half of the field is on a higher ground, where we grow cucumber, okra. [...]] And on the part of the field which is on lower ground, we grow gains. Here, when it rains all of a sudden, our grain harvest reduces by five, six quintiles. Because of this, our grains are harmed. For this reason, we thought of growing something else in that field. So we have sown jute.
First and foremost, “Namaskar” to all. My name is Durgesh Kannaujia. I am a resident of Gram Sabha, Bhudharpur, Kaudia Janpad, Gorakhpur. I am a small farmer. I have a total of 3 acres of land. On this land, I cultivate vegetables—tomato, brinjal, bitter gourd, cauliflower, bottle gourd, cucumber, etc. Presently, vegetable farming involves the following issues: seeds not being available on time and attacks by various kinds of pests.
Moreover, nearly half an acre of my land is waterlogged. Due to this we face a loss of 7 to 8 quintals of rice crop every year during heavy rains. We do mixed farming in the Rabi season to reduce and compensate for this loss. During some years, the field remains waterlogged for a more extended period, not allowing for wheat cultivation; the soil retains a lot of water, so the tractor can’t move through the field, and wheat seeds can’t be sown. Dealing with waterlogging requires some fertiliser, which isn’t available in our area. We do "raised bed farming" to deal with this issue because we haven’t found a better solution yet. Moreover, the unpredictability of rains, untimely rain, sudden rains, etc., have resulted in a more significant loss of farm.
My name is Bindu Devi and I live in Mohammadpur in Uttar Pradesh. We have 8 bigha of land in which we do rice farming in 6 bigha and vegetable farming in 2 bigha. Earlier we didn’t know how to farm properly but now that GG institute is helping us. Now we know how to farm using the scaffolding method. With this method we grow okra, beans, coriander,spinach and radishes. When there is flooding, we use sacks with soli in them and keep them on the terrace to grow crops. We learnt how to make different types of fertilisers and how to do vermicomposting. Earlier when we bought fertiliser, during heavy rains it would just wash away but, since we started making our own fertilizer the soil also stays healthy and we get healthy crops to harvest.
Earlier the entire farm would be ruined because of waterlogging and so would the crops. But now when we use this new fertilizer our crops remain healthy. There was a good amount of difference. Now when there’s flooding, we use the scaffolding method and make nurseries for our crops. When the soil is no longer waterlogged, we transfer the crops back and don’t face any losses. Since we started using these new techniques we have been very happy. We don’t need to use any English fertilisers anymore and our crops are of very good quality. I am very thankful to GG institute.
My name is Amberlal and I live in Gorpurwa village. I do farming for a living. I have about 1-1.5 bigha of land. I grow crops like onions, cauliflower, potatoes and tomatoes. I replaced some crops with rice but the rice won’t be enough. It rained less than required.
Waterlogging destroyed the cauliflowers and drought conditions destroyed the bitter melons and the aubergines. Waterlogging makes the fertiliser we put lose its effectiveness and also destroys the already growing crops. Waterlogging causes a loss of about 7-8 thousand per bigha of land. To overcome this we have to put soil in sacks and then farm in them. We also use vermicomposting. All of this gives us a profit. With this the crops get ready fast and we get good money from the market. Using different kinds of fertilisers has been very helpful to us. We were told this by people associated with Aastha and we are seeing profit. This is “desi” fertiliser that we make on our own and it is very helpful. It keeps crops healthy. We do good farming with this fertiliser.
My name is Sugreev. My village is Baragijot where there is Vikaskhand, Rani Block Shravasti. We have only 2 bigha of land and on this we do farming. But, during monsoon season, due to waterlogging, we have lots of problems. Because due to flooding the soil gets clayey and Mother Earth also gives an answer. We try to go grow a lot of crops but it all goes to waste. We try to sow only crops that will result in minimal waste like rice.
Sir, waterlogging is a very big problem for us. Even wheat is harvested late because of this. All rice crops become unprofitable. We lose 8000 - 10000 rupees each monsoon harvest. Now, 1.5 years ago we joined GG institute. They helped us solve all our problems by reimbursement. We only have 2 bigha land. In 1 bigha we grew wheat and in the other we grew vegetables. Now with vegetables, every time we used to be late because we had to wait for the monsoon season to die down. Since we have joined GG, they taught us new techniques like the scaffolding method for farming. And we also made a nursery which is much drier than the actual farmland. With all this we can regain our losses. And secondly, in monsoon season everything is expensive like vegetables. So we grow vegetables using the scaffolding method in the small amount of empty land outside our house. We used this method on spinach, coriander, radish, etc. And when they grew we sold the coriander for 200 rupees per kilogram. We sold about 80-90 kilos. When people in the village saw the scaffolding method, they were very excited and soon some people started to do this as well. Now no one goes to buy vegetables. They try to find some land or sometimes they grow stuff on their terraces.
Now we make our fertiliser with Jaivik Pragati and that has reversed the damage that was there earlier and now the soil is balanced. Now in the coming time I hope all remains well. I hope that we stay healthy and our land stays healthy and that if we take our crops anywhere that people would say that “These Jaivik vegetables we definitely need to buy”. Now we have a large amount of healthy crops and we are now happy.
I live in Hallajot. My name is Saifu and I am a farmer. I have 5 bigha of land. We grow a variety of crops like spinach, fenugreek, etc and then sell them. We eat some also. Now in one year we grow so many different crops. We face many problems while farming too, like waterlogging. We have to put the soil in a sack and make a bed and then we can work. Secondly, some crops get affected by pests and we have to make pesticides to deal with them. We have to get oil for this which is expensive, about 100 rupees per litre, then we have to regulate the amount of water to save the crops. If there’s no rain then there’s a problem, if there’s too much rain then there’s a problem. Then you also have to put different types of fertilisers to save the crops.
When there is waterlogging we face heavy losses. We lose about 7-8 thousand rupees for every bigha of land we use. We solve this problem by making beds as mentioned earlier. These beds are raised and we grow crops on them when there’s a lot of waterlogging. If we do this, waterlogging does not affect the crops. To compensate for the losses we grow a large volume of crops. This way in some areas we will have profit and in some areas we will have losses. Using fertilisers that we make ourselves, also helps. We are happy with the profits that we get by using the fertilisers. Our methods make us a very big profit. Last year at first we got a good amount of rain and then suddenly it rained for 3 days straight and our crops got ruined.
My name is Prabhu Nath Maurya and I am from the village Gorpurwa in Shravasti. I farm 2 bigha of land. I grow onions, coriander, cauliflower and taro etc. I face problems like pests, fungal growths on onions, and waterlogging. The crops dry out due to waterlogging. I bear losses of about 8-10k per bigha because of this. To deal with this we use a scaffolding method, make beds and we make nurseries.
To overcome these losses we put homemade fertilisers and vermicompost in the soil to make it healthier. I am happy with these methods. They are effective and save us money because we make all the fertilisers we use. Earlier the rain used to be spread out in the monsoon season, now in just one day there is enough rainfall to cause waterlogging and cause us losses. To prevent the fertilisers from being washed away we put them in the roots of the crops so they stick around. With all these fertilisers I also put Azotobacter, Trichoderma, and Azobium. Using sacks for farming is making me a lot of profit and prevents losses.
My name is Sharda, District Gorakhpur, Village Panchgawan. I am a female farmer. I have 5 bigha land, 3 bighas on the upper side, and 2 bighas on the lower side. On the upper side, vegetables are cultivated—Ghewda, Bottle gourd, chilies, bitter gourd and on the lower side, rice and wheat are cultivated. Many issues plagued this cultivation, including weeds, animals like Neel Gaya, pigs, pests, etc. Once the bigger field gets waterlogged, the water doesn’t dry up 2 months at a time, which has led to huge losses of 10 to 12 thousand.
This loss is compensated by growing various colored vegetables during the winter harvest. But on the lower side, different kinds of veggies, cauliflower, tomato, coriander, chillies, etc. are grown to compensate the loss. Due to waterlogging the excess water washes away the manure into the nearby fields. Sawan , bhado, aashad, which were the rainy months now barely see any rain, we have two-two months without any rain, moreover, heavy untimely rains have resulted in great loss of the crop, filling the entire field up with water forming a pond. Earlier the rains used to be less but continuous; now we have these sudden heavy rains that leave the fields waterlogged.
References
[1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/05/17/india-agriculture-issues-priorities
[2] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/agriculture/why-india-needs-climate-resilient-agriculture-systems
[3] https://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/maharashtra/maharashtraagriculture.htm
[4] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/05/17/india-agriculture-issues-priorities
[5] https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-farmers-forced-to-postpone-daughters-marriages-after-crop-losses-due-to-excess-rains
[6] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/waterlogged-fields-set-to-delay-start-of-maharashtras-cane-crushing-season-6873357/
[7] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/maharashtra-government-announces-10000-crore-aid-for-rain-affected-farmers/article36982777.ece
[8] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/pune/over-1-10-lakh-hectares-of-crop-damaged-across-maharashtra-due-to-heavy-rains-7420773/
[9] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/agriculture/the-future-of-indian-agriculture-75384
[10] https://www.globalhungerindex.org/pdf/en/2021.pdf
[11] https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/2-5-of-gdp-india-s-annual-economic-loss-due-to-degraded-land-in-2014-15-118060300061_1.html
[12] https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/2-5-of-gdp-india-s-annual-economic-loss-due-to-degraded-land-in-2014-15-118060300061_1.html
[13] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/05/17/india-agriculture-issues-priorities
Defining a Good Solution
Waterlogging affects everyone, from farmers to markets to consumers; it wreaks havoc in people’s lives indiscriminately. After doing our own research and talking to our stakeholders, we came up with certain values that our project needed to encompass. Our aim with Hydrazome was to create a solution which incorporated feedback from our stakeholders and was well-rounded. This is what we as a team determined was a ‘good and viable solution’.
After conversing with our stakeholders, we decided that what made a viable solution for waterlogging was one that should:
(1) protect plants from waterlogging;
(2) properly engage with people affected;
(3) be eco-friendly and sustainable;
(4) be financially viable and sustainable;
(5) be operable in all types of soil textures and types.
Incorporating all of these values would help make Hydrazome a sustainable and viable solution. However, given our time and resource constraints, we had to prioritise some values over others. You can also read more about how we defined the values of our projects based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on our Sustainability page!
Prioritising Values
Each stakeholder had their own concerns and opinions but it was obvious that Hydrazome needed to solve the basic problem: exaggerated stress in plants during waterlogged conditions. Our main priority was to develop an idea and solution which would ensure the survivability of plants and the soil during waterlogged conditions. To think of the safety, economical, and adaptability aspects of our solution first required us to have a sound idea in mind.
Our wet lab and dry lab work outlines the work put in to ensure that this was possible. To read more, check out our Experiments and Modelling page.
Throughout our project, we strived to connect and converse with people affected by waterlogging. If we oversimplify it, that would imply connecting with everyone in the world as we are all affected by waterlogging but we decided to focus on larger groups that directly dealt with waterlogging and biofertilisers. We endeavoured to maintain a bilateral and empathetic discussion with our stakeholders as we developed a solution to accurately target the problem.
A solution must aim to incorporate everyone’s voice in order to be the best possible version it can be. This was the main priority of the Human Practice team and you can read about how we did so in this Integrated Human Practices Section.
Even though a chemical solution would probably be cheaper and easier to work with than a biological system, it comes with the possibility of severely impacting the environment. And this was the exact opposite of what we wanted. We didn’t want to add to the burden that our planet already faces.
Keeping this in mind, we designed a biocontainment system to ensure that the environment is not negatively impacted by our own solution. Our modified Azospirillum brasilense needed to interact with the ecosystem in a natural way. Unfortunately, given the time limitations, we have not been able to implement this physically yet. We aim to do this in the next stage of our project.
In order for it to be sustainable, another aspect to consider was that people needed to know that waterlogging was an issue and they needed to be accepting of synthetic biology as a solution.
To read more, check out our Safety and Communication pages!
Our goal throughout the project was to try and help relieve the immense burden placed on farmers—especially marginal farmers. Creating a biofertiliser which solved all of our problems but was far too exorbitantly priced would help no one.
Many people, including professors from our institute, impressed upon us that our solution needed to be economically feasible; it could not be beyond the budget of farmers.
To read more, check out our Entrepreneurship page!
We want our biofertiliser to be a universal, one-fits-all solution to mitigating the negative effects of waterlogging.
We had spoken to Abhijit Patel, a teacher at Mohim, who advised us to think about where exactly our solution would be applicable—soil is not uniform everywhere; our chassis—A. brasilense—may not perform at its optimal level in some soil types.
Synthetic Biology as a Solution
A synthetic biology based approach to tackling the effects of waterlogging is something we think is viable and required. Obviously, there is a wide spectrum of opinions, with some being firmly against synthetic biology and some holding it in high regard. This is something that we delved into while speaking with professors and having discussions with stakeholders.
Waterlogging affects 12 million hectares of agricultural land in India (equivalent to the size of our neighbour Bangladesh) and leads to 2 million tonnes of food grain production being lost annually. The resulting land degradation due to waterlogging caused an economic loss in India of over USD 670 million in 2018 [11].
In fact, 12% of the world’s arable land is estimated to be waterlogged frequently, leading to approximately 20% crop yield reduction [12]. Waterlogging in the near future is predicted to increase due to global climate change, especially in irrigated regions such as the Yangtze Watershed and other areas in China as well as irrigated areas of the United States, Pakistan, Argentina, and Europe. Therefore, tackling the issue of waterlogging is also a global challenge and needs to be addressed. In order to actually accomplish this, farming and farmland practices need to be more sustainable, and this needs to happen fast [13].
Synthetic biology is a growing field and gives us a wide variety of options to tackle various problems; we just need to use it appropriately and carefully. Modifying Azospirillum to tackle the harmful effects of waterlogging is not a whimsical idea; this is something very achievable with a determined approach. This is something which can easily be scaled up, considering the necessary framework to produce it is already in place. Hydrazome accomplishes our stakeholders values—we can save plants as well as the soil, and it won’t get washed away.
On the flip side, we are also aware that the wariness towards synthetic biology is partly due to the possibility of unforeseen accidents such as gene transfers. Though people would not have intended for it to occur, the intrinsic nature of organisms is something that needs to be considered. This is why we put into place our biocontainment plan (which you can read more about in our Safety page) to prevent this from occurring; this is our safety net.
All in all, this adaptive synthetic biology solution to tackling the effects of waterlogging has a high likelihood of being able to save crops and the soil from being destroyed. It is a scientifically sound and value-centric approach.
Taking all of this into consideration, our next step forth was to ideate and bring our solution to life.
Ideating and Designing Our Solution
Integrating Advice: Wet Lab Experts
For our 2022 iGEM project, we hoped to provide a synthetic biology solution to alleviating the negative effects of waterlogging on plants and the soil. In order to give Hydrazome the best possible chance, we consulted an array of experts for their guidance.
Dr. Bernard Glick
When we first started brainstorming for our project, Dr. Bernard Glick was kind enough to guide us and answer our doubts regarding ACC deaminase and A. brasilense. We initially thought of using a plasmid system to express the acdS gene but were unsure of how unstable it would be. We wanted to know ways to increase the stability and Dr. Glick informed us that all plasmids have an inherent degree of instability. This was when we latched onto the idea of genome integration.
Dr. Alexandre Gladys
We were also lucky to be able to talk to Dr. Alexandre Gladys—one of the top experts on A. brasilense in the world. She was the first person to mention aerotaxis to us; we were really struggling with a way to test out hypoxia conditions quantitatively as we did not have access to certain equipment. She referred us to a few papers regarding setting up the oxygen gradients in a semi-solid media and performing aerotactic experiments. She also told us that GFP won’t be stable in hypoxia and it might not give us the results we require. She told us to consider using mCherry instead (which we did!) as it tends to be more stable during hypoxia and will give more reliable results. We really appreciate her inputs on this without which we would have definitely struggled and spent time attempting to troubleshoot issues. When we discussed the EPS aspect of our project, she was very intrigued by it and this really motivated us to pursue it.
Dr. Anil Kumar Tripathi
We initially planned on using an fnr-acdR regulatory system to detect hypoxia levels. We were very unsure of whether we would manage to follow through this complex system and we decided to consult Dr. Anil Kumar Tripathi, a professor at Banaras Hindu University; he is also the leading specialist on Azospirillum brasilense in India. He told us that he has worked with an alcohol inducible promoter—exaA—in A. brasilense and mentioned that we could work with the same promoter if we wished to. When we discussed this further, we realised that plant roots undergo fermentation processes during hypoxic conditions which means exaA could be a potential hypoxia promoter. When we spoke to Dr. Tripathi about this, he confirmed that we could work using these assumptions and attempt to characterise exaA as a hypoxic promoter.
He suggested we do pellicle experiments (which are the aerotactic experiments suggested by Dr. Alexandre initially!) to visualise A. brasilense in microaerobic environments and check reporter expression in such environments. He said that we can use homologous recombination and knock out redundant Azospirillum genes as a method to perform genome integration.
Prof. Tripathi also proposed that we do High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) to identify novel hypoxia promoters in A. brasilense sp7. This did not work out when we performed it with the semi-solid media from pellicle experiments as it couldn’t penetrate the HRMS filter. This will work out if liquid media is used and we plan to do this in Phase II which you can read more about in our Implementation page!
Dr. Vijay Shankar Singh, from Banaras Hindu University, also suggested that we order the FNR promoter as a set of oligo primer which can be annealed together to generate the whole part.
Dr. Sunish Radhakrishnan
We also went to Dr. Sunish Radhakrishnan, an Associate Professor at IISER Pune, for guidance. We thought of isolating the acdS gene from a Bacillus species and inserting that into our constructs. He advised us to synthesise our gene rather than perform genome extraction of a Gram positive bacterium, something we were not experienced with and would have definitely hampered our progress. When we spoke to him regarding a kill-switch mechanism, he suggested an autoregulatory mechanism for growth using ammonia and α-ketobutyrate as a kill switch.
Dr. Nishad Matange
Dr. Nishad Matange—an Assistant Professor at IISER Pune—also suggested that we use a constitutively expressed acdS gene as our proof of concept in order to validate the functionality of that specific gene variant in A. brasilense.
Integrating Advice: Dry Lab Experts
Modelling was an integral part of our project; in order to develop well-rounded and accurate models, we consulted an array of experts who could guide us and advise us. Since our models were so diverse, and covered multiple aspects of our project, we met with a range of experts.
Dr. Apratim Chatterji, Dr. M S Madhusudhan, Dr. Amrita Hazra
Dr. Apratim Chatterji, Dr. M S Madhusudhan, and Dr. Amrita Hazra helped in the initial building and design of our dry lab. They suggested that we model the different levels involved in the project like Molecular level (Kinetic Modelling), Cellular level (Metabolic Modelling), System level (Diffusion Modelling) and Large scale (Climate Modelling). They gave a head start and helped with the initial learning to the field of computational Modelling and Simulations.
Metabolic Modelling
Dr. Karthik Raman
During the initial stages of our planning, we were hoping to use a Genome Scale Model of A. brasilense in order to better understand the effects acdS would have on the system. Unfortunately, there was no GSM available for A. brasilense and we turned to Karthik Raman—an Associate Professor at IIT Madras working in a Computational Systems Biology Lab—for help. He told us about ModelSEED and how to go about constructing a pathway model and eventually a GSM for our bacteria. He gave us access to his online lectures in order to better understand metabolic modelling. We also had a few doubts regarding maximum productivity which he helped us with: he told us that since enzymes are not a component of GSMs we need to maximise their fluxes through the concerned reactions.
Dr. Anu Raghunathan
We also spoke to Dr. Anu Raghunathan from National Chemical Laboratory who gave us the GSM for A. lipoferum—a sister species of A. brasilense.
Dr. Leelavati Narlikar
Dr. Leelavati Narlikar—an Associate Professor of Data Science at IISER Pune—helped us find a curated and annotated genome for A. brasilense aside from aiding us when it came to the technicalities of coding.
Climate Modelling
Dr. Sudipta Sarkar and Dr. Joy Monteiro
Dr. Sudipta Sarkar and Dr. Joy Monteiro—Assistant Professors of Earth and Climate Sciences at IISER Pune—helped us massively throughout our project. Dr. Sudipta told us to use SNAP and QGIS to analyse satellite pictures and then use masking in these softwares to obtain pictures with waterlogging thresholds. He also suggested that we use Google Earth to extend this model to the entire country. Dr. Joy told us to use the Machine Learning Regression model in our waterlogging climate model.
Diffusion Modelling
Our initial plan was to use Molecular Dynamics to understand the molecular movement of ACC that is being produced by the roots into the soil environment. We also wanted to utilise simulations to show the entry of the molecule into the bacteria surrounding the rhizosphere.
Dr. Olivier Martin, Dr. Sjon Hartman, Dr. Bipin Pandey
Dr. Olivier Martin—Professor of Nanophotonics & Optical Signal Processing, EPFL—and Dr. Sjon Hartman—Junior Professor at the University of Freiburg—helped us shape the scientific aspect of our modelling. Along with Dr. Bipin Pandey—Plant Science Department, University of Nottingham—they suggested we use Fick’s Law of Diffusion to explain the process of diffusion of the molecule and the system as a whole. They also provided an idea of how to integrate the model and correlate it with experimental validations; they told us to carry out experiments to validate the concentration gradient and flux of ACC out of the plant’s roots.
Dr. Anki Reddy Katha
Dr. Anki Reddy Katha an Associate Professor at IIT Tirupati gave initial inputs on how to build the model and the basics of Molecular Dynamics (MD). He advised that we use MD to find the diffusion coefficient of the ACC molecule since experimental calculation wasn’t within our limits and use that value to build up the model. He told us that using any empirical approach reduces the randomness and the number of parameters involved in the model; it does not take into consideration the individual molecules but follows their concentrations.
After speaking to these experts, we went back to the drawing board and re-thought our plans for Diffusion Modelling: we decided to model the diffusion of ACC from the roots into the soil environment and then inside A. brasilense at a macroscopic level. Thus, we decided to design a model that predicted the concentration profile of exudate for different parameters.
Dr. Apratim Chatterji
Dr. Apratim Chatterji—an Associate Professor of Physics, IISER Pune—helped us concretise this new approach and guided us on how to move forward in the project. He gave us an idea about the parameters that could be used in the model: diffusion rates, root structure and thickness, concentration of bacteria, and such. He told us that using ratios of different concentrations, productions and such, rather than the absolute values of these parameters would be more relevant and useful as experimental calculations were not possible. He also helped us in confirming and finalising the graphs obtained.
For the coding aspect of our model as well as troubleshooting, Ashish Kumar—a PhD student in Dr. Arnab Mukherjee’s lab at IISER Pune—aided us. He also helped with calculations in Molecular Dynamics regarding the diffusion coefficient of one ACC molecule which would be used in Fick’s Law of Diffusion.
To read more about this model, check out our Modelling page!
Evaluating and Implementing Our Solution
Our Proposed Implementation
Integrating Stakeholder and Expert Advice
After ideating and designing a solution guided by the needs of our stakeholders, and advice of wet lab and dry lab experts, our team started thinking about the proposed implementation. This is something that is the most visible and what the general public sees in the entire scientific process.
It was important to us that we considered all technical, safety, ethical, and cultural concerns when it came to implementing a genetically modified solution into the natural environment. To ensure that we covered all bases and didn’t rush things, we implemented a two-stage project.
Phase 1 involves creating our modified Azospirillum brasilense and solidifying the foundation of our project.
You can read more about how we tackled Phase 1 and all the troubleshooting steps we took in our Modelling and Experiments pages!
Phase 2 involves testing out how it functions, which we have further divided it into different sections which are mentioned below. Prior to these testing stages, there are a few more wetlab experiments that we wish to perform to make our project ‘cleaner’.
These future experiments include: characterising more exopolysaccharide-related genes, fine-tuning our expression vectors, 'deleting' non-essential pathways in our chassis, characterising more hypoxia-inducible promoters, and optimising our biocontainment plan.
Dr. Kalika Prasad—an Associate Professor at IISER Pune who works on stem cell, regeneration and patterning in plants—suggested that when we test the efficacy of our product on plants, we should test it on a model plant such as Arabidopsis thaliana then on an agronomically important crop such as tomato. He also said that testing it on barley might be a bit difficult.
Based on suggestions from Nuruzzuman Manik, we might also be going for a liquid-based biofertiliser. According to him, during waterlogged conditions, they found that using liquid N2 fertilisers helped the plants much better as compared to a powder form.
Keeping this also in mind, we designed our Phase 2 in the following manner.
- ex situ testing
- in situ small field trials in areas of low biodiversity
- in situ small field trials in areas of normal biodiversity
We would like to monitor how our A. brasilense interacts with the soil—including the natural microbiota—and plants. We will observe the condition of the soil and plants under normal, stress-free conditions as well as stressful conditions. We will also simulate waterlogging as well as post-waterlogging conditions. This will all be done in a controlled and contained environment.
We will monitor how our A. brasilense interacts with the soil and plants in areas of low biodiversity. This will reduce the possible negative impacts that might be exerted on the soil and biodiversity.
If the previous stages have been shown to be successful then our aim is to release Hydrazome into the market. We will still be continually observing places where it has been employed.
Evaluation of Our Project's Guiding Values
Connecting the Loop
Learning from our conversations with stakeholders and scientific experts was not the final step; we needed to incorporate their feedback and advice and develop our project. From these conversations, we managed to identify the values that should guide our project. These values, from high priority to low, which structured our solution are:
- Protect plants from waterlogging,
- Properly engage with people affected
- Be eco-friendly and sustainable,
- Be financially viable and sustainable,
- Be operable in all types of soil textures and types
We evaluated how our project developed keeping these stakeholder values in mind. We ranked them purely on a time-constrained basis: we aim to take care of all of the values in our next stage.
(1) Protect plants from waterlogging
Climate change and waterlogging are not issues that can be solved at the snap of a finger—though it would be convenient if that was possible. Tackling waterlogging itself is also not easy; better drainage and irrigation systems is a good starting point. However, this doesn’t help when it’s becoming more unpredictable. Thus, approaching this problem from a new angle—with the help of synthetic biology can potentially be a gamechanger.
Our solution utilises synthetic biology to modify Azospirillum brasilense to be capable of breaking down precursors of ethylene, a stress hormone in plants, to avoid deleterious effects during waterlogging. Even though this doesn’t tackle waterlogging or climate at its roots, it can be used as a safety net for plants while we tackle climate change by other methods.
(2) Properly engage with people affected
After speaking to various farmers, we realised that we had to come up with a way to ensure that our biofertiliser remained in place. This was when we thought of using expolysaccharides—a biopolymer naturally secreted by A. brasilense.
Not only does this film-like secretion help keep A. brasilense attached to the roots, it has also been shown to absorb water and promote soil aggregation. Though we didn’t have time to finish this aspect yet, due to time constraints as well as longer times in receiving resources, this is something we will definitely be working on post-iGEM.
(3) Be eco-friendly and sustainable
We were initially thinking of a kill-switch based containment plan in order to prevent any unwanted horizontal gene transfer from occurring and regulating the levels of A. brasilense in the biofertiliser. However, we realised that if we had a kill-switch, then the farmers would have to constantly keep re-applying the biofertiliser; this would drive up the cost for them and would be an overall hassle which is not what we wanted.
This is how we came up with our toxin-antitoxin based biocontainment plan, which you can read more about in our Safety page.
(4) Be financially viable and sustainable
We knew we had to ensure that our product was affordable for farmers. This is why we spent a significant amount of time on the entrepreneurship aspect of our project. We wanted to ensure that we could put out an affordable product.
You can read more about how we did this in our Entrepreneurship page.
(5) Be operable in all types of soil textures and types
We had spoken to Abhijit Patel, who had told us to consider the situation where we might have to tweak our modified A. brasilense slightly to suit different soil types. This was something we hadn’t considered at all before, and made us realise that we might not necessarily be able to produce a one-for-all solution. Dr. Kalika Prasad also mentioned that we need to test the functioning of our bacteria in soil types.
We started considering how we should deal with differing soil conditions, however, given our time constraints, we decided to have this as our lowest priority. There isn’t much data available as to how A. brasilense functions in differing soil types and we realised this is something we’ll have to perform trials of ourselves. We are excited to tackle this problem in our next stage of Hydrazome!
Resolving the Disconnect
Our Human Practices journey started off with us learning about waterlogging and how it affects people. We gained a lot of insight by directly interacting with farmers affected by waterlogging as well as learning from people, scientists and ethicists, that deal with waterlogging. The way we moulded our project was directly influenced by people like Dr. Anil Kumar Tripathi, Dr. Gladys Alexandre, Dr. Anki Reddy as well as the numerous farmers we met at KVK.
On the surface, it would seem that in order to fill the gap between science and society, we would need to speak more about genetically modified organisms and their impacts. However, we realised that the root of the problem comes from the lack of accessibility and understanding of synthetic biology and what it could mean for people. This was one of the main reasons we held a webinar in partnership with UBC iGEM on the Accessibility of Synthetic Biology Innovations (you can read about this on our Communication and Education pages as well). It was very important for us to close this loop as this is essentially the starting point of all projects—accessibility and awareness. Understanding why the disconnect exists and the factors involved is as important as trying to bridge the gap. Through this webinar, our four experts discussed the details to be aware of when understanding why synthetic biology and knowledge regarding it, is not equally accessible. They also cleared up confusions from the audience and left us all thinking about how the future needs to change.
From there, we sought to understand people’s apprehensions regarding GMOs and our product. The general consensus was that people don’t think favourably about GMO crops but since our biofertiliser was involved in the process, what would their thoughts be? This is why we surveyed people and got their inputs regarding our project and GMOs, which you can read about on our Collaborations page as well.
Out of the 226 responses we got, more than 50% of them were favourable towards GMO crops and more than 45% were amenable to GMO crops being a solution for food security. Most of our respondents were in the age group of 18-24, which might have led to the overall acceptance of GMOs and our modified biofertiliser. Nevertheless, we still feel that as long as people are aware of all the facts regarding our modified biofertiliser, they would be favourable towards it.
From our meeting with Nuruzzuman Manik, we also understood that people’s apprehension towards GMOs also comes from the way it is marketed in the media. According to him, the label of GMOs tends to be unfavourable as simply saying something is ‘genetically modified’ gives no clarity about what the product is. He advised us to be very clear about what the modifications are and what the product does, when it comes to the marketing stage. This advice was invaluable for us as it will shape the way we go forward with our entrepreneurship. Our Proposed Implementation will definitely be incorporating this when we go forward.
The feedback we got from farmers is invaluable to us—without them we would have never gone forward with the EPS aspect of our project; they helped us round out our project. We will also be working on our biocontainment plan to ensure that our project is completely safe and that people’s concerns have been listened to.
Our project has really shown us the importance of science education and communication. From our Synthetic Biology exhibit, where students told us that they were fascinated by the new subject, all the way to the activity book we designed for middle school children. We made sure to engage with people at their comfort level and ease them into the discussion.
We have had the absolute pleasure of being able to interact with everyone throughout our project and design it keeping all of their inputs in mind. Through our human-centric approach, we learned how science and society can be a formidable force and do amazingly good and responsible things together.
