Sustainable development is a theory and strategy about the coordinated development of nature, science and technology, economy and society. In 1980, it first appeared in World Conservation Strategy issued by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It stated that "the fundamental relationships between nature, society, ecology, economy and utilization of natural resources must be studied in order to ensure global sustainable development." In the process of historical development, the concept of sustainable development has also been progressing. In the comprehensive definition, we support that sustainable development refers to "the development that meets the needs of the present generation without endangering the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Similarly, sustainable development has its own definitions in the aspects of natural environment, economy, science and technology.
As igemer, and as a participant in the sustainable development of the world and China, we always believe that our projects will be integrated into the sustainable development of the world, and ultimately contribute to the survival of humanity and the future of the planet. Although we have completed a lot of work in just one year, we are still exploring the way of sustainable development, hoping to do our bit to the sustainable development of mankind.
The word "sustainability" was first proposed by ecologists, which is also called "ecological sustainability". It is intended to illustrate the balance between natural resources and their procedures of utilization and development. The insecticide pro max team hopes that insect control methods can both effectively kill pests and do no harm to the environment in the future, so as to achieve both plant protection and ecological civilization.
In early 2023, the team found that 90 percent of the willows in Shahu Lake were affected by unknown pests, so the team collected a small number of gnawed leaves and asked the school's pest control expert, Professor Zhang Jiang. Prof. Zhang pointed out that most of these willows are harmed by Plagiodera versicolora, which is a common forest pest, mainly gnawing on the leaves of poplar and willow trees, and has a certain threat to China's forestry. At the same time, Prof. Zhang also introduced to us some common anti-pest methods: physical pest control method, chemical pest control method, biological pest control method.
After Prof. Zhang's preliminary popularization of pest control for us, the team members developed a strong interest in it, and conducted a lot of scientific literature reading and group discussion. We have learned that it is convenient, economical, efficient and effective to control pests by using chemical pesticides. However, with the extensive use of chemical pesticides, serious environmental pollution has been caused, and chemical pesticides have great toxicity to many non-target organisms, causing irreparable damage to the entire ecosystem. In recent years, environmental pollution and chemical residue problems caused by excessive use of chemical pesticides have emerged one after another. More and more chemical pesticides are banned. Physical insecticide method: The use of physical insecticide method generally uses light trapping, artificial capture and so on, which is environmentally friendly, but the insecticide range is limited, the cost is too high, the insecticide effect is unstable, and it cannot cope with large-scale or sudden insect infestation; biological insecticidal methods such as bt protein transgenic plants, are environmental friendly with great insecticidal effect and high economic benefits, but insects will develop insecticide resistance over time. While some studies show that bt protein may be harmful to human cells, people still have doubts about transgenic technology like this.
We consulted Prof. Zhang again with questions. This time Prof. Zhang shared us with their lab's research work—— RNAi anti-pest method and anti-pest biocontrol bacteria. In the early stage, they screened a pseudomonas with anti-insect effect, and similar biocontrol bacteria can also be used as a biological control method to fight pests. After learning about the environmental friendliness of the anti-pest biocontrol bacteria, the insecticide pro max team was ready to have an effect test for the anti-insect pseudomonas bacteria. However, after a period of biological testing, we found that although this anti-insect pseudomonas had a certain effect, the anti-insect pseudomonas could not completely kill the pests, and a small number of pests survived every time.
Figure 1: Prof. Zhang was introducing the research work to us.
We decided to visit Hubei Academy of Forestry for expert inquiries. We told the expert about our anti-pest project, the effect of anti-pest pseudomonas and our confusion. The expert agreed with the environmental friendliness of that anti-pest pseudomonas, but they introduced us to an advanced plant protection technology: RNAi technology. He hoped it could provide a reference for our research.
RNAi technology is a phenomenon of gene silencing induced by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in eukaryotes. The dsRNA is cleaved by the cytoplasmic endonuclease Dicer into multiple small interfering RNAs (siRNA) with a specific length (21-24 nt) and structures, then siRNA and Argonaute (AGO) proteins form RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), and then the mRNA (messenger RNAs) homologous regions of the corresponding genes are cut to promote the degradation of mRNA and induce gene silencing. The use of RNAi technology for entomological research and pest control has become a research hotspot. By inhibiting the expression of essential genes for pests, it can reduce the fitness of pests or kill pests. This technology is highly targeted and harmless to crops, humans and animals, which has good application potential.
After the inquiries, our team brainstormed the application of RNAi technology. Finally, we decided to combine RNAi technology with anti-insect pseudomonas, so that dsRNA could be expressed in large quantities in pest body, and anti-insect pseudomonas could be used as a bridge of recombinant bacteria to deliver dsRNA to the stomach of pests. Coupling with the anti-insect effect of anti-insect biocontrol bacteria itself, a more efficient anti-insect effect was expected. Therefore, we carried out biological tests again, and compared RNAi synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas with anti-insect pseudomonas. It was found that RNAi synergistic insect-resistant pseudomonas could kill all pests within the same time, while other groups had different degrees of insect residues. So it could be determined that the synergistic effect of RNAi and insect-resistant pseudomonas was remarkable.
At the same time, Prof. Zhang Jiang was also paying attention to our experimental process. During the biological tests, he suggested that we should try knockout of the three genes of pseudomonas sclerotium to obtain the RNAi synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas with the three genes of ribozyme knocked out. It has a higher dsRNA accumulation compared with the RNAi synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas that does not knock out the ribozyme three genes. It was found that the RNAi synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas that knocks out the ribozyme three genes can kill all pests in a shorter time. In addition, in order to directly control the massive expression of dsRNA, we also added a layer of lacl operator switch on the expression dsRNA plasmid. We could control the expression of a large number of dsRNA through the induction primer IPTG of the lacl operator, so that the expression of dsRNA becomes controllable and the impact on the environment is reduced. Finally, in order to ensure that the anti-insect pseudomonas does not flood into the environment, we also added a red optogenetic switch, which will be activated under light to cause cell lysis, reducing the impact of our biocontrol bacteria on the environment.
We have determined the preliminary pest control program and verified its high efficiency against the original biocontrol bacteria. The relevant literature also clearly pointed out that RNAi technology is highly targeted for target pests, and has no harm to crops, humans and animals. Moreover, a number of studies have pointed out that Coleoptera insects are extremely sensitive to RNAi technology, and Coleoptera, as the largest insect order, is known to have 350,000 species, accounting for about 40% of the insect class. Many coleoptera plant-feeding species are agricultural and forestry pests. Their fast damage speed, and heavy destructiveness poses a huge threat to agricultural production. Theoretically, RNAi technology might be a nemesis against coleoptera pests such as Salicystis; in addition, the two safety switches we set up can also effectively control the unknown impact of dsRNA and biocontrol bacteria on the environment, so as to nip in the bud. Various data can show that our existing work has made contributions to promoting the greening and environmental protection of pesticides. Our use of RNAi and insect-resistant pseudomonas for synergistic insect-fighting has strong pertinency and sensitivity to most pests, improves the insect-resistant target and avoids harm to other organisms, and maintains the sustainable development of ecology and natural environment.
Although the current anti-pest effect of our anti-pest program is not as fast and easy as that of chemical pesticides. In the long run, with the rapid development of science and technology, the anti-pest efficiency of the collaborative anti-pest program of RNAi with "eco-friendly and anti-pest" characteristics and pseudomonas anti-insect bacteria will only be continuously improved and optimized, and finally realize the sustainable development goal of effectively killing pests without harming the environment and achieving both plant protection and ecological civilization!
In his book Economics, Natural Resource Scarcity and Development, Edivard B.Barbier defines sustainable development as "maximizing the net benefits of economic development while maintaining the quality of natural resources and the services they provide."
According to JammGustare Spath, Director of Sustainable Development, "Sustainable development is a shift to cleaner and more efficient technologies - as close to 'zero emissions' or 'seal' as possible, and processes that reduce the consumption of energy and other natural resources as much as possible."
In order to explore the economic and technological sustainable development of RNAi and synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas program with other anti-insect programs, the insecticide pro max team decided to conduct in-depth research in an enterprise. We chose Adao Mai Jingzhou chemical pesticide production base.
Adama is the seventh largest crop protection company in the world, with a long history of three times the industry average growth. The company's shares are publicly traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and the company's sales reached $5.6 billion in 2022. With sales in more than 100 countries around the world, the company brings solutions to local farmers and customers. With four industry-leading research and development centers and 22 synthesis and formulation production sites around the world, Adama has extensive experience in chemical pesticide manufacturing and in-depth understanding of the world pesticide market. So we decided to go to Adama Jingzhou production base to investigate the situation. Read about it
We first got a preliminary understanding of the production situation of the factory from the safety minister of the base. It is understood that the entire production line includes five parts: energy supply device, raw material collection and treatment device, original drug production device and pollution treatment device, and the production and construction cost is extremely high. During the tour, the safety minister also mentioned that there is a rich sodium salt mine below the plant, which can be mined directly for production.
Then we talked to the director of the Product Research Institute. The director mentioned that although the production cost of chemical pesticides is cheap, its research and development cost is huge. The cost of a chemical pesticide from research to production to the market needs to be at least one billion dollars, not including the cost of changing the production line, the cost of rebuilding the production equipment. And invisible costs such as safety assessment costs, old equipment disassembly costs and new equipment installation costs are not included. In addition, due to the emergence of insecticide resistance, the cost of R&D and testing to replace new available pesticides is no less than that, and the contradiction between the long research and development cycle and the loss of resistance is difficult to reconcile. These seem to be the inevitable difficulties faced by chemical pesticides in the face of economic costs.
Figure 2: We were communicating with the safty director.
After the research, we also consulted a teacher from the School of Accounting to evaluate the cost of our anti-pest program. If the national project support and enterprise capital injection are included, it is estimated that the initial capital investment of 8 million yuan can be obtained, and the balance amount can be 6 million yuan. After obtaining the insect-resistant pseudomonas with high resistance to Salicylidena, if you want to change the target sequence or target organism, you only need to sequence the target. After the initial production line is built, the cost only includes gene sequencing, which is very convenient whether it is independent sequencing or sequencing in relevant institutions. What' more, there is no need to replace the production line equipment and re-evaluate the safety of the equipment. Therefore, under the premise that both biopesticides and chemical pesticides have high anti-insect efficiency, the collaborative scheme of RNAi and anti-insect pseudomonas has a greater net benefit in economic development.
Facing the resistance problem, as well as the contradiction between the development cycle and the loss of resistance, the collaborative program of RNAi and anti-insect pseudomonas seems to be able to solve it. Due to the fast and convenient sequencing technology and the flexibility of RNAi technology, in the face of sudden resistance problems or sudden insect pests, the use of RNAi and synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas program can greatly reduce a series of problems caused by resistance, recover the economic losses of producers at a faster speed, and fill the "gap period" of chemical pesticide resistance.
In addition, the production process of chemical pesticides also involves the mining of salt mines. Since the 1980s, there have been problems such as big loss, low total recovery rate and impoverishment of mineral resources in China. The contradiction between the demand for mineral resources and the reduction of mineral deposit quality still exists, which hides the problem of environmental protection and economic costs. The RNAi and synergistic anti-insect pseudomonas are adopted to reduce the exploitation and utilization of mineral resources due to chemical pesticide production, which is conducive to the sustainable development of natural environment, economy and science and technology.
At the same time, we understand that the chemical pesticide production line is much cleaner than before under the technology of microbial decontamination, but mining activities, chemical reaction processes, etc., will still cause a lot of energy consumption and a certain amount of emissions. In contrast, the main body of the biopesticide production line is expected to be a large fermenter, with bacteria as the chassis cell. It has small energy consumption, low carbon emissions, resulting in emissions and energy consumption far lower than the chemical pesticide production process, which is more in line with the current scientific and technological sustainable development requirements.
We know that if we want to truly achieve sustainable development of nature, economy and sci-tech, we not only need advanced science and technology, but also need the whole society to practice the concept of sustainable development and take the road of social sustainable development, so as to give full play to the role of science and technology on the road of sustainable development.
In order to understand the current situation of pest control work in agriculture and forestry, we prepared to go to the forest farm for field investigation and inquiry, and finally selected the Sanyang Forest farm in Yunmeng County, Xiaogan City, Hubei Province.
Xiaogan City is one of the main planting poplar and willow forest bases in our province, of which poplar and willow are the main planting trees in the local forestry economy and the important proportion of ornamental planting, about 50% of the local forestry planting. Sanyang Forest Farm in Xiaxindian of Yunmeng County is the largest forest farm in the area of trees planted locally, and it is also the largest forest farm in the area of poplar and willow planting. Poplar and willow account for about 60% of the forest income ratio of Sanyang Forest Farm. Therefore, the team chose the site for field investigation, which is of great help to us to understand the pest control situation of front-line foresters.
In the forest farm, we learned from the farmer that the forest farm mainly uses chemical means to control pests. The initial chemical control is to apply lime water on the trunk to prevent the trunk from freezing, sunburn and insect infestation. At the same time, the forest farm also uses a lot of chemical pesticides, such as methamidophos and lime-sulfur mixture. During the visit, we found that there were a large number of pesticide bottles piled up on the ground in the forest farm, and we asked if it was caused by the random disposal of chemical pesticides after use, and it was not cleaned up. Excessive pesticides and pesticide residues from discarded pesticide bottles may seep into the soil, causing high local pesticide concentration in the soil and difficult degradation, eventually leading to soil compaction and pollution problems.
We then introduced our biological control methods to the farmers, using natural enemies such as wasps, bug hunters, lacewings and spiders. Use microorganisms for control, such as our product, pseudomonas sprayed insecticide. The above biological control methods will not pollute the soil and have no harm to the environment. At the same time, we also suggested to the forest farm owners: according to the requirements of the Forestry Bureau and the manual of chemical pesticides to regulate the use of chemical pesticides; appropriately use chemical pesticides in time; clean up the waste pesticide bottles. Those can not only better play the role of chemical pesticides, but also reduce the harm of chemical pesticides to the environment.
After the survey, we realized that the public and front-line rangers and forestry workers have a relatively low understanding of all aspects of pest control, and decided to conduct in-depth public education to popularize various knowledge about pest control.
In terms of public education, our team carried out multi-thread work, and carried out popular science work on pest control for different age groups.
During the summer vacation, the team members of the Xiaogan Detachment conducted a social survey on ecological protection issues among people of all ages on the street. A total of 1,000 people aged 16-45 were surveyed. When it comes to environmental protection, 84% of people know something about environmental protection, and 16% say they do not. For the types of pesticides, 74% of people understand the types of pesticides, 26% of people do not understand the types of pesticides. When it comes to biological pest control, 56% of people know something about biological pest control and 47% do not. In the inquiry, we also carried out a simple popularization of science for the respondents who said they did not know about it, and 90% of the respondents said that they had improved their cognition of ecological protection knowledge from the popularization of science. It can be seen from the above data that most people have a certain understanding of environmental protection and pesticides, but there are still some people who have a low understanding of these issues. This shows that there is still room for improvement in environmental protection education and pesticide management. Education and awareness activities can help raise public awareness of environmental protection and pesticides, and promote their active participation and action in ecological protection. Read about it
Figure 3: The young people under the investigation.
Afterwards, our team is ready to conduct public education on pest control and ecological protection. The team members of Xiangyang detachment participated in the activities of a trip to the countryside and volunteered to teach in Xiangyang Shimen Village Primary School. In the course of teaching, we arranged three courses related to biological ecology: the growth process of "lotus", the identification of insects and common pests and the origin of the earth and biological evolution. The first two classes progressed smoothly, and the children were actively participating in the classroom interaction. After class, the children could digest the classroom knowledge, infer the lotus leaf structure according to the classroom knowledge. They also independently distinguish spiders, centipedes, mala and other insects from insects, and understood the longicorn, weevil, cabbage insects and other insects are common pests. The content of the last lesson is too complicated and esoteric, and the lower grade students could not understand it, and it is easier for the senior students to accept.
The active participation of the children in the class made us feel the children's desire for knowledge related to biological science, and also made us feel the public's high acceptance of biological protection knowledge, which ignited our enthusiasm for the publicity of ecological protection knowledge, and made us believe that the road to sustainable development of society has a bright future. At the same time, we also realized that there is a long way to go for public education. How to disseminate complex biological and ecological knowledge to the public in a simpler and more interesting way, and how to carry out science popularization on pest control in more diversified forms is the direction of our future efforts, which is not just related to the building of social sustainable development. More people can be called on to participate in sustainable development work, and constantly add new impetus to the road of sustainable development in the world. Read about it
Figure 4: We and children.