The need to feed increasing urban populations is placing unprecedented pressure on the agriculture industry. To secure higher productivity, the sector relies upon synthetic fertilisers derived from energy intensive manufacturing methods; the run-off from these fertilisers coupled with the food mileage required for crops to reach our cities is having a devastating environmental impact. In addition, for every 1 °C increase in atmospheric temperature, 10 % of farmland used for crop production will be lost [1]. This destructive cycle impacts consumers, farmers, and the environment.

In the coming decades, urbanisation is expected to increase considerably. Today, 54 % of the world population lives in urban areas. By 2050, this share is forecast to increase to 66 %. That equates to an additional 2.4 billion people living in urban centres [2].

Governments and local authorities are responsible for providing and upholding essential services for its citizens, this is especially poignant for the provision of food and protection of farmland.

Newcastle City Council has recently declared their bold plans to convert Newcastle into a ‘Smart City,’ claiming ‘the North East is setting a new standard for digitally enabled urban sustainability' [4]. To present a vision of what Newcastle could be like as a ‘Smart City’ the Newcastle Helix Project has produced a series of scenarios, these include: smart energy network, local energy supply, integrated transport and green flood management.

We saw an opportunity to contribute to these scenarios by producing a sustainable agriculture scenario, we felt this area of urban development has been neglected by the plans thus far. As a result, we decided to take on the challenge of designing a ‘smart agriculture’ solution for Newcastle, demonstrating how the city can shift towards a sustainable agricultural model – setting an example for other cities across the globe – in turn, beginning to tackle some of the global issues our iGEM project set out to solve.

To begin, we researched into areas of the city where we feel space is being under-utilised, and in which a sustainable food source would have the most impact. After studying the urban agriculture industry, communicating with stakeholders (see our timeline), and speaking with local academics we were informed of a space that gives access to locations across the city. Newcastle’s Victoria Tunnel; a disused tunnel that was once used to transport coal from the mines down to the river for shipment - as well as serving as a bunker during WWII. It runs beneath a variety of urban hubs that would benefit from fresh produce including: Newcastle University, Northumbria University, Royal Victoria Hospital, Student villages, and Business centres (see map ).

As part of our Human Practices we have conceptualised an architectural design project within the Victoria Tunnel that transforms it into an urban farm. This design exercise integrates / was informed by all elements of our project – stakeholder engagement, wetware, hardware, and safety.

Below is the journey we took to design the Victoria Tunnel Urban Farm:

Step 1: Initial Project Considerations

(Legislation/Safety)

Once we had decided upon the initial project idea, we knew that we would be working with plants; this led us to look for applications for our product within the agriculture industry. As a result, our project - if successful - would potentially involve releasing our genetically modified bacteria into soil microbial communities – but we were aware this may also have undesirable and unforeseen impacts on the rhizosphere.

To further our understanding of this topic, we began to look at existing legislation surrounding the release of GMOs and the environment. We read official documentation relating to the use of GMOs in contained environments (GMO Legislation).

Therefore, we highlighted early on the necessity to explore the use of our bacteria in contained environments – this way we comply with safe project design / responsible innovation standards.

(Wetware/Hardware)

When planning the wetware side of the project and determining what experiments would be required to reach our goals, it became immediately obvious that there would be the need to develop a device that enables high-throughput experimentation (as we are working with plants over a relatively short period of time). This led to the idea of making our own hydroponic system. (See Hardware)

Once we knew we were searching for applications of our bacteria within the agriculture industry, and that we would be doing so in the context of contained growth environments – we began to line up meetings with relevant stakeholders.

In summary, we asked our stakeholders about their values and the overwhelming response was a commitment to sustainable agriculture: GrowUp Urban Farms and Growing Underground wanted to reduce the carbon footprint of the agriculture industry, GrowModule365 wanted to increase accessibility to fresh produce - all of this within the context of feeding our growing urban populations. Inevitably, we felt our bacteria solved the issue of reducing carbon footprint by reducing the demand for fertilisers – but we still needed to find a way in which it could be used to feed the increasing urban populations, and increase accessibility to fresh produce.

More detailed information about how the conversations with stakeholders influenced our project can be seen in Step 3.

Once we had consulted the relevant stakeholders and felt we had gathered sufficient information we began to feed this in to the design and execution of the project.

Nafferton Farm Visit

Newcastle University have two farms where they conduct agricultural studies (Nafferton & Cockle Park Farm). We thought visiting Nafferton farm would be an excellent opportunity for us to understand more about the context our bacteria may be used in. Touring the farm, we were shown different research sites on both conventional and organic farm land. We were given feedback on our project idea from a growers & farmers perspective, they were quick to raised concerns about releasing genetically modified organisms into their soil and insisted upon contained growth environments.

All in all, everyone at the farm was excited about the prospect of our project, especially as it has to potential to reduce the costs and environmental impact associated with conventional fertilisers.

Hardware Development

The Legal and social considerations of the project highlighted in Step 1 drove the development of NH-1, a low-cost, small-scale and programmable hydroponic system tailored to overcome experimental limitations faced by many plant scientists, such as high-throughput combined with variations of light within a singular space. The development of this system prompted our visits to GrowModule365 and Growing Underground, as well as our Skype call with GrowUp Urban Farms (all of which grow fresh produce hydroponically). The conversations had with these stakeholders gave crucial insight into how hydroponic systems function with regards to achieving optimum conditions for maximum output. We then returned to the Engineering lab to install these conditions into our own hydroponics.

For example, GrowModule365 told us they use purple light in their hydroponic systems as it is the most cost effective, we then took this information and confirmed this and set this as standard in our hydroponic system.

Building a hydroponic system also prompted the theoretical exploration of future deployment techniques for GM bacteria within contained environments. It is at this point that we began thinking about how our GMOs could be used to enhance sustainable crop productivity at a local and accessible level.

Growing Underground grow fresh produce in unused WWII bunkers under the streets of Clapham, London. We loved the idea of taking neglected spaces within the urban environment that once provided a service and repurposing them. On return from our visit to their facilities, we were made aware by one of our supervisors of a disused tunnel that runs under Newcastle – The Victoria Tunnel. Directly inspired by Growing Underground, we began to envision using our own hydroponic system to grow fresh produce that is locally accessible under the streets of Newcastle. Growing Underground made us aware of the following advantages of growing in contained environments within our cities:

• Providing cities with fresh produce all year round.
• Reducing the carbon footprint of crop production due to reduced food millage.
• No agricultural run-off.
• Limited need for pesticides and herbicides.
• Safer crops as there is less risk of contamination.
• Reduced spoilage due to shorter transportation times and reduced handling.

Wetware Development

Seed coating:
Initially our project involved providing farmers with a preserved culture of the adapter bacteria for roots to be inoculated by wounding (a common method in microbiology) [6]. When presenting our project to GrowUp Urban Farms, the ability and willingness of commercial farmers to use these methods while achieving the desired effect was questioned. Tom Webster highlighted that farmers may consider the time taken to inoculate the plants more costly than applying fertiliser and recommended we consider using our product as a seed coating.

This influenced our wetware as from here our focus switched to coating sterile seeds with our bacteria in order to inoculate the seedling as it grows.

Endophyte Isolation:
Talks with Tom Webster (CTO at GrowUp Urban Farms) highlighted concerns about the localisation of the endophyte within the plant. We had not considered the issues with the GMO being present in the leaves/fruit of the plant.

This impacted our wetware in that we no longer attempted to re-isolate endophytes from just the roots, from this point we cut roots and leaves separately to re-isolate endophytes. In the event of the endophyte being present in the fruit it is possible for future work to engineer the bacterium to remain localised in the root.

Safety Considerations

We had a Skype meeting with Chris Tapsall, Research Director at KWS Seeds. KWS are one of the top 5 biggest seed producers in the world. The meeting was eye-opening, we discussed consumers views towards the use of GMOs in crop production and how some markets may be more accepting of our product than others. We also talked about the importance of transparency when it comes to marketing a product in relation to the use of genetically modified material.

We learnt about certain EU regulations and alternative applications for our bacteria (i.e. methods in which a manufacturer could apply our bacteria to a seed). Chris was passionate about our project and forwarded our information to other researchers in KWS.

Please see our Safety Page for more information on how we designed our urban farm to comply with safety standards.

Consumer Views

When eating at a local restaurant, one of our team members noticed the small print at the bottom of the menu (see below). The small print assures customers that none of their food products contain ‘genetically modified materials.’ This made us question whether consumers would want to eat food grown with our bacteria.

Products grown within our proposed urban farm would be different to the traditional genetically modified crops in the sense that our crops wouldn’t be genetically modified at all – but the bacteria that colonise the roots would be. As a result, we think that this would make consumers more comfortable about eating products grown in this way.

To further our understanding about consumer views and how best to market our product we invited Food Nation to visit us at the University. Food Nation is a social enterprise based in Newcastle with a vision to inspire people about good food, they have extensive knowledge about consumers views on food products.

Listening to Food Nations story and learning about the good food initiatives they’re involved with led us to re-evaluate the values of our own project. The food companies we visited prior to Food Nation (GrowModule365, Growing Underground, GrowUp Urban Farms) were all commercial enterprises – but we loved Food Nation's approach to social enterprise, promoting initiatives owned by local communities and businesses, any profits of which go back into the community. Prior to this, our proposed economic model for the tunnel would have looked something similar to that of the commercial enterprises; however, we began to see the potential of the Victoria Tunnel Urban Farm as a resource that could be owned and maintained by the communities that use it: an educational tool, an accessible source of fresh produce, or perhaps even a food bank.

If we take this project further after the Giant Jamboree, Food Nation have the contacts to enable us to conduct thorough public consultations as well as the relevant contacts within the local council who could potentially make a concept like the Victoria Tunnel Urban Farm possible. By engaging with Food Nation we have started a conversation locally about the adaptive re-use of the Victoria Tunnel as an urban farm.

Conclusion

Our thorough approach to stakeholder engagement has had a huge impact on the outcome of our project. The Victoria Tunnel Urban Farm concept was our way of bringing it all together: stakeholder engagement, safety, hardware, and wetware. Moreover, it gave us the opportunity to demonstrate our vision of what a sustainable urban future may look like for Newcastle – a future that uses land efficiently, a future that reduces the pressure on the agriculture industry to use synthetic fertilisers... a future for sustainable agriculture.

A trip to the tunnels demonstrated their size and potential as a growing environment and we began to consider the possibility of our design becoming realised.