How do we increase food production by more than 50%, on a limited amount of arable land, to feed a projected 10 billion people by 2050?
October 6, 2022
How do we increase food production by more than 50%, on a limited amount of arable land, to feed a projected 10 billion people by 2050?
The solution could come in the form of nutritious and protein-dense microalgae (single-celled), grown in onshore, seawater-fed aquaculture systems.
A paper, « Transforming the Future of Marine Aquaculture: A Circular Economy Approach, » published in the September issue of Oceanography, describes how growing algae onshore could close a projected gap in society’s future nutritional demands while also improving environmental sustainability.
« We have an opportunity to grow food that is highly nutritious, fast-growing, and we can do it in environments where we’re not competing for other uses, » said Charles Greene, professor emeritus of Earth and atmospheric sciences and the paper’s senior author. « And because we’re growing it in relatively enclosed and controlled facilities, we don’t have the same kind of environmental impacts. »
Even as the Earth’s population grows in the coming decades, climate change, limited arable land, lack of freshwater and environmental degradation will all constrain the amount of food that can be grown, according to the paper.
« We just can’t meet our goals with the way we currently produce food and our dependence on terrestrial agriculture, » Greene said.
