Algae Could Fix World Hunger

Algae Could Fix World Hunger

NonFood grows algae to create 100% plant-based protein bars — without using pesticides and a fraction of the water and land as meat and plant-based farming. It was the prehistoric era that inspired the idea. Livestock takes up 80% of global agricultural land, but only provides 20% of the global caloric intake according to FAO. By 2050, food production must increase by 70% to meet the needs of an expected 9.1 billion people. Raspert says if we don’t expand into alternative food productions now, the choice will be made for us.

“It's one of the oldest organisms on earth. It’s the reason that we have oxygen in the atmosphere, it thrives under a lot of conditions, so it kind of just makes sense as the most efficient food source. We want to kind of bring back that efficiency of the early ecological epochs and you know in doing so really reduce the human footprint of agriculture on the earth today. If there is a kind of increased ecological catastrophe over the next two decades, then algae is actually at least something that can grow in a lot of different conditions and it can potentially even grow in. Farmland and places that can no longer sustain regular kinds of plants and animals. You can still grow algae because it's grown in a kind of enclosed system. It's grown in a kind of temperature-controlled environment where the water is re recycled and so you can potentially feed a lot of people with a small amount of land. And so at least it's a backup plan if it's not the first plan. But we hope it is the first plan.”

If scaled globally, the system promises a suite of stunning co-benefits. Is algae the answer to the food sustainability dilemma?

Brut.