Algae offer potential for sustainable future food
By Jordan Gaal
AUSTIN, Texas — It’s salty, yet subtle, green, and crunchy. It has more calcium than milk, more potassium than a banana, and more iron than beef. And with new technologies that speed its transition from a health supplement to a widely accepted food, microalgae could play a critical role in feeding a rapidly expanding global population.
The world will have to feed 2 billion more people by 2060 by producing a staggering 70 percent more food. Three researchers studying microalgae explained why these tiny photosynthetic cells could be the solution during a Feb. 18 session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting.
Algae are a broad category, including single-celled organisms that harvest the sun’s energy and turn it into oils, proteins, and carbohydrates. Growing them in a bioreactor — a tank-like apparatus where the complex biological processes of algal growth are optimized — can result in zero waste and limited land and water use, unlike traditional food production. Smaller-scale production compared with commodity crops leads to challenges such as low efficiency and high investment costs. But if the technology for scaling up production and increasing efficiency can be developed, algae have the potential to be integrated into food sources worldwide.
If current consumption patterns continue, in just over 40 years the food system will support a mere 5.4 billion people – much less than today’s population, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Institute of Food, Nutrition, and Health at the ETH Zurich university.
“We need to rethink our food system and need to significantly innovate,” said Alexander Mathys, a food technologist at the Institute of Food, Nutrition, and Health. “We need to team up to tackle such big challenges.”
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https://www.nasw.org/article/algae-offer-potential-sustainable-future-food
