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?
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.”
Read more at Cornell University
Photo Credit: analogicus via Pixabay
