Is algae the food of the future? | Mission Ahead

waiter enough oh it’s very slimy we’re literally standing on the food of the future right now this is the foundation of the next generation of farming and food by 2050 the world’s population will hit almost 10 billion it’s going to take up to a 70% increase in food production to feed those 2.5 billion extra mouths to survive we need to reinvent the way we farm and eat there’s a few people in the middle of the New Mexican desert who believe they have a tiny green protein rich solution algae why does it smell like the ocean here in the middle of the desert the salty water that we use the strain of algae that we grow has been isolated from the northern Atlantic Ocean so we try to make it as close to the ocean as we can well it’s certainly suppose I get this algae is called nano chlorosis unlike most crops it doesn’t require fresh water to flourish that’s a big deal today 70% of the planet’s available fresh water goes towards crops and raising livestock system is that we’re able to recycle 95 to 97% of our water crystal clear and just keep using it over and over and over again water efficiency like that means you can farm algae in a desert why have your farm here there’s land as far as the eye can see that’s not being used for anything else we’re on top of a salty water aquifer which is what our algae needs and when it comes to solving this potential food shortage land matters about 37% of the land on this planet is dedicated to agriculture as farmland grows scarce algae offers an alternative many more harvests no fertile soil required one of the interesting things about algae that leads to much more higher yield than traditional crops is actually that we do this year-round with corn you plant once you harvest once right but this stuff we might harvest a single pond as much as two or three times a week despite all these qualities that make algae such an attractive crop its algie’s value is food that’s most remarkable he says this strain is about 40% protein and contains all of the essential amino acids humans need meat has those nutrients too but it uses up a lot more of our finite resources like water and land not just for the animals but to grow their food too as for other plant proteins some estimates say that algae can produce seven times the amount of protein that soybeans could on the same amount of land the thing about food though people have to eat it miguel collet i you´d is the CEO of e we it’s his job to convince the world that pond scum should be on the menu people think of algae Omega yeah they don’t go young the protein we are producing is not going to be green it’s not going to change the flavor is not going to be any different from what they are used to this is the success when people see algae as another vegetable not different at all algae is one of the most productive vegetables that you can find in earth and at the same time is one of the most sustainable one we are not bringing algae as an alternative this is in addition to conventional crops Miguel and Rebecca aren’t the first people to recognize the unique power of this tiny marine plant people have been working on algae since at least the early fifties trying to figure out how to do what it is that we’re doing and most of them have been unsuccessful in the early 2000s algae was championed as an excellent source of biofuel but the prohibitively high cost of harvesting and process made the biofuel boom go bust he is staking its future on a different approach that in order for algae to scale growing it has to be as easy as growing any other crop we talk about it as farming on purpose because we want to break the paradigm that algae is industrial microbiology that it’s biotech but that’s not what we’re doing the first step towards algae ala carte supplements today II we is packaging this algae into omega-3 soft gels it’s a market valued at more than thirty three billion dollars but you don’t save the world with supplements and smoothies he has much bigger goals they want their algie’s protein infused in everyday foods so this cookie here it’s just kind of like an enhanced cookie and that it’ll have more protein yes so this is I would like you to try this is a regular cookie and it just has mega 3 Omega 6 Omega 7 and a significant amount of protein but it tastes pretty good go ahead like a sugar cookie yeah I’ve been in the food business for 20 years and that is the key success the product needs to be healthy but it is the taste this is the beginning one step at a time algae for dinner is a long shot but the powerful potential of this tiny super crop can’t be ignored you