Future Foods

It is anticipated that by 2050, we will have nine billion people to feed—how can we manage? That time 60% of people will be living in urban areas, and they will have higher demands for animal-derived proteins up to 60 kg of meat and 30 kg of fish. What comes to farmed animals for human consumption, there is a need for 7% annual increase in chicken and aquaculture to produce 60 billion chickens and 140 million tons of aquaculture products.

Other protein alternatives will be needed and could according to [1] come from (a) capturing more out of oceans (medusa, jellyfish, krill); (b) farming the sea (macro- and microalgae (spirulina—high-tech); (c) artificial proteins (Ap) but presently in vitro meat costs 120,000 USD/kg; (d) more out of agro-industry processing (Aip) by-products (corn gluten, brewers’ grains, yeasts, potato protein concentrate, distiller’s dried grain with soluble); (e) farming more plant protein sources (oil seeds, legumes, forages, trees (like Moringa leaves)); (f) compete for land, water, fertilizers, farm inputs; or (g) high-capital/high-tech (Aip, Ap, spirulina algae) potential (regional niche markets).