TRENDING SCIENCE: Houseflies and worms on the menu? Yes, if you want to fight world hunger

A United Nations report estimates that almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019. An additional 130 million could go hungry because of COVID-19. The coronavirus, together with climate change and environmental disasters, is threatening food supply chains like never before. Has the time come for large-scale farming of insects and seaweed?According to a study published in the journal ‘Nature Food’, a solution would be to farm foods such as algae (e.g. sugar kelp), insect larvae (e.g. housefly) and mycoprotein (protein derived from fungi). To combat malnutrition, researchers from the University of Cambridge say that these “future foods” could serve as sustainable alternatives to traditional plant- and animal-based foods. They need to be mass-produced and consumed.

Despite the foods’ nutritional value, a major roadblock is overcoming people’s reluctance and building consumer acceptance. “Admittedly these are non-conventional items,” first author Dr Asaf Tzachor, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), told Agence France-Presse, as reported by News18. “You can eat them within your pasta or burgers or energy bars, for example. And these items can contain ground insect larva, or processed microalgae or macroalgae.”The research team examined nearly 500 published scientific papers on various kinds of future food production systems. The most promising ones are microalgae photobioreactors and insect-breeding greenhouses. A photobioreactor provides a controlled environment to allow microalgae to grow and be cultivated. Producing such future foods could transform how food systems operate because they can be grown at scale in compact systems adapted to both urban areas and isolated communities in remote regions.

“Foods like sugar kelp, flies, mealworm and single-celled algae such as chlorella, have the potential to provide healthy, risk-resilient diets that can address malnutrition around the world,” Dr Tzachor added in a University of Cambridge news release.

The study states that depending on food originating from traditional farming and supply systems is risky. Dr Tzachor explained: “Our current food system is vulnerable. It’s exposed to a litany of risks - floods and frosts, droughts and dry spells, pathogens and parasites - which marginal improvements in productivity won’t change. To future-proof our food supply we need to integrate completely new ways of farming into the current system.”

The time has arrived to incorporate high-tech farming techniques into food systems around the world. “Advances in technology open up many possibilities for alternative food supply systems that are more risk-resilient, and can efficiently supply sustainable nutrition to billions of people,” commented co-author Catherine Richards, a doctoral researcher at CSER. “The coronavirus pandemic is just one example of increasing threats to our globalised food system. Diversifying our diet with these future foods will be important in achieving food security for all.”