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Policy
Building Future Food System with Greater Diversity in Food Sources
Emerging natural food sources for alternative and sustainable protein supply to counter the impact of climate change and enhance food security.
Professor William Chen
Michael Fam Chair Professor in Food Science and Technology
Director, NTU Food Science and Technology Nanyang Technological University Singapore
With the world’s population projected to reach 9.73 billion in 2050, food security is becoming an increasingly important global issue. The increase in population, changing consumer taste, climate change as well as water scarcity make meeting the potential 60% increase in demand for food even more challenging. Efficient food system would be needed. Such a system should be comprehensive with primary production from a wider variety of crops and alternative food sources, to zero-waste food processing and supply chain, and to appropriate nutrition for the population. This opinion paper addresses the emerging field of naturally occurring alternative food sources (microalgae and insects), their potential as a new option for sustainable protein supply, as well as their role in other parts of the food chain, including animal feeds.
Climate Change and
Food Security
The demand for food by the growing population would have a direct impact on the environment at various levels. Increased production yield from traditional farming would be translated into greater deforestation, higher water usage, higher energy consumption in storage and transportation, thus contributing to global warming. The increase in global warming would, in turn, affect the production yield of traditional farming with extreme weather conditions that even GM crops may not be able to cope. For agricultural countries in Southeast Asia with large coastal farming areas, traditional farming land may well disappear with the sea-level rise as predicted in the recent IPCC report.
The intensified demand in production yield would also result in poorer soil condition by higher usage of chemicals used in farming, leading to deteriorating nutritional quality of the crops over time.
The added burden on traditional farming practices to feed the growing population would not be sustainable. It has been estimated that to feed 9.73 billion people by 2050, we would need to have 1.2 billion cows, 25 billion chickens, 1 billion pigs and 200 million tons of seafood. However, the above-mentioned numbers would be significantly lower if the current food system can be made more efficient. The novel food system should address the following key challenges: 1. widen the choice of crops for primary production (indigenous, underutilised but nutritious species); 2. explore alternative food sources suitable for urban farming (microalgae, insects among others); 2. reduce food loss and food waste which can be as high as 40% at post-harvest level; 3. understand the minimal nutrition requirement to shift from food quantity to food quality; 4. establish closer relationship with consumers to achieve greater awareness of new foods in response to food security challenges.
Urban Farming for
Efficient Food System
With the increasing trend in urbanisation around the world, urban farming would provide a sustainable solution to complement traditional farming. Urban farming can be more resilient to climate change and other environmental hazards. It is also closer to consumers thus food loss would be lower while nutrition value and freshness would be higher, compared
Incorporating microalgae as an alternative protein source offers consumers several benefits over traditional high-protein crop in terms of productivity and nutritional value.
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