Lilian Kluivers | October 2010 issue
Proteins—found in meat, dairy products and meat substitutes like tofu—are crucial nutritional building blocks. While soy is a prominent source of protein, it is not an effective one. Eleven pounds (five kilograms) of soy are needed to produce two pounds (a kilo) of meat. So Willem Brandenburg, a researcher affiliated with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, came up with an alternative: the large-scale, sustainable cultivation of seaweed. Not only is seaweed rich in protein, it can reduce our dependence on soy.
“Everyone on Earth should have access to enough nutrients,” says Brandenburg, “even when there are one and a half times as many people to feed in 2050.” He wants the coastal waters around river estuaries to be covered with huge seaweed beds. The Dutch government is expected to grant him a license to set up a test location soon.
When the seaweed is harvested, it can be processed into vegetables and meat substitutes as well as cattle and fish feed. Marine life will also benefit from the beds, under which algae will act as nurseries for various types of fish. This will help the ocean floor recover from the effects of fishing and sand extraction. An added bonus: While competition rages onshore between growing food and growing raw materials for bioenergy, plenty of space remains in the ocean—and seaweed can be fermented to make bioenergy.
Small-scale, sustainable seaweed cultivation is already taking place in California and Japan, among other places. The trick is to grow it on a large scale without fertilizer, which can upset the ocean’s ecosystem. Brandenburg suspects that cultivating seaweed near rivers will provide sufficient nutrients from the land to make fertilizer unnecessary. So far, Brandenburg’s test lab is a mini version of his future dream. “In our immense oceans,” he says, “we have the space to cultivate this type of sustainable product.”
