Amsterdam, 17-07-2044

Today we live in an ecological and nutritiously balanced world. But this wasn’t always the case. In this article I will take you back thirty years, when the world faced problems thought to be impossible to overcome.

Something was wrong with our food consumption. People where becoming more conscious about what they eat. The demand for high quality proteins increased fast. Yet the supply chain was wasting an immense amount of perfectly fine nutritions. This not only effected the social needs, it also had a huge impact on the environment and the economy .

Lets start with some facts about food waste back then, fully referenced in Tristram Stuart, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009).

The UK, US and Europe had nearly twice as much food as was required by the nutritional needs of their populations. Up to half of the entire food supply was wasted between the farm and the fork. If crops wastefully fed to livestock are included, European countries had more than three times the food than they needed, while the US had around four times more food than needed and up to three-quarters of the nutritional value was lost before it reached people’s mouths.

To produce this much food, farmers expanded their lands at the cost of natural environments. They used 8.3 million hectares of land just to produce the meat en dairy products which ended up wasted in UK homes and in US homes, shops and restaurans. That was seven times the amount of Amazon rainforest destroyed in Brazil in the same year, largely for cattle grazing and soy production to export for livestock feed.

It is estimated that all the world’s nearly one billion hungry people in 2014 could have been lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that was wasted in the US, UK and Europe.

But the food waste was the cause of many other problems. In 2014, ten percent of rich countries’ greenhouse gas emissions came from growing food that was never eaten. Between 2 and 500 times more carbon dioxide could have been saved by feeding food waste to pigs rather than sending it for anaerobic digestion (the UK government’s preferred option in the time). But under European laws feeding food waste to pigs was banned. Only in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan it was mandatory to feed some food waste to pigs.

This shows us that there definitely was something wrong in our course of action. The richer countries where mostly responsible. This was due to the fact that in these countries the life standard is very high. People like to have choices. What are we eating tonight? Are we going out for dinner or do we stay at home? Choices like this require a lot of preparations, otherwise there is no choice to be made. Health was becoming more and more important. So people were becoming more conscious about what they were eating. All necessary nutritions needed to be in their system, which resulted in a wider variety of food. So the public demand of different ingredients increased, which meant farmers had to either expand or change their crops. But there where other options in fulfilling the demand.

2044

Let’s skip back to 2044. What has changed and how did we get here?

In our time there is a more balanced food chain, where people receive the nutritions they need, without further demolishing the earth. Even with the growth of earths total population. Projects such as the Polydome have had great influence over the food supply chain. Cities as Rotterdam can feed up to 80% of its population with only 3% of its surface. The Polydome is a standalone ecosystem where plants, mushrooms, poultry and insects live in a natural order. A network that exchanges streams of waste, water and energy, and thus makes optimum use of the available space and sunlight. Because of this natural organism, heavy labour and interference of people is less needed.

Another project that made quit a difference is Growing Underground. This started in the old tunnels 33 metres beneeth Clapham, London. Here they used to harvest micro greens and salad leaves in ‘lost’ spaces of the city. Because of the isolated areas they work in, they can perfectly control the environment for the crops. They don’t need to worry about the weather, seasonal change or even pesticides. Because they control all of these elements, all sorts of crops can be harvested. Products originaly from Southern America, could now be produced in European cities.

The real jump to fame they made when the European law changed and made it possible to use insects in the diets of other animals. Insects can be reared on low-grade bio-waste and can turn this low-grade bio-waste into high quality proteins. Insects therefore were an interesting link in the animal feed chain to fulfill the globally increased demand for protein. Growing Underground immediately started farming insects which can be held in optimum conditions on a relatively small area.

Growing Underground had already expanded to other European cities, but now opened one of the larger farms in the old bomb shelters underneath the Amsterdam underground. This location only focusses on insect farming. Here they also started experimenting with the use of insect proteins in human foods and drinks.

Insect farming also helped the decrease of food waste. Ever since the European Union stated that food waste must be brought back into the cycle by feeding it to pigs, it now could also be used for insect farming. As a result of a more balanced food chain in the western countries, food doesn’t have to be flown in from the other side of the world. This helps to decrease our ecological footprint and stops the need of expanding our territory at the cost of the natural environment.