“Our food system is broken, and the planet is ailing. We're all part of the problem, and we must all try to be part of the solution. I wish to contribute through the foundation and these awards.” Curt Bergfors, Founder
In 2020 the Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize was established (in Sweden) to find, recognize, and support initiatives and projects that help shift our world to more resilient food systems, toward a goal to achieve food security by 2030. Given annually, winners receive $1M USD to continue and expand their efforts.
To approach these twin goals, sustainable food systems and food security, requires input from a diverse, global community focused on re-imagining food broadly; in all its complex natural and human systems. It means considering how to reshape existing food systems via an abundance of (ingenious) ideas, picking from this broad range of approaches, considering a multitude of small and large possible solutions, and eventually choosing perhaps disruptive, radical changes in perceptions and actions.
Assuming there is community support, political will, funding, and responsive consumers, here are some ideas that were submitted for awards in 2020. I will be following this each year, sharing the ideas and actions sprouting up around the world.
—**—
2020 Prize Winners
Blue Ventures (United Kingdom)
Blue Ventures (BV) wants to address the ocean’s biodiversity loss by largely focusing on industrial fishing techniques, and overfishing. They figure that this will be one of the ways to improve food availability through sustainable fishing and conservation. At the same time, global warming and climate change is clearly impacting ocean-facing communities, with disastrous effects (see my post on Bangladesh is All of Us).
BV wants to work with individual fishing-based communities to build cooperative fisher organizations. These orgs would help manage fishing rights, coordinate sustainability efforts, secure funding for activities, provide training to reduce waste and improve quality. Together, the fisher community can build for itself a sustainable aquaculture business, create ecotourism businesses, and incorporate governmental agencies into their processes.
International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Kenya)
The International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), has the overall goal of processing insect-based protein into animal feed, bio-fertilizers, nutrient rich insect oils, and human food, as a way to reduce the negative impacts of livestock farming on land, forests, and water systems (see my post on From Plagues to Protein). But also as a way to approach food insecurity and increase nutrients for undernourished communities on the African continent, and beyond..
This organization conducts research on insect protein, processing and production systems, while also looking at pest control and disease vectors. Specifically, they want to transform farming to include edible insect species: grasshoppers, black soldier flies, and crickets. In turn, this research will help not only the environment, public health, but also improve farmer’s livelihoods.
The Land Institute (USA)
The Land Institute writes that as human populations grow, there will be a growing demand for more food; and argue we can either continue to destroy more forests and wild lands for agriculture, or we can utilize existing agricultural lands better, to produce more food (see my post on Regenerative Agriculture).
TLI speaks of many shortcomings and outright failures of current agricultural practices: insistence on monocultures, disruptive soil processes, fertilizer and pesticide overuse, fossil-fuel-based machinery, all leading to dysfunctional and infertile soils; in fact, losing 24B tons of fertile soil per year (UN Global Land Outlook). Additionally, while we think soil may be a significant carbon sink, that current practices of tilling and plowing soil releases that gas into the air we eventually breathe.
So they study and work on regenerative agricultural activities such as switching to perennial crops, creating diverse agro-ec—systems that can support local environments and economies. They also work to prove these changes provide a clear commercial advantage to farmers, long term.
Sanergy (Kenya + USA)
Sanergy is a non-profit organization focused on how to deal with the twin issues of urbanization (mainly sewage) waste, and the need to feed the population in those cities. They point to numbers like the projected 2.5B people who will be living in urban settings by 2050, while currently 1B+ people live without access to safe and hygienic sanitation facilities. It is estimated that the lack of sanitation leads to over 700K deaths each year, while annual waste generation in urban settings will increase by 70% by 2050. Without a doubt, these numbers show huge environmental, healthy and economic challenges.
They want to turn human waste into a resource to be integrated back into the food production systems. They developed an insect-based method to covert human waste into organic fertilizer and animal feed in support of small and large farmers. They also offer affordable toilets to urban slums and help control the waste stream through waste collection.
- In Sanergy’s current operation, black soldier flies are doing the dirty work. They break down the waste in a week and produce larvae that are harvested to be used as biofertilizers and as a protein source in poultry, pork and fish feeds. Before the flies can go to work, pathogens have to be removed from the matter, a continuous challenge, not least because of residues from increased use of pharmaceuticals.
- (See my post on PFAS, PFOA, PFWHAT? regarding human waste and pharmaceuticals.)
Future Feed (Australia)
Future Feed (FF) is looking at the issue of ocean-plants as viable food sources and the related methane content in the oceans that are being released into our air.
Specifically, they are looking at how much greenhouse gasses (mostly methane) ruminants release; 1kg of beef produces 60kb greenhouse gas when grown for meat or milk. On average they state that one cow releases 250 liter of methane/day, so that livestock farming and the meat industry are responsible for 18% of total global greenhouse emissions.
So their idea is to feed dairy and meat cows seaweed supplements, as seaweed is a natural methane blocker. Asparagopsis taxiformis, is a red algae species that has demonstrated it decreases cow’s methane gas by 80% (Bromoform is the active ingredient). So an additional focus is how to grow this seaweed sustainably, and in large enough quantities.
—**—
2020 Featured Entries
Crop Trust (Germany)
This international organization is solely dedicated to safeguarding the genetic diversity of global crops, by storing those seeds in gene banks for future food production options. Currently they have 1,074,537 seed varieties conserved in the seed vaults. We know that without diversity and with company-owned seeds, agriculture will not be able to meet future challenges of climate change and environment destruction.
GreenWave (USA)
GreenWave, is a Connecticut-based, non-profit organization, that is working to develop a regenerative ocean farming model to sequester carbon, rebuild marine ecosystems and create viable, sustainable economic activity in coastal communities hard hit by climate change. They have set a 10-year goal to support 10,000 ocean farmers, catalyze planting 1M acres of regenerative ocean farms, focused on those impacted by raising sea levels and changing climate change.
Kriya Labs (India)
One of the many submittals, Kriya Labs is looking at South Asian megacities air pollution caused by large-scale burning of post-harvest crop residues in rural fields. Rice straw is one of the most often burnt areas, since there is no market for this material. So what if we could find a way to buy this straw from the farmers, and break it down into pulp and paper for various materials like biodegradable tableware and packaging materials.
Primary Ocean (USA)
This company is building large-scale seaweed farm ~11 kilometers off LA, California, and is co funded by the USA Government. A 2019 global assessment of seaweed aquaculture indicated there were 48M square kilometers of suitable ocean farming area, but using only 0.001% of this area would be enough to render the entire global aquaculture industry carbon neutral. Not only can this help with sequesting CO2, but also the seaweed they are growing can be used for: organic fertilizer, food, plastics, biofuel, animal feed, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and textiles.
2021 Awards
The organization is now taking on nominations for this years award. Check them out, personally I am very excited to find out what other ideas exist for taking care of our planet.
—Patty
