Thanks! Good question—for a 10% shortfall, it is more about alternate feed than alternate food. The natural gas digesting bacteria is currently being used as fish feed. We could utilize agricultural residues much better, first extracting edible calories directly, which has been done at both small and large scale. Then we take the left over of that and put it into a cellulosic or second-generation biofuel process that breaks the cellulose into sugar that people could eat. Finally, the leftover from that could be fed to animals. In addition, we might be able to have municipal collection of food waste to feed pigs. Just with agricultural residues, we could save/produce more than 10% of our current food consumption. Another possibility is growing mushrooms on logging residues that normally just decompose and feeding the leftover from that to animals, which has already been done. And we might even want to do some of this now to reduce the environmental impact of animals.
Thanks! Good question—for a 10% shortfall, it is more about alternate feed than alternate food. The natural gas digesting bacteria is currently being used as fish feed. We could utilize agricultural residues much better, first extracting edible calories directly, which has been done at both small and large scale. Then we take the left over of that and put it into a cellulosic or second-generation biofuel process that breaks the cellulose into sugar that people could eat. Finally, the leftover from that could be fed to animals. In addition, we might be able to have municipal collection of food waste to feed pigs. Just with agricultural residues, we could save/produce more than 10% of our current food consumption. Another possibility is growing mushrooms on logging residues that normally just decompose and feeding the leftover from that to animals, which has already been done. And we might even want to do some of this now to reduce the environmental impact of animals.