They are already used as a nutritional supplement, as feed in aquaculture and, increasingly, also as a biofertilizer and biostimulant in agriculture. Microalgae - unicellular beings that are part of phytoplankton - are one of humanity's great hopes to feed a world population that is growing exponentially on a planet whose fertile lands and availability of fresh water are already at the limit. Its true potential, yet to be exploited, lies in its use for the production of food for human consumption (pasta, bread, soups and vegetable creams ...) and animal feed.

 

 

The United Nations considers them the food of the millennium. Its advantages include its high nutritional value (they are very rich in proteins), its great power to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) - the main gas that causes global warming -, its high productivity and high growth speed. "They take more advantage of sunlight than terrestrial plants, they are capable of doubling their size in hours and from them 100% of the crop is used, not like with tomatoes, for example, that most of the crop is plant", says Tomás Lafarga, researcher at the University of Almería. Other key points are that "they can be cultivated in non-fertile land that does not require fresh water, so they do not compete with traditional agriculture," says Lafarga.

 

 

 

Low industrialization raises the cost of production up to 10 euros per kilo

 

"The problem is that, despite the fact that they have been studied for years in Europe (especially for the production of biodiesel), their production is still limited and is not completely 100% industrialized, which means that the price of product is high ”, warns Massimo Castellari, researcher at the Institute for Research and Technology Agroalimentàries (IRTA). "Few companies have more than one or two hectares in production and, in the world, there are only about 20,000 hectares," adds Carlos Unamunzaga, general director of Fitoplancton Marino, a company specialized in the production of marine microalgae. "The cost of production, of about 10 euros per kilo of dehydrated microalgae in powder for human consumption, is still high and production is very low for mass consumption," says Lafarga.

 

The microalgae are grown in photobioreactors, which consist of pools (which can be open or closed), and require sunlight, high temperatures and inorganic nutrients to grow, with a lower consumption of land and fresh water than the cultivation of other plant proteins. "Its cultivation is fully viable now, it is necessary to replicate the success that the production of microalgae is having for biofertilizer and biostimulant in the field of nutrition", says Raschid Stoffel, director of the Food Department of Alga Energy.

 

With the aim of developing more sustainable and competitive production technologies, the European ProFuture project has been launched. The initiative, which will last four years and is endowed with 7.78 million euros, is led by IRTA. ProFuture has also set the goal of improving the texture, appearance, taste and aroma of the flour that is obtained from drying microalgae.