We’re thrilled to announce this year’s shortlist: Out of over 1,000 nominations, 6 groundbreaking initiatives have made it to the final stage and the winner will be revealed on June 13th! These initiatives represent some of the most innovative efforts worldwide to reduce the environmental footprint of our food systems. They offer revolutionary ways to protect crops and increase yields, a low-emission method to produce fertilizer, tools to slash food waste, and more.
Each finalist has been carefully selected through a thorough review process led by the Food Planet Prize’s in-house nominations team, with expert evaluations from leading academics.
The following initiatives comprise the 2025 shortlist:
Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies – Uses fungal endophytes and microbes to help crops resist climate stress, cut fertilizer use, and boost yields.
Astungkara Way – Reinvents rice farming with regenerative methods to increase productivity and enhance farmer livelihoods in an ecologically beneficial way.
NitroCapt – Develops zero-emission fertilizers using air and plasma, reducing climate impact.
Pride on our Plates – Tackles massive food waste in China’s catering sector by empowering small businesses with data-driven insights and behavioral strategies.
Semion – Fights pesticide resistance with plant-based defenses that protect yields and reduce chemical harm.
Virtual Irrigation Academy – Equips smallholder farmers with smart soil sensors to save water and increase food production.
The shortlisted initiatives will come to Stockholm in June to meet with the Food Planet Prize’s international jury. Together with Roads & Kingdoms, we’ve crafted in-depth articles to bring their stories to life—visit the links above to learn more.
Congratulations to this year’s finalists. We hope you find them as inspiring as we do!
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After rounds of screening, research, and evaluation of nearly a thousand nominations – our prize team has identified 39 initiatives that stand out from the rest. The Food Planet Prize 2025 longlist is the first major step towards finding a winner. It also presents new, inspiring possibilities for our challenged food systems.
This year’s longlist contains initiatives from 23 countries across six continents—from Uganda to the UK, from China to Colombia. These initiatives illustrate how innovations can be technical in nature but also social or nature-based. They show how impressive ideas can come from high-tech companies and grassroots NGOs alike. Our longlisted initiatives provide the world with carbon sequestration, improved soil health, clean water, food waste reductions, and many other benefits to the food planet.
As many of you may know, this is one step among many. The next step is to deeply dive into the longlisted initiatives, in an effort to create a top-notch shortlist. Our prize team are eager to see which initiatives can have the biggest impact – and if they can scale globally and quickly.
Come spring, we will present the shortlisted initiatives, and in June our jury will select a winner. Only one initiative can win The Food Planet Prize 2025, but we hope our work will draw attention to all the nominees and help them grow. We don’t change the way we eat and produce food in isolation – this is a mission that requires many different initiatives working together.
Keep an eye out here on our website and on Instagram, where we will reveal more about each of the longlisted initiatives. We hope they will inspire you as much as they inspire us.
Lastly, nominations are always open. If you know of someone you think should win the Food Planet Prize, nominate them here. It only takes three minutes, but it could change the world.
The longlisted initiatives for the 2025 Food Planet Prize are:
Afrotym (Uganda) Afrotym makes a granulate from organic waste that keeps soils moist during dry spells.
AgriNatif (Haiti) AgriNatif blends local traditional knowledge and regenerative practices to empower Haitian communities.
ANDFOODS (New Zealand) ANDFOODS makes dairy alternatives through a lentils-based fermentation process.
Astungkara Way (Indonesia) Astungkara Way trains farmers to grow rice in a regenerative way, incorporating ducks, fish, a floating fern, and border crops.
BioFiltro (USA, Chile, Peru) BioFiltro uses earthworms and microbes to remove contaminants from organic waste, producing both clean water and vermicompost.
Cellular Agriculture (UK) Cellular Agriculture maximizes production efficiency of cultivated proteins through hollow fiber membrane systems.
Climate Smart Farming Program (Australia) Through this program, Farmers for Climate Action champions climate-smart farming solutions and economy-wide policy action.
Comida do Amanhã Institute (Brazil) Comida do Amanhã supports the transition to healthy, inclusive, biodiverse, and sustainable food systems in Brazil and beyond.
CuanTec (UK) CuanTec repurposes shellfish waste to make the multi-functional biopolymer chitosan.
D-Olivette (Nigeria) The 1,000,000 Closed-Loop Farms Project provides communities with electricity, cooking fuel, fertilizer, and feed by turning waste into biogas.
Essential (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania) Essential tackles malnutrition by turning agricultural byproducts into Sub-Saharan Africa’s first biomanufactured protein.
Food Frontier (Australia) Food Frontier promotes alternative proteins through industry expertise, dialogue, and policy advocacy.
Gastromotiva (Brazil, Mexico) Gastromotiva uses gastronomy as a catalyst for social transformation–improving food security, income generation, and sustainable development.
GrowBox (South Africa) GrowBox brings food gardens and agricultural skills to the communities that most need it.
Le Lionceau (Senegal) Lionceau combats food insecurity and malnutrition in Africa by producing nutritious, locally sourced baby food while promoting agroforestry.
Leanpath (USA, UK, China) Leanpath has developed technology for food waste prevention and measurement in the food service sector.
Millow (Sweden) Millow produces tastier and more efficient vegan foods with dry fermentation technology.
Mushuk Yuyay (Ecuador) Mushuk Yuyay promotes the food sovereignty, agrobiodiversity, and ancient culture of the Kañari people.
My Food is African (Uganda) My Food is African levers agroecology and indigenous crops to build continent-wide food sovereignty.
NanoFreeze (Colombia) NanoFreeze uses bio-nanotechnology to provide low-carbon refrigeration solutions.
NitroCapt (Sweden) NitroCapt makes energy-efficient fertilizer through plasma-produced nitrate.
OneFarm Share (South Africa) OneFarm Share prevents food waste and improves local value chains by redistributing surplus produce and developing small-scale farms.
Planet-Friendly School Meals (UK) The Planet-Friendly School Meals initiative supports countries to adopt school meals that improve diet quality and act as a catalyst for food systems transformation.
Pride on our Plates (China) Pride on our Plates empowers China’s micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises with food waste reduction solutions and behavioral insights.
ProVeg School Plates Program (UK) School Plates program aims to revolutionize school meals by promoting planet-friendly and healthier eating habits among children.
Semion (Argentina) Semion replaces chemical pesticides by activating plants’ own defense mechanisms.
SRI 2030 (UK) SRI-2030 promotes SRI, an agronomic framework that raises yields and lowers the climate impact of rice production.
Svensk Kolinlagring (Sweden) Svensk Kolinlagring works with carbon farming as a lever to create systemic change in the food system.
The Atlas (USA) The Atlas is a global tool that provides legal analysis, policy recommendations, and technical assistance to reduce food loss and waste.
The Postharvest Education Foundation (USA) The Postharvest Education Foundation uses e-learning to spread the use of low-cost technologies that keep food from going to waste.
Thrive for Good (Kenya) Thrive for Good makes nutritious food accessible by helping families and communities start their own gardens.
TurtleTree Labs (USA) TurtleTree produces animal-free dairy proteins and is finding ways to repurpose the byproduct of the production process.
Upcycled Food (USA) Upcycled Food accelerates the upcycled food economy by unleashing innovation and building networks to stop food waste.
Zero Foodprint Asia (Hong Kong) Zero Foodprint Asia works with restaurants to fund a transition to regenerative agriculture.
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C40 Food Systems wins the Food Planet Prize, the $2-million environmental award, for shifting millions of meals in major cities to be healthier and more sustainable for people and the planet
The Curt Bergfors Foundation is honored to announce that C40 Food Systems, a global network, was awarded the Food Planet Prize, the world’s biggest environmental award on Friday, 28 June. This recognition highlights their exceptional contributions and strong potential to transform urban food systems to benefit people and the planet.
As urbanization continues to surge, 80% of all food produced globally is expected to be consumed in cities by 2050. Moreover, food is currently the biggest source of consumption-based emissions in major cities (13-20%).
C40’s Food Systems Network works directly with its 50+ member cities from around the world to make it easier for residents to eat food that is good for people, the planet, and prosperity by developing healthy, equitable, and accessible food systems that also reduce food loss and waste.
Through the C40 Good Cities Accelerator, 16 cities worldwide are working to deliver sustainable food policies and achieve a “Planetary Health Diet” for all by 2030, informed by the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health. The cities participating in the Good Food Cities accelerator are Stockholm, London, Paris, Milan, Barcelona, Oslo, Copenhagen, New York City, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Lima, Guadalajara, Seoul, Quezon City and Tokyo. These cities collectively serve over 500 million meals. Though every city is shaped by local context, good solutions can be quickly scaled and refined to suit other cities facing similar challenges.
“Receiving the Food Planet Prize is a tremendous honour for all of us here at C40. This recognition reaffirms our commitment to transforming food systems locally and globally and inspires us to continue our dedicated work towards a healthier and more equitable food future for all C40 cities and beyond,” said Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, Co-Chair of C40.
“As the Mayor of London, I understand the vital role food systems play in our city. Mayors are pivotal in ensuring schoolchildren receive nutritious meals, all residents have access to healthy and sustainable food, and we actively work to reduce food waste. That’s why C40’s recognition with the Food Planet Prize is such a great honor. This award strengthens our resolve to drive a global transformation, ensuring everyone can access good, healthy food,” added Mayor Sadiq Khan, Co-Chair of C40.
In awarding the Prize to C40 Food Systems, the Food Planet Prize jury commented:
“Cities, where 70% of all food in the world is consumed today, play a pivotal role in the global transformation to healthy and sustainable food systems. C40, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities, has a long track-record in climate action and increasingly food systems, and can provide city-led leverage towards positive tipping points that can radically shift the global trajectory towards a sustainable food future.
In particular, the Food Planet Prize jury sees that C40, a locally anchored global force, can work with cities across the world, supporting them in areas of food policy, public procurement and school food programs to reduce food loss and waste, and improve governance. C40 has a unique opportunity to build synergies with other urban sustainability networks on food and provide a city-led global acceleration for our food system.”
Read our feature article about C40 Food Systems work here!
Category: Uncategorized
The Food Planet Prize Shortlist 2024 is here! This year, seven projects made it to the finals, and the winner will be selected on June 28 here in Stockholm!
The shortlisted projects represent a diverse range of initiatives and showcase groundbreaking approaches to tackling the environmental footprint of our food systems:
Each project underwent a thorough evaluation by the Food Planet Prize in-house nominations team, followed by academic reviews by leading external experts.
In partnership with the Roads&Kingdoms magazine, we created a dedicated article – on the winners&nominees page. Enjoy the read! Each is an exciting story about how brilliant minds all over the world try to lessen the environmental damage caused by the way we eat.
We congratulate the finalists!
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We are The Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize and each year we award $2 million to a single winning project that significantly reduces the environmental impact of the way we eat. Our vision is a well-nourished world population on a thriving planet.
Unlike most other awards, we focus on future impact rather than past success.
Right now we are looking for more groundbreaking projects to run for the 2025 Prize!
The prize can be awarded to individuals or organizations in both commercial and non-commercial settings. You can nominate your own initiative or someone else’s.
Nominations are always welcome, but as our selection process takes just over a year, to stand a chance of winning in 2025, submit your nominations before May 10, 2024.
Nominating a project takes just three minutes but could change the world!
Announcing the 48 initiatives in the running for the 2024 Food Planet Prize
There is excitement in the air at the Food Planet Prize office, today is a very special day. It is the day when we confirm and share with you our longlist for the 2024 prize. Out of the roughly one thousand nominees that were registered through our website and examined by our team this year, these forty-eight initiatives represent the very best and most exciting. The initiatives come from all corners of the world and represent a huge variety of elements that together make up our food system, just the way we like it.
Our team will now look even deeper into these longlisted initiatives. Really getting to know them, trying to understand what they are all about, how big the potential impact would be if they succeed, and how likely it is for this to happen. In April we will have identified 8-10 shortlisted initiatives out of this selection to be presented to our jury, each one a worthy winner from the perspective of The Curt Bergfors Foundation.
New for this year is that during the first few months of 2024, we will share some of the research material we produce on the longlisted nominees with you. This will happen in the shape of short articles published here on our website and will also be publicized through our social media channels.
Even if there can be only one winner of the world’s biggest environmental award in the end, all of these nominees do something amazing in their own right, and they all contribute to the urgently needed transformation of our food system. And we really want to tell you about them so that perhaps you can support them too, help them become more successful, or at the very least become inspired by their work.
Lastly, nominations are always open. If you have someone in mind that you think should win the Food Planet Prize, nominate them here through the website. It literally takes three minutes and it could change the world.
The longlisted initiatives for the 2024 Food Planet Prize are:
The Curt Bergfors Foundation is thrilled to present the Food Planet Prize 2023 to the Agrobiodiversity Index. With US$2 million for one single winner, the Food Planet Prize is the world’s biggest environmental award.
The Agrobiodiversity Index has done something that has never been tried before. It has a vision of using science and empirical evidence to quantify and measure the sustainability of the food system, and translate this into a quantitative index for farmers, businesses, and policy, in order to accelerate the adoption of sustainable and healthy food systems.
“For the Agrobiodiversity Index, winning the Food Planet Prize 2023 means that we can take our work to the next level. Change is a process, and this will allow us to catalyze the process into policies and practices,” commented Sarah Jones, co-lead of the initiative.
“The climate crisis is already well known, compared to the biodiversity crisis. This will allow us to put the agrobiodiversity crisis on the map,” added Arwen Bailey, member of the Agrobiodiversity Index team.
The Curt Bergfors Foundation received more than 1000 nominations for the 2023 edition of the prize. A yearlong evaluations process started with initial reviews by the foundations nominations team resulting in a longlist of the most interesting nominees, picked to equally represent all parts of the food system, a wide geographical spread, and a balanced selection between technological, nature based and social innovation.
From the longlist, ten candidates were selected and put through a rigorous process of academic and practical evaluation, on-site visits by an investigative journalist and a photographer commissioned by the Foundation, and a full compliance and due diligence report. Eight nominees were finally chosen for the Food Planet Prize shortlist and presented to the jury.
On Friday morning (9 June) each of the eight shortlisted nominees were given the opportunity to address the jury in person and tell them why they should win this year’s award, and to answer a few final questions. Following this, final jury deliberations were held and concluded by a vote to select this year’s winner.
For more information on the Agrobiodiversity Index, please click here and here.
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Category: Uncategorized
The Curt Bergfors Foundation received more than 1000 nominations for this year’s prize.
The shortlisted nominees offer a wide range of solutions to help move global food production towards a more sustainable, nature-positive, and climate-friendly future. Approaching the challenge from different creative angles, they all aim to deliver solutions for reshaping a global system that is currently exhausting the resources of the planet on which it depends.
Ranging from systems change thinking to new technologies, most of these solutions also take a holistic approach that considers social issues plaguing farmers at the bottom of the food pyramid as well as the fundamental connections between agriculture, climate change and biodiversity. Most importantly, all nominees on the shortlist have great potential to deliver lasting and wide-ranging impact.
The eight short-listed Food Planet Prize Nominees 2023 are:
The Agrobiodiversity Index
The Agrobiodiversity Index helps measure the status of biodiversity in global agriculture. With only nine crops currently making up two-thirds of the world’s crop production, it provides a centralized way to track and understand what is getting lost, risks of low agrobiodiversity, and ways to improve. It could help restore the healthy, rich diets previously provided by local produce. Learn more.
Aponiente
Aponiente is working to cultivate an edible sea grain for the first time. This grain, Zostera marina, can be cooked similarly to rice but has higher protein and fiber levels, and is grown with a much lower climate footprint with no need for irrigation. It could help reduce food insecurity while restoring coastal ecosystems. Learn more.
Coolfood
Coolfood is a one-stop solution to facilitate plant-forward, climate-friendly eating. By taking the Coolfood Pledge, large-scale food service providers commit to reducing their food related GHG emissions by 25% by 2030 with the help of tailored Coolfood tools. This approach could help feed a growing global population while keeping GHG emissions in check. Learn more.
Monarch Tractor
Monarch Tractor has launched a line of the world’s first fully-electric, driver-optional, data-collecting smart tractors, offering an all-in-one solution to an industry struggling with labor shortages and increasing costs while reducing CO2 emissions. It could help revolutionize the future of farming by making it possible to run smaller-scale farms profitably. Learn more.
Protein Challenge Southeast Asia
Protein Challenge Southeast Asia equip protein innovators to embed systems change approaches into the design and implementation of their activities such that they support a deep transition towards a resilient, regenerative and socially just food system in the region. This holistic approach could help create the systematic change required achieve affordable, nutritious, sustainable protein for all. Learn more.
Ragn Sells Easy Mining
Ragn Sells Easy Mining is pioneering the recycling of phosphorus and other nutrients that are essential components of fertilizers. Their technologies could help improve food security by recovering nutrients from waste to reuse in fertilizers, instead of relying on vulnerable – and finite – global supply chains. Learn more.
Sustainable Rice Platform
Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) is aiming to redesign the rice value chain from beginning to end. Rice is responsible for feeding half our planet, but also uses one-third of the world’s freshwater resources for irrigation and emits significant amounts of methane. Through education and certified practices, SRP could help feed the world sustainably. Learn more.
The Toothpick Company
The Toothpick Company turns fungi into a bioherbicide to fight Striga, a “master weed” that has devastated an estimated 40 million farms in Africa. Using fungi as weapons in the war on weeds, it could help reduce reliance on chemical herbicides that have proven harmful to ecological and human health. Learn more.
We congratulate all the short-listed nominees and wish them best of luck for the presentation to the jury and the winner announcement ceremony scheduled to take place on 9 June 2023.
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Category: Uncategorized
It’s that time of the year: The 2023 winner of the Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize, the largest monetary award in the global food arena, will be announced on 9 June.
After a Covid-imposed hiatus, the winner announcement ceremony will take place in person in Stockholm, in the presence of representatives of all short-listed nominees and our esteemed jury. The jury – a distinguished octet of experts in sustainability, food production, and more – will again be co-chaired by Johan Rockström and Magnus Nilsson. Johan, the globally renowned Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, helped pioneer the concept of “planetary boundaries,” and Magnus, a Michelin star chef, is the Director-General of the Food Planet Prize.
The Food Planet Prize is special.
“It is not only the world’s biggest environmental award, but also one that is unlike almost all other prizes because it does not award you for something you already did, but for what we believe that you will do, if only you get a chance,” said Magnus Nilsson and continued:
“The Curt Bergfors Foundation and the Prize were shaped by Curt’s vision of a necessary and unavoidable revolution in our food system, and the way that it is structured, which says a lot about him as a person.”
The Food Planet Prize 2023 has received more than 1000 nominated initiatives for this year’s award, and will soon release the shortlist of eight outstanding nominees, one of which will be crowned the deserving winner of the US$2 million prize on 9 June 2023.
Selecting the winner from over 1000 nominees is a 13-month long process with various stages, including meticulous fact-checking, the involvement of investigative journalists and experts in various areas of sustainability, as well as specialists tasked to conduct a proper due diligence and compliance report on each candidate. This process is so rigorous that any of the short-listed projects that makes it through the final analysis stage is worthy of the Prize.
We cannot wait to tell you who has passed the bar set for the winner of the Food Planet Prize 2023. Check back soon for the announcement of the short-listed projects!
2022 Prize Winner ColdHubs is fixing food loss with off-grid cool rooms. Fresh food sellers like these in Abuja, Nigeria use Coldhubs cold room at the market to keep their products. A practice that has reduced the seller’s business waste by over 50% and in turn increases their profit.
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Category: Uncategorized
The ocean provides food and livelihood to billions of people, as well as oxygen for every second breath we take. But in many aspects, the big blue stands on the brink of collapse. At the point when the pace of extinctions on land started accelerating, in fact. As demand for blue foods soars, will the ocean economy boom offer a blueprint for a sustainable food planet?
Life has existed in the ocean for three times longer than on land. What was once considered an endless resource is, of course, finite and vulnerable to human activity. Evidence clearly shows that overexploitation, climate change, and pollution are endangering biodiversity, destroying fragile marine habitats, and putting the ocean’s ability to feed us in jeopardy.
Since land-based food sources are faring even worse – and wholly exhausted for some – powerful players are rushing into the ocean. Would they extend their lucrative yet environmentally harmful and socially unjust practices to the last wild commons? Will they turn the sea into a copy of the industrial food system shaped by intensive agriculture?
Many bet on the blue economy to get right what land management got wrong. To succeed, established actors and new entrants would need to leave old habits at bay and surf new waves of thinking.
Freeing the last wild commons from our cravings
The man-made sixth mass extinction has wiped out around 500 terrestrial species over the past 500 years. In oceans, it’s radically altering marine ecosystems and the genetic structure of many species. If we continue with the status quo, human impact on marine biodiversity might soon rival that on land.
Figure 1: Adapted from Pauly et al. (1998). Fishing Down Marine Food Webs. Science, 279(5352, pp. 860-863 and Jackson et al. (2001). Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems. Science, 293(5530), pp. 629-637.
So far, scientists have recorded “only” 15 extinctions of marine species. They, however, also agree that we’re on the brink of a ripple effect as thousands of other species are endangered. On the one hand, this is a direct result of sourcing more than three-quarters of the 120 million tons of marine fish extracted from the ocean every year from overexploited stocks. On the other hand, the very activities currently in place to make up for plummeting catches represent dangers in their own right.
Understanding the deep sea, not emptying it
As fish stocks run dry, ships redirect hunting efforts beyond coastal zones. An increasing share of our beloved seafood, therefore, comes from the hyper-abundant open ocean and deep sea. This vicious cycle can create a “gold rush effect,” where we damage ecosystems before getting a chance to understand the target species’ basic biology, the implications for other species, and the ecological interactions at stake.
The ocean covers 71% of the earth’s surface. So, there’s a lot to explore and exploit, but there’s also a lot to safeguard. This thin line is critically important to realize the ocean’s role as nutrient provider. Luckily, fewer extinctions do mean that even a modest release of pressure will allow the ocean’s resilience to kick in and recovery to begin. States can play a predominant role in this balancing act since most high seas fishing would be unprofitable without large subsidies.
Curtailing diseases by farmed animals
Marine aquaculture is another coping mechanism with a long list of side effects. It contributes to the global rise of antimicrobial resistance because of the enormous amounts of antibiotics used to prevent the spread of bacteria in overcrowded enclosures. Escapee fishes infect native ones. And then some.
Mariculture’s prioritization of high-value export species like crown-jewel salmon – while wild stocks are replenishing – can also be seen as a diversion. Ship crews continue to throw highly nutrient species overboard as bycatch. Fishes that could perfectly be part of our healthy food pyramid. So, to be sustainable, the blue food economy’s offering needs to focus on people and planetary needs instead of satisfying our cravings.
Avoiding the crossing of marine tipping points
Oceans play a central role in regulating our climate. Due to its vastness and heat absorption qualities, it’s been instrumental in limiting human-induced temperature rise. It sequesters 25% of the carbon we emit. Even more impressive, between 1970 and 2010, the ocean soaked up 93% of excess heat accumulated in the Earth system. But that causes it, in turn, to warm.
Ocean warming has dire consequences on our food supply. It could lead to turnovers of over 60% of current marine biodiversity in sub-polar regions and the tropics. Most at risk are species that end up on our plates.
By taking up CO2, oceans also acidify. Ocean acidification is a high impact, high probability tipping point that already affects calcifying organisms today. A series of massive oyster die-offs have indeed been recorded in the U.S. since 2006 as acidic seawater eats away their shell, leaving them unable to feed.
And ravages of global warming will impact the big blue all the way down to the deep sea’s biological carbon pump. This is the ecologically essential mechanism by which carbon-containing compounds are exported from the surface to the deep ocean. We just don’t know how or to what degree the process will be disturbed.
Curing the ocean of the plastic plague and other poisons
The ocean has gone from wild and pristine to littered and contaminated by dreadful pollutants in just a few generations. Manufacturers have produced approximately 6,300 million metric tons of plastics since the invention of this petroleum byproduct. Only 9% has been recycled. A colossal chunk has found its way into the oceans, killing many marine animals. As it slowly breaks into smaller pieces, currents and winds scatter it further and further, century after century.
Choked by plastic pellets, one of the countless beached fish that washed ashore in Sri Lanka as the Singaporean ship MV X-Press Pearl caught fire just outside Colombo’s harbor in May 2021. Photo: Sipa USA/Alamy
Through food, these microplastics end up in our stomachs. On average, we eat a credit card-sized amount of it each week. Microplastics have also been linked to algal and jellyfish blooms. In fact, scientists point out that humans are engineering an Anthropocene ocean much more suited for nutritionally poorer jellyfish, which thrive in gutted areas.
Besides plastic, mercury is another widespread ocean pollutant. All seafoods contain it at varying concentration levels. It’s a persistent, neurotoxic substance that can severely impact the health of those who eat fish. Unfortunately, rising ocean temperatures will further increase bioaccumulation, becoming an even more significant threat to humans.
In the face of all these threats, how can we create a sustainable blue foods future?
Shifting to nature-positive blue foods
Despite overfishing and pollution, many seafoods still compare favorably to terrestrial protein sources. Small pelagic fish and bivalves create the smallest environmental footprints across capture fisheries and aquaculture.
However, blue foods are by no means a silver bullet. As production expands and demand should double by 2050, it’s critical to prioritize sustainable practices. Regenerative marine plants then emerge as the Swiss army knives of the ocean.
Kelp floating underwater with light beams
When people think about food from the ocean, few think of plants. Yet, the diversity of plants flourishing in the sea is immense. Given its versatility, seaweed could become a pillar of a sustainable ocean economy. However, like many marine ecosystems, macroalgal (seaweed) and seagrass forests are degrading rapidly due to rising temperatures and marine heatwaves. Farming can come to the rescue.
Mimicking seagrass and seaweed forests, farms can protect coastlines by dampening wave energy during storms. And their environmental role doesn’t stop there. By altering PH levels and generating oxygen, they combat ocean acidification and deoxygenation locally.
These “lungs of the sea” also sequester carbon. Seaweed farms have an assessed carbon mitigation capacity of about 1 500 tons of CO2 per km² per year. Today, they capture only about 0.4% of the carbon their wild counterparts do, but estimates suggest it could rise to 6%. The marine plant also reduces emissions from terrestrial agriculture when incorporated into cattle feed, an innovative approach that allowed Future Feed to win the 2020 Food Planet Prize.
When cultivated with bivalves like mussels, marine algae can be a vital part of coastal habitat restoration. This integrated system is at the forefront of large-scale, sustainable aquaculture with a minimal environmental footprint. Once again, a Food Planet Prize Winner, this time GreenWave, is the pioneer behind this regenerative farming system.
Shifting to healthy diets with blue foods
If they are beneficial for the environment, the question then becomes: can blue foods support a shift toward a healthy food system? According to U.S. Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, the answer is yes. At the 2021 “Our Planet, Our Future” Nobel Summit, he declared that “We can have 50% of the food that we need from the ocean”. This may be true, but there are critical considerations to take into account.
Aquatic foods can indeed help us reduce the consumption of land animal protein, as recommended by EAT-LANCET Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. They are packed with a diversity of critical nutrients difficult to get elsewhere in such density. And there remains significant untapped potential.
Fresh seafood in fish market in Busan, Korea. – Photo: Getty
Of the 2,000 or so aquatic species we catch, and over 425 we farm across both freshwater and marine environments, a mere 23 species account for 70% of our diets. And they are not equally nutritious. But even less nutrient-rich blue foods may still be healthy replacements for red meat. So, we need to eat more of what we catch or farm rather than transform it into feed.
There are huge distributive differences too. Aquatic foods contribute 17% of animal protein consumed globally. In some countries, however, they represent well over 50%. But even in these countries, export is prioritized. Consequently, ship crews throw highly nutrient species overboard as bycatch, undermining their own population’s food security.
Then, intensive aquaculture’s rapid development also adds layers of nutritional challenges. It incentivizes people to move away from local fish to farmed species. In Bangladesh, for example, tilapia is replacing catfish and hilsa, which provide five times more vitamin B12 than the former.
Speeding into a bright blue foods economy
Since the ocean’s capacity to feed us all is inextricably linked to the stress we put on it,
we are prompted to protect and utilize it simultaneously. To continue to harvest precious nutrients in the future, avoiding traps land agriculture fell in and embracing novel thinking are of the essence. Securing equitable use of shrinking resources is one of such considerations.
When thinking about the future of the ocean and the food system, it is crucial that we draw inspiration from the past and not limit ourselves to the perceived reality of the present. A typical local artisanal fishing boat in Zanzibar’s archipelago. Photo: Getty
Currently, 100 companies account for 60% of total revenues across all core ocean industries. Many are multinationals representing economic sectors, business models, and worldviews of the 20th century. This high concentration risks turning the ocean into a replica of the exploitative, unjust, and low-cost operational models used on land.
The boom of the ocean economy can seem hyper-capitalist and neo-colonialist. After all, for the most part, it disregards small-scale fishers, coastal communities, indigenous peoples, and developing island states. All the while, small-scale fisheries account for half of wild captures and over 90% of employment in the sector. Yet, they continue to be given much less weight in policy discussions and international negotiations.
The blue acceleration is no magic wand for social sustainability. Fish escaping tanks spread sea lice and other diseases in wild populations, which creates conflict with fishers. Few corporations still dominate the ocean economy, perpetuating unequal access to resources. The Focus on high-protein species, coupled with the practice of throwing perfectly nutritious “bycatch” overboard, threatens coastal fishers’ livelihoods and low-income countries’ food security. Reducing fish catches spurs illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, which leads to an array of conflicts worldwide. Etc. However, the ocean economy boom prompts the world to see and resolve confrontations that otherwise occur out of sight of land.
The new battleground can therefore generate opportunities for social-ecological transformation. Conflict can force the diverse group of players with diverging values and incentives to the table, finding new solutions away from incremental thinking. Low-intensity, non-escalating conflict can also effectively raise awareness, push public debate, and incubate social justice movements.
Actively exploring alternative futures can increase the chances for the ocean to remain a foundational contributor to the global food system and a source of social, cultural, and legal identity for many communities worldwide.
This article is based on the research report Can we Bring the Oceans Back from the Brink? published in November 2021. The report was commissioned by the Food Planet Prize and authored by Dr. Andrew Merrie, Stockholm Resilience Centre.
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