Plants form the basis of the human diet and can provide everything we need: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. But getting enough protein without animal products can be problematic because herbivores are often much better at recovering nitrogen from plants than we are, whereas we digest protein from meat more easily. Nitrogen fixation in plants is indeed difficult and can be a limiting yield factor. Fortunately, nitrogen is readily available in the atmosphere, but not in a form that the plant can access directly. Over the past century, the haber process has been instrumental in humanity’s ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen into a usable fertiliser. In addition, some types of plants, such as legumes, are capable of symbiosis with micro-organisms that can fix nitrogen.
But what happens if we completely get rid of the plant as an intermediary between us and the atmosphere? This is the challenge set by Solarfood, a Finnish company founded in 2015 that seeks to produce “solein“, a protein flour produced by micro-organisms directly from the air, which can be used in recipes instead of eggs or legume-based flour. Their first factory (Factory 01), currently under construction in Vantaa, is expected to go into production in 2023.
Don’t worry, your local farm won’t disappear in the coming years, but with the world’s population continuing to grow, it’s worth exploring radical new options for maintaining food security in the future.