Water We Doing?

The Future of Food: Water Farmed Plant Based Foods

April 26, 2021 David Evans / Pontus Proteins & Cascadia Seaweed Season 1 Episode 7
Water We Doing?
The Future of Food: Water Farmed Plant Based Foods
Show Notes Transcript

As the global population grows to 10 billion by 2050 we will need to find new ways to feed everyone. As our water resources and productive agricultural land get stretched thinner and thinner we will need to find new and innovative ways to produce food! In today's episode we are discussing two innovative approaches to producing food which are very water conscious and that could be providing our food sooner than you might think!

Today we're discussing Aquaponics and Seaweed Cultivation! Did you know that you can produce fresh vegetables and plant based proteins anywhere in the world using less water than it takes to shower with aquaponics ?The world bank thinks that Seaweed could make up 10% of the food for the world by that point! Think about it you just need an ocean and sunlight and there you go!

You'll hear from the team from Pontus Proteins, an aquaponics company out of Vancouver, BC. Connor, Alson and Steve are taking aquaponics to the next level by integrating robotic harvesting, artificial intelligence and vertical farming. You'll also hear from Mike Williamson the CEO of  Cascadia Seaweed!  You'll hear all about the health benefits, ecosystems services and how seaweed can be integrated into the North American Diet!


Check out Cascadia Seaweeds website here for more information about Seaweed farming and their new innovative products! Do you live near Sydney, British Columbia? You should mark your calendars for Seaweed Days from May 17-23rd, where Cascadia Seaweed will be launching their new products!

Interested in learning more about Water Lentils and why you need them in your life?  Click here for more information about PONTUS proteins!

The Aquatic Bisophere Project
The ABP is establishing a conservation Aquarium in the Prairies to help tell the Story of Water.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

David Evans:

Do you know a farmer? If you know anyone who works in agriculture? I bet you've heard the following question. Do you think it's gonna rain today? Water plays a huge role in agriculture. Whether it's too much rain or not enough rain, or the rivers aren't high enough, so we can't irrigate our crops, you rely on water for so many aspects of agriculture. irrigated crops take up about 20% of the total agricultural land, and actually produces about 40% of the total food worldwide. irrigated agriculture on average is at least twice as productive as just relying on the rains. Because, well, you can make sure that the crop gets exactly what it needs. If it doesn't have enough rain, well, then we can irrigate it and give it enough water so that plant will actually grow and prosper. So we don't have to rely on the rains, we can actually play a role in its growth. Now, we're all aware that our population is growing. As our population grows, and we expand it to new areas, our competition for water is going to increase significantly. And this is really going to affect agriculture. Our population is set to increase to over 10 billion by the year 2050. We will need more food, more fiber to meet our basic needs. It's estimated that we're going to need to increase our agricultural production by 70% by the year 2050. So today, we're going to explore some new farming techniques that you might not have thought of before. Now the two farming techniques we're going to talk about today, they use water differently than traditional agriculture. They either new use of no extra water, they use a water that's already there in the ocean, or they use very little of it. And they just use it for so many different purposes. In the case of aquaponics you'll hear from the trio of Connor un, Allison new and Steven MacArthur from Pontus proteins, an aquaponics company out of Vancouver BC. You'll also hear from Mike Williamson, the CEO of Cascadia seaweed, and we'll find out how seaweed farming and aquaponics are set to revolutionize how we eat and how we farm our foods right here in Canada. water we doing? And how can we do better? your one stop shop for everything water related from discussing water to use and the organisms that depend on it. For all the global issues you really never knew all had to do with water. I'm your host, David Evans from the aquatic biosphere project. And I just want to ask you something. What are we doing? How can we do better? Now I need to start off this episode with being blunt. Traditional agriculture isn't going anywhere. This episode is not to say that traditional agriculture has no place in our future. But it also doesn't have the answer for our future, we're gonna have to expand so quickly. And we simply don't have the space or the resources to actually farm those lands and create enough food for everyone on the planet. Around the globe, agriculture accounts for about 70% of all of freshwater withdrawals from our natural systems. Such a huge drop from aquifers water deep underground, and we're pulling it out at an unsustainable rate. It's been shown that in northern China, Northern India, and in the western United States, and eastern Canada, we're depleting our groundwater resources. And this has also been shown throughout the Middle East, Iran, in Mexico and in Saudi Arabia. So with all of this increasing pressure that we're putting on these deep underground water sources, we're going to run out of them at some point. What are we going to do that we're already farming in an unsustainable way. So we need to improve our practices so that we can make sure that we not only maintain what we're currently producing, but we're also increasing it. Also take a look at climate change. With the climate changing, this is actually impacting what we can grow in where some areas will lose their agricultural productivity, while some areas will gain it in the north were set up pretty well. But as you get closer and closer to the equator, those areas are going to start to lose their agricultural productivity potentially do like just get too hot. Climate change will only increase food insecurity around the world. So with all of these challenges on how we're going to feed the world, at 2050, we need to start taking innovative ways and looking at systems in a new way, on how we can actually produce our own food. So today, we're doing just that, we're going to look at two different farming methods that are really coming into their own right now on how we can use water in a different way, or use way less of it. So you may have heard of aquaponics. It's this new style of actually creating a sort of ecosystem where one food source feeds the other with its own effluent. But don't take it from me, let's hear from the experts. It's a

Steve McArthur, Pontus Proteins:

combination of fish and plants. Most importantly, though, it's the right amount of fish to the right amount of plants, right, there has to be a symbiosis there of nutrient demand from the plants versus nutrient output from the fish. And then just to make it a little bit more complicated is that there is a third player that we don't really talk about too much, which is like the biological engine nitrifying bacteria that are responsible for converting the effluent from the fish into the plant food. so awkward ponics in general, is this like trifecta golden ratio of the right amount of fish to the right amount of bacteria to the right amount of plants, and to make it all in one ecosystem so that everybody's happy.

David Evans:

That was Steve McArthur from Pontus proteins. And he along with Connor Yuen, and Alson Niu, they spoke with me all about how they're taking aquaponics to new levels, with Pontus proteins. They're incorporating robotics, artificial intelligence, they're taking everything we've learned about farming, taking it indoors, and perfecting it to the next level at their Vancouver facility that's soon to open. Now, with all of these different farming terms, I get them confused, to be quite honest, is aquaponics. Just another word for aquaculture or hydroponics?

Steve McArthur, Pontus Proteins:

It's not one or the other. It's absolutely both. It's the combination of hydroponic technology where you've got plants growing in water. You know, the pros and cons of hydroponics, hydroponics is usually quite expensive on water, you're draining that water basin, you know, every 10 days or so flushing it out and adding a new mixture. And it's just generally expensive for to get those nutrients. And then also, it's not really great for the environment, like it's mined and manufactured ingredients. Okay, so then let's shift to Aqua culture. Aqua culture is just the farming of fish, a lot of aquaculture facilities, they're also having to exchange their water very often, because the nutrient load coming from the fish has to go somewhere. So with an aquaculture facility, you're constantly flushing this either to a field or to, you know, a sewer or septic tank or however you're dealing with it and buying fish feed and you're maintaining the water and everything. Now what aquaponics is, it's kind of like a match made in heaven in the sense that you take the pros and the cons of both hydroponics and aquaculture you get you get all of the pros, but none of the cons. So so you have the nutrient load that's coming from the fish that gets utilized by the plants, you're no longer having to buy nutrients for the plants. It's all coming from the fish. You still have to pay for fish feed, of course, but it's miniscule compared to the revenue that you're getting at the other end. And then the really, really big one, though, for environmental concerns is that we don't have to flush water anymore. We recycle or reuse at least 95% of the water and person using a shower uses more water than we're going to be using.

David Evans:

Now if you're like me have a hard time picturing what this might actually look like. So Steve, do you mind just explaining what your facility looks like? Because this is not a typical agricultural field we're talking about. This is a building a facility.

Steve McArthur, Pontus Proteins:

We don't have them growing in the same body of water. We actually have 10 different fish tanks that the fishers living in throw the facility and then there's one large basin which is a giant body of water that has a bunch of surface area available for the bacterias and then basically sealed away and another biosecurity room is our giant racking or shelving that have these waterbed picture a bathtub except it's only about six inches of water. And then this bathtub is eight feet wide and 144 feet long. So these massive water beds that the water lentils are going on, and then we haven't been shelved so that we're lighting them with LEDs. And then there's just enough space between the water and the LEDs to have a robot that's able to go in there and do our harvesting for us. Yeah, we've named him harv. So harv stands for harvesting automation autonomous vehicle, just because engineers love acronyms.

David Evans:

So this does look very different from your typical farming operation. And what they're growing right now isn't your typical crop either. But their farming right now is called quatre lentils. And basically, it's a really fast growing crop, but it produces really high protein. And we'll get to that a little bit later. So at this point, you might be thinking, that's all very cool. Okay, so you can have the fish, you feed the fish, the fish is waste that actually feeds the plants. All you need is fish, food and lights for the plants. And you can get fish and plants out of it easy. But this also has to take place somewhere. And this is also a human controlled system. So it's not as easy as just throwing some seeds into a field and coming back a couple months later, and collecting your crop. This has to be managed pretty tightly. But there are some distinct benefits. Because this is something you can do anywhere. Anyone can do this, as long as they have the right setup. You don't need a specific outdoor temperature, you don't need a specific climate. So this is something that can really empower people. In places where it's really difficult to grow crops around the world. We put power back to the hands of the people, right places with unfavorable climates being able to produce their own food. So China doesn't have to import all their grain and all their food from Australia and the US. We don't have to import bananas from South America, for example, we can use this technology to grow plants everywhere, anywhere, it does have it locally grown, because we have the right climate for indoors, and we're able to grow plants that should not be able to grow in the environment. So aquaponics might not be the answer to feed absolutely everyone around the world. But it can definitely help to provide food for people who live in remote places. It can help to increase our food supply in urban environments. It's another style of farming that we could start to implement, where we have low impacts, we have high rewards, and it brings people more in touch with their food. Because you can have this in the downtown building, and be able to see it and understand where your food is coming from. Or you can have this in a remote community. You can have this in the area, there's been an environmental disaster, and now you can't grow crops that you normally would have grown. It can be a tool to help with struggling economies, so that we don't have to ship so much food around the world. Also, I made sure to question Alston who we just heard from about whether or not they have plans for bananas in the future. Not yet. They're focusing on water lentils right now. But come on Pontus proteins, let's get to bananas. That's the next move. That's next big seller. Now by now you've heard watered lentils come up a number of times. And water. lentils are the first crop that Pontus proteins is focusing on. But aquaponics has been shown to be a really good way to produce many different types of vegetables and fish as well. So why is Pontus protein starting with water lentils something I've never really heard of or ever bought in a store?

Connor Yuen, PONTUS Proteins:

Well, you know, the reason why we started with water lentils first was mainly because of the fact of you know how crazy it is with the type of protein space right now, there's a lot of people who are trying to transition their diet over to being able to eat plant based food because they do understand it's more, you know, it's healthier for them than then eating so much animal meat and even red meat a lot of the time. So because of that, you know, when when when we looked at all of the other products that were out in the plant based protein space, majority of them were pea and soy and then those would range between, you know, eight and 12% protein. And if you look at most protein powders, it's just isolated protein. And really that's the only real value that you get out of it. Were with water, lentils, there's two things that we love about it, how quickly they grow. In our system that doubles every 24 hours, we can harvest 365 days a year. And when it comes to the nutrients of water, lentils, you know, power ranges between 42 and 50% protein. So that's significantly higher than any of the plants that are used in the majority of the products that people eat today. And then also as all 10 essential amino acids to non essential. It has calcium, iron, potassium, and it's not just good as a powder that we have tons of actual recipes that we've created out of it. So we actually have a burger that we've made out of it. We have a plant based pasa with protein in it. We have a pancake and waffle and muffin mix. We have a vegan cheesecake that we've created. And this is just the start. We're only going to be going water lentils in this first facility. But our ideal situation would be to have enough facilities that we could actually produce every single vegetable we would need to produce every single one of our own recipes. So we know every single thing in those recipes is biosecurity grown.

David Evans:

That was their CEO, Connor, Ewan. And Connor, I'm so excited about water, lentils and I can't wait to try them. But also I'm can't wait to see how aquaponics can grow bananas. Awesome, you got to make it happen. Pontus proteins is really taking aquaponics to the next level, because they're starting to use these new technologies like racking systems. So having racks upon racks upon racks of these plants going all the way up to the ceiling. They're also using harvesting robots to actually do the harvesting for them. They're using artificial intelligence to figure out what nutrients need to go in exactly when what temperatures are best, how everything can work well together, they also have another technology that sets them apart. They're what's called a decoupled system. So the water that the fish is in, can be kept at a different temperature than the water that the plants are in because they're in different rooms. And they have a slow flow rate of water between the plants, the bacteria, and the fish. So they're able to keep all systems at their optimal efficiency, because the fish might not like the same temperature that the plants do. And vice versa. So everyone wins in the system. Now speaking of everyone winning, and everything winning, that leads us into our next farming method that we're going to explore in this episode. Now I'm going to introduce you to our next guest. And we're going to take this conversation a little further out to see.

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

My name is Mike Williamson, and I'm president and chief executive officer of Cascadia seaweed, and we are an ocean cultivator of quality seaweed, and we're growing in the coastal waters all around British Columbia.

David Evans:

Yeah, you heard that right. We're talking about seaweed, and not only seaweed, but seaweed cultivation, farming seaweed out around Vancouver Island, and to be honest, potentially, in the future all around Canada. Now, you might be thinking, that's kind of gross, it's slimy, and it just kind of washes up on the beach. I don't know if I'm that interested. But I think Mike will be able to change your mind when you learn about the health benefits and the benefits to the ocean, because we can farm it and provide food for ourselves, but also provide habitat for so many other species. But I have to admit that the idea would never have come to me. So I had to ask Mike, where did this idea even come from?

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

And we looked at seaweed farming and two things came up. The first one is globally, demand exceeds supply, which is a great place to start for business. And the second one was a World Bank document that said in the next 25 years to feed the growing global population, up to 10% of the global food mass could come from seaweed. And I said, Hmm, I've never really thought of that. So we did a deep dive and researched where most of the seaweed comes from in the world. And that is Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and how much seaweed currently does not form part of our diet in North America, we said well, there's something we can bridge there.

David Evans:

It is weird to think how when we think of seafood, our minds always typically go to fish, or oysters or shrimp. But I've never thought of seaweed, as seafood. And it's kind of strange that we have so much seafood, that's meat. But we don't really eat sea vegetables at all. So starting a company in the space is a really interesting thought process. And I have a difficult time wrapping my head around it. Were there any other reasons that led you to pursue a company in the space.

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

One was climate change, everybody wanted to do things or be involved in projects or companies that were good for the planet, at least did no harm. And if they improve the environment, then all the better. And the second one was plant based food and all your listeners will realize with beyond meat impossible foods, very good butchers. There's a lot of folks that are producing food that consumers want now, not necessarily as vegans, but maybe as flexitarians reducing the amount of meat and increasing the amount of plant based foods. So those things came together and gave us a reason to start the company which we did in June of 2019.

David Evans:

Okay, so let's imagine we're starting a seaweed cultivation company. Where do you even begin? What makes a seaweed a good thing to produce? Is there a certain taste you're going for? How do you even start looking at species? Can you just tell us a little bit more about seaweeds and maybe even how many species there are?

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

So in the world, there's over 10,000 different species or varieties of seaweed. Seaweed are broadly broken down into three groups. browns, green And reds. If I said things like kelp sugar Cal bull kelp, that's a brown. If I say things like Dulce which is a very common seaweed on the East Coast, that's a red and Nori, which is what they wrap sushi in is a green. So there's a wide variety in British Columbia. We have 630 native species in the ocean. So we cultivate only seaweeds that are native to BC you don't want to bring in any invasive species, and you don't want to disrupt the ecosystem.

David Evans:

Yep, we learned all about that a couple of weeks ago with Asian carp. Oh man, sorry, Mike back to you.

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

What we do is cultivate we put a farm in the water and for firm imagine a rope ladder on its side. So we license a 10 year like a hectare of a water lot. We put one of these farms in the water with floats and ropes and anchors. And then we put a seeded line onto the farm you planted in December, and you harvest it in April, that's the growing season. We grow our seed on land, it's in tanks, we plant it and our plants only use the power of the sun and fertilizer or nutrition that's in the ocean nothing else is added and it grows like a plant it has a root like structure, which is called a holdfast. It has a trunk like structure called a Stipe. And it has a leaf light structure called a fraud. Now seaweeds, otherwise known as LG is not exactly a plant, but it is way more closely aligned to being a plant than it is an animal like fin fish or shellfish. In agriculture, you put your seeds in a trench in the dirt, and then you cover it over. Well our trench in the dirt is actually just a rope in the ocean. And instead of covering it over with dirt, we just lowered back into the water. We're constantly with our feet in both camps, the agriculture camp and the aquaculture camp. And we don't often call ourselves a seafood, but a food from the sea. So there is a bit of a distinction there.

David Evans:

Growing seaweed in this way is such a mix between agriculture and aquaculture. You have a seed you planted, and then you come back and harvest it later on in the year. But since it's not in farmland, and it's underwater, it's weird. Does it make it aquaculture or agriculture? Regardless of which camp it actually falls into? Why are we actually growing this in the first place? I mean, I do enjoy sushi. But is there really that much of a market for sushi out there? I always said 10% of the food for the world could be seaweed, so there must be other uses.

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

So our goal is to turn it into North American food. Right now we're working on seaweed jerky, our own snack sheets and protein crisps. So what we're doing is we're taking advantage of the natural nutrition and seaweed has more potassium than bananas, more calcium than milk, a wide variety of fiber and minerals and elements. For example, our seaweed is the only vegan source of vitamin B 12, which is very important for vegan diets. And if you want to stay truly vegan, you've got to get it from seaweed. So along with the shelf stable snack products, we're also looking at other products in our development pipeline, seaweed burgers that will either be fully vegan, mimicking meat or fish burgers, or 5050 burgers, half seaweed, half meat or half seaweed, half fish, frozen smoothie cubes, you know to get a little extra boost in the morning. And a large variety of other innovations like that. If you think about seaweed growing in its life, it could be four feet out of the water, four feet under the water in the middle of summer or the middle of winter. So its natural life cycle is a wide range of conditions. Because of that, you can freeze seaweed and thought and freeze it and thought and it doesn't deteriorate like some land vegetables do. The other thing you can do and it's really a fun product that we're going to be bringing to market. You can dehydrate it so that it's like a tissue paper. And then when you want fresh salad, yes simply stick it in water. You rehydrate it and it's as good as it was when it dehydrated because it's used to that. So think of the concept of dehydrated salads. And you say to your family, let's have some healthy nutritious seaweed salad tonight. You don't have to go to the fridge to go to the shelf, pull off flakes rehydrated to the level you want. And you can use it in a variety of dishes. It takes up the flavor of what you're rehydrating it in. Seaweed has a broad spectrum of use the highest and best value is for nutraceuticals or pharmaceuticals people are taking extracts from seaweed and doing some wonderful things down through food, fresh frozen shelf stable down through other extracts and then you get down into nostril extracts like carageenan and agere agere, which are constituent components of a lot of dishes that we have today. And then further on downstream into seaweed as a fertilizer. And somewhere in that spectrum is also bovine feed or feed for cows, there's a lot of work being done right now, cows can be a large source of greenhouse gases, methane, and we're working on a scientifically research project where by adding a very small percentage of the daily diet of a cow with seaweed, you can reduce the amount of methane emissions up to 90%. So it's important because cows will be around for a long time, and they do form part of our diet and our ecosystem. And if we can help farmers reduce their impacts on the environment, then it's a win for everybody. So we're doing research on that as well. So it's all corners of this food spectrum.

David Evans:

Well, you've got me convinced, sign me up for some shelf stable seaweed salads. Oh my gosh, say that 10 times fast. When you look at this product from a water standpoint, we're just putting these out into the ocean.

Mike Williamson, Cascadia Seaweed:

But what is it actually doing with the interaction? We're not using excess water. But is it a net benefit or a net negative to our ecosystems. Everyone's talking about the blue economy and the positive impact that seaweed cultivation has on the ecosystems. There's a number of ecosystem services it provides it sequesters carbon, it uptakes excess nutrients, it reduces ocean acidification, and it creates habitat, which are all very positive things. And it's one of the few agricultural processes that the more you do, the better it is for the planet. Other agricultural processes, the more you do, sometimes it can stress parts of the environments, most of it's done in a very responsible manner. But seaweed farming has room to be greater in scope, and thus providing greater positive ecosystem services. And that contributes to the story when you're eating it. Not only is it good for you, it's good for the planet.

David Evans:

Well, you've got me convinced, sign me up for seaweed, and water lentils as soon as I can get my hands on some. Now by no means are seaweed farming, and water, lentils aquaponic systems going to completely disrupt all of agriculture that we've got to this day. These are added systems that we can start to see more and more frequently, that maybe have a different role to play and serve different communities and different systems, we're going to need a lot of different innovations to be able to provide for our growing population in an environmentally sustainable manner. So thank you so much for listening to this episode, the future of food water farmed plant based foods. Thanks for tuning into today's episode all about the future of food, and what we can do with our water to produce the food that we need for the future. Thanks so much to Mike Williamson from Cascadia seaweed, in Austin, Connor and Steve from Pontus proteins for taking the time to speak with me all about their amazing companies, and what they're doing to innovate food in Canada. If you want to learn more about what Cascadia seaweed is doing and what seaweed farming even looks like, check them out at Cascadia seaweed.com. And also check them out at seaweed days.com as well for their new introduction to the cove line of products. Seaweed days is Cascadia seaweed reach out event for their new line of products. It'll be happening from May 17. To the 23rd in Sydney, British Columbia. Be sure to check it out. I wish I could read their stupid COVID if you want to learn more about Pontus proteins and why you need water lentils in your life. And what aquaponics is in general, you can go to Pontus water lentils.com. Be sure to check them out. They're just killing it in the aquaponics game. Be sure to check out the show notes as there will be links directly to those sites right there. And you guessed it, our deep dive interviews with Cascadia seaweed and Pontus proteins will be coming out this week. So be sure you're subscribed so you don't miss our full interviews with both teams. Our deep dive interview with Pontus proteins will come out on Wednesday. And our deep dive interview with Mike from Cascadia seaweed will come out on Friday. I'm the host and producer David Evans. And I would just like to thank the rest of the team from the aquatic biosphere project specifically to Paula Polman, S phie Cervera, and Anna Bettini. hanks for all of your help. To earn more about the aquatic iosphere project and what we're oing here in Alberta telling he story of water. Check us out t aquatic biosphere.ca. And if ou have any questions or omments about the show, we'd ove to hear them. Email us at onservation@aquaticbios here.org. Please don't forg t to like subscribe and leav us a review. It really help us out We'll be switching our odcasts release schedule to ever second week now, but don't worr. Next episode is going to be f ntastic. As we take on micr plastics I feel like almost ever thing has an element of plas ic in it these days, and it's infiltrated everything ever where around the world from the ottom of the Marianas Tren h to the top of every moun ain. And it's even in our food We're eating about a cred t cards worth of plastic ever week, just within our own food Make sure you check out next week's episode. You won't want to miss it. Thanks and it's been a splash