How to grow food without light

Added on 31 October 2024

Tags

Image by jcomp on Freepik

The agriculture industry relies on photosynthesis to grow food to feed the world. However, the process is slow and requires a lot of resources, making it inefficient to meet the world’s needs.

Feng Jiao, the Elvera & William R. Stuckenberg Professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, along with Robert E. Jinkerson, at the University of California, Riverside, propose a move to an electro-agriculture framework that combines carbon dioxide electrolysis with biological systems to boost food production’s efficiency. Such a system could reduce agricultural land use in the United States by nearly 90% and allow food to be grown in urban areas and deserts without the need for light or pesticides. It also allows farmers to use fertilizer more efficiently.