description
- 17Cicada anticipates the development of a revolutionary process that will allow individual farms to independently produce their own animal feed in a way that is sustainable, cost effective and with minimal environmental impact. 17Cicada aims to generate a robust and innovative way of utilising wastewater to support the growth of nutritional microalgae that can be converted into high quality animal feed. The global population is predicted to reach 9.8 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100 (UN), significantly increasing the pressure on food production. Global events, such as the war in Ukraine, have had a significant impact on the cost of animal wheat feed, which has increased by 26.5 % over the last year. This has impacted on food inflation, which has risen to 13 % in the UK, compounding the current cost-of-living crisis. To provide food for the world's growing population, a significant increase in crop production is necessary to support livestock production. Unfortunately, the availability of arable land and fresh water is limited. Climate change is also predicted to affect the production of both maize and wheat by 2030, reducing maize crops by 24 % and wheat crops declining by 17 %. Microalgae are an exciting solution to this problem. Microalgae have a high protein content (\>75 %) and are highly efficient in their utilisation of nitrogen and phosphate. This contrasts with conventional agricultural protein production, which results in nitrogen and phosphate run off, leading to pollution of lakes and rivers as well as ocean acidification. With microalgae protein production almost all the nitrogen and phosphates are converted to protein with minimal environmental impact. **Our vision is the sustainable production of microalgae-based animal feed** which will significantly help the farming industry to increase production and reduce costs. We envisage a revolution where our simple but innovative photobioreactors are operated by the farm, producing little or no waste, remediating agricultural wastewater and consuming carbon dioxide to produce microalgae for animal feed. **Our key objectives** involve the isolation of fast-growing microalgae strains with excellent nutritional profiles capable of growth using wastewater. We will also focus on optimising our photobioreactor technology to integrate seamlessly with existing farm infrastructure, coupled with robust techno-economic analyses. **Our innovation** is a first-of-a-kind attempt to produce industrial microalgae strains pre-optimised for growth using agricultural wastewater to produce high-quality animal feed in a way that is sustainable and cost effective.