A revolutionary approach that decouples food growing from conventional photosynthesis could address the global food crisis by reducing the need for farmland by as much as ninety-four percent, mitigating the impact of extreme weather on crop production, and preventing food price spikes.
The method, whose study was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was featured in the November 2024 issue of Joule magazine, attracting international attention.
According to the study authors, their approach, which they call electro-agriculture, “has pioneered a new frontier in food production.”
“Electro-agriculture is a radical reconception of the global food system that offers meaningful progress toward resolving climate change and world hunger,” they wrote.
Engineering food production against environmental constraints
Electro-agriculture was developed by Feng Jiao, a professor of energy, environmental, and chemical engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and Robert E. Jinkerson, at the University of California, Riverside.
Their study, “Electro-agriculture: Revolutionizing farming for a sustainable future,” explains how the proposed method can enable food cultivation in non-arable urban centers, arid deserts, and even outer space environments.
“This new approach combines CO2 electrolysis with biological systems to boost food production efficiency. By utilizing acetate generated from CO2 through renewable electricity, electro-agriculture enables the heterotrophic growth of crops, bypassing the efficiency constraints of photosynthesis,” the paper points out.
The text argues that electro-agriculture can increase photosynthesis’ energy efficiency from one percent to at least four percent, using the same primary inputs: CO2, sunlight, and water.
This could be achieved even in science fiction scenarios “where solar photons are limited, such as during solar geoengineering or nuclear winter events,” or onboard deep space missions, “facilitating extraterrestrial colonization.”
Benefits of food growing with electro-agriculture
Scientists are concentrating on improving the process of converting carbon dioxide into acetate, potentially serving as a viable feedstock for plants in this system. The goal is to genetically engineer plants to use acetate as a growth fuel.
The authors believe that, besides plant crops, electro-agriculture could also offer an opportunity to produce egg and dairy proteins from acetate-fueled precision fermentation or for lab-grown meat.
The study suggests that electro-agriculture holds significant promise in reducing environmental impacts, streamlining supply chains, and addressing the global food crisis.
It is estimated that adopting a food system based entirely on electro-agriculture could reduce agricultural land use in the United States by eighty-eight to ninety percent, freeing nearly half of the country’s land for ecosystem restoration and natural carbon sequestration.
Electro-agriculture could significantly enhance agricultural productivity in extreme climates and food-insecure areas globally, potentially addressing global hunger.