TODAY’S TROUBLING TIMES: SPIRALING TOWARD A PRECARIOUS FUTURE
TOWARD A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: TRANSFORMATIVE BIOTECHNOLOGY
Building A Legacy of Positive Global Impact
Food, Energy, Poverty, & Environmental Trends Out of Balance
What if we had the means to take the planet’s most ample organic material—cellulose, which is found in plants and in the abundant crop residue left over from grain harvests—and convert it into animal feed or biofuels? A game-changing innovation of this kind could foster a blossoming scenario, reflected in this diagram, in which we sustainably expand our capacity to supply both food and energy—while reducing our environmental footprint and providing pathways out of poverty.
Experts agree: We are running out of time to find sustainable solutions for the planet’s gravest challenges. By 2050, 9 billion people will need food and energy sources—and the world’s poorest must find effective ways to avoid shrinking further into abject poverty. This alarming snapshot reflects our current capacity to meet projected demands for food
AFEX is a biobased technology that converts cellulose from crop residues into a sustainable source of cattle feed and biofuels. Bulky and unwieldy crop residues and grasses are converted into pellets that are easily stored and transported anywhere. The conversion takes place in a decentralized system of depots built where crops are grown, allowing the world’s rural poor to earn more for their families. To maximize global and societal impact, AFEX will be made available worldwide on an affordable, accessible basis.
and energy. Compounding the challenge even further, we must simultaneously reduce our environmental footprint and address rural poverty. We must bring these factors into better balance to ensure a prosperous and sustainable future.
FOOD
ENERGY
ENVIRONMENTAL HARM
PROSPERITY
FOOD
ENERGY
ENVIRONMENTAL HARM
PROSPERITY
Agricultural yields saw an age of significant gains, thanks to Norman Borlaug, “Father of the Green Revolution.” Those rates of yield-increase have slowed while intense agricultural practices have taken an environmental toll. Today’s rate of food production will not be enough to feed the planet’s growing population. Is there another revolution that can herald a new era in agricultural productivity?
Accessible energy is vital to health, quality of life, and security in every nation; can we continue to depend on fossil resources alone? We may not like to think about it, but the cars we rely on are a major component of our energy demands. Atmospheric greenhouse gases hit record levels in 2013. “The laws of physics are non-negotiable,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said recently. “We are running out of time.”
The Lake Erie algae blooms that hit in 2014—costing taxpayers millions and cutting off the water supply for half a million in Toledo, Ohio—served as another wake-up call about the need for better conservation practices to stem the tide of agricultural runoff and soil erosion. News outlets showed drinking glasses filled with green slush; the public learned about microcystin, the toxin that induces vomiting and liver damage.
Do you sleep with a roof over your head? Do you have running water? Shelter, clean water, and heat are luxuries for far too many around the world. At least 80% of people live on less than $10 a day, and some 22,000 children under five die each day due to the ravages of poverty.
Currently, an estimated 35% of global crop production is fed to animals. AFEX unlocks nature’s bind on sugar sources inside the crop residue of corn, wheat, and rice—as well as perennial grasses. By using crop residues—of which there are 2 billion tons available worldwide—instead of grain to feed animals, we can both expand animal protein production and increase the supply of grain for direct human nutrition.
A world-renowned scientist at Michigan State University discovered a way to liberate the sugars inside crop residues and grasses, transforming them into either cattle feed or into a source of sustainable, renewable fuels. AFEX enters the global market at a time when urgent concerns about the worsening effects of global warming and competition for fossil resources are compelling experts and concerned citizens to examine ways to switch to renewable fuels.
It’s no secret better conservation practices would help prevent the type of runoff that sparked Lake Erie’s algal blooms. Farmers— who are already squeezed financially— need more robust financial incentives to implement conservation best practices, like no-till farming, cover crops, and buffer strips. As a hallmark of its versatility as a multifaceted solution, AFEX provides farmers with an economic resource driver to support adoption of conservation best practices.
Through a globally accessible, market-oriented model and a decentralized distribution design relying on depots built in rural communities, AFEX offers the rare opportunity to make a significant impact in the lives of some of the neediest rural poor. India provides a telling case study in AFEX’s potential impact.
• 1 billion tons of AFEX pellets could produce enough renewable fuel to power 200 million cars each year.
• Conservation practices such as no-till farming, cover crops, and buffer strips can reduce soil erosion and nutrient run-off by at least 50%.
• We must produce as much food in the next forty years as we have in the last 8,000 combined. • Over the next twenty years, the world’s middle class will nearly triple to 5 billion, dramatically increasing demand for animal protein (meat & dairy). • 75% of agricultural land worldwide is used to support animals through crops and pasture. There is not enough land to double food production by simply doubling cultivation.
• Currently, about 21.3 billion tons of CO2 are generated per year from burning fossil fuels; worldwide, transport continues to be the fastest-growing CO2 emitter. • By 2050, there will be over 3 billion cars worldwide, triple the current 1 billion. • Oil consumption hit a record 33 billion barrels per year in 2013.
• About half the lakes in Asia and North America are starved of oxygen due to fertilizer runoff, destroying aquatic ecosystems. • Nearly 1/3 of the world’s arable land has been eroded over the last 40 years and loss continues at a rate of more than 10 million hectares a year. • If current trends continue, 10 million square kilometers of forest and grassland—about the size of Canada—will be converted to agriculture by 2050.
• There are nearly 1 billion undernourished people worldwide. • Three-quarters of the poor live in rural areas, and they overwhelmingly rely on agriculture for sustenance. • The productivity of dairy cattle in developing nations is 1/10th of that in developed nations, depriving rural farmers of much needed income and limiting economic resilience.
• 300 million tons of AFEX pellets could replace all grain currently fed to beef and dairy cattle, freeing up enough grain to feed 1 billion people. • With the combination of AFEX-treated crop residues and grain, each acre of cropland would produce an additional 50% more feed.
• Renewable fuels from 1 billion tons of AFEX pellets could eliminate 680 million tons of fossil CO2 per year, equivalent to 9% of total U.S. emissions.
• Implementing AFEX would provide a key market for crop residues and perennial grasses, thereby generating revenues needed to support the adoption of conservation practices.
• 50 million rural families in India own only one or two dairy cattle. Low milk productivity of dairy cattle in developing nations could be improved by substituting AFEX pellets for the untreated crop residues these cattle are typically fed today. • The annual profit per cow could easily triple as a result of AFEX, and this increased profit from a single cow is sufficient to lift a family of five above the poverty level.