At ALLFED, our mission is to help build resilience to global catastrophic food system failure.
Some global catastrophes might reduce sunlight, causing global temperatures to plummet and destroying crops. Other scenarios, such as cascading extreme weather events like flooding in one region and droughts in another, could lead to “multiple breadbasket failure” (MBBF) across many continents. In all cases, a 5+% loss in global calorie output, or access to those calories, could lead to massive, worldwide famines, unless we have backup plans to produce and distribute resilient foods.
Through our research, we have discovered several resilient food options that could feed large populations quickly. We’ve assessed options for pilot projects in countries best suited to implement these solutions effectively, and we’ve studied how to respond to different catastrophes that could reduce food supplies and disrupt supply chains.
We’ve previously referred to these foods as “alternative foods.” Others have called them “disaster-proof foods,” “emergency foods,” or a “disaster diet.” We prefer the term "resilient" as it reflects ALLFED's commitment to strengthening global food systems to better withstand potential catastrophes.
Examples of resilient foods include low-tech solutions such as scaling-up farmed seaweed, building greenhouses, extracting leaf protein concentrate on a small scale, and relocating cool-tolerant crops. We also research higher-tech solutions, such as developing single-cell protein, extracting sugar from woody biomass, producing industrial-scale leaf protein concentrate, and more.
