Functional and nutritional ingredient for the plant-based food industry, made out of lemna grown in a scalable, affordable, and sustainable way. The solution is sustainable, grown in aquafarms, stopping nitrogen and phosphorous runoff. Affordable, using a sharing economy approach, thus having attractive unit economics. And scalable, building on existing infrastructure, thus growing without scaling CAPEX. The benefits are manifold: Reduction of nutrient pollution, protecting aquatic ecosystems. Increased quality of animal feed due to lemna protein concentrate. Reduction of greenhouse gases by replacing unsustainable protein. Increased water availability due to reduced water consumption of the agro-industry.

According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization, agriculture is the biggest water pollutant due to the excess of nutrients. It is primarily nitrogen and phosphorus that are introduced to bodies of water, which result in rivers, lakes and eventually oceans becoming polluted. These nutrients spark an excessive growth of algae, which is known as eutrophication. With a growing population and food demand, the situation is only expected to get worse. Excessive nutrients in waterways negatively impact the environment, the people and the economy. According to the International Nitrogen System: “We must halve the amount of nitrogen we dump into the environment by mid-century or our ecosystems will face epidemics of toxic tides, lifeless rivers, and dead oceans."

MICROTERRA's mission is to use biotechnology to create circular economy solutions for water with a positive social and environmental impact. They want to empower all farmers to convert to circular argo-industry practices, enabling the conservation of our planet’s resources.