Each day, 40,000 children die of malnutrition and related diseases. One dream behind spirulina was developing it as a new food resource for a hungry world. One tablespoon a day offers remarkable health benefits.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva has confirmed: "Spirulina represents an interesting food for multiple reasons, and it is able to be administered to children without any risk. We at WHO consider it a very suitable food."1

• Benefits of one tablespoon a day.
• Bioneering visions.
• Beginning of village scale technology.
• The integrated health and energy system.
• Three experimental projects: India, Togo, Peru.
• Reducing eye disease in India.
• Family scale cultivation in India.
• Harvesting from lakes in Myanmar.
• Hope for the world's children.
  

Spirulina offers remarkable health benefits to an undernourished person. Its rich beta carotene can overcome eye problems caused by Vitamin A deficiency. The protein and B-vitamin complex makes a major nutritional improvement in an infant's diet. It's the only food source, except mother's milk, containing substantial amounts of an essential fatty acid, GLA, which helps regulate the entire hormone system.

One tablespoon a day can eliminate iron anemia, the most common mineral deficiency. Spirulina is the most digestible protein food, especially important for malnourished people whose intestines can no longer absorb nutrients effectively. Clinical studies have shown it helps rebuild healthy intestinal flora.

These health benefits have made it an excellent food for rapid recovery of children from malnutrition related diseases in Mexico, Togo, Romania, China, Rwanda, Zaire, India, Ukraine and Belarus.

In the 1960s and 1970s, small groups of scientists, promoters and visionaries understood what this microalgae could become. Larry Switzer, wrote about his hope for a breakthrough in food production:

"It had to be more productive than conventional agriculture... adaptable to different climates and cultures... appropriate ecologically, economically and socially... independent of the vested interests in world food production and distribution... capable of relying on renewable energy and waste or abundant raw material resources. It would have to represent a major expansion of the photosynthetic energy base that supports all life on Earth."

8.2. Larry Switzer, 1993.

"Finally, it would have to radically improve the supply, distribution and consumption of essential protein to millions of pregnant and nursing mothers, infants and children. It is absolutely critical to provide nutrition to the deprived embryos and infants of the world to preserve the precious creative genius that is waiting to be released from each fully developed human mind."2

In 1976, Switzer proposed to the Nigerian Government that oil money finance farms along the shores of Lake Chad to feed the country's growing urban masses. But the novelty of algae, lack of interest in food production, and a political coup doomed this plan. The lesson learned was to develop the technology and a consumer market in the United States first, and then apply it to the Third World.

Switzer founded Proteus Corporation and the Earthrise Company which built the first farm in California, the forerunner to Earthrise Farms. Earthrise introduced spirulina in 1979.

Parallel to commercial production has been the notable work of Ripley and Denise Fox. Over the past 20 years, they developed the Integrated Health and Energy System and founded the non-profit organization, Association Pour Combattre la Malnutrition par Algoculture (ACMA) to help fund these projects.3

The Foxes grappled with the most fundamental problem: the lack of economic opportunity. Large commercial farms could produce spirulina, but if the hungriest people had no money to buy it, they would never get any. They must grow it themselves, but without the money to buy nutrients, how could a village project be self-sustaining?

8.3. Denise and Ripley Fox, 1987.

Villages have an abundance of human and animal wastes - a source of pollution and disease. Intestinal parasites are spread by contact with wastes. These parasites consume 30% of the food eaten by people. The first step in improving health and increasing effective food production is eliminating intestinal parasites through sanitation and waste treatment. Properly handled, wastes can be converted to energy, compost, clean nutrients and even food. "One simply recycles the wastes already present in the village," says Dr. Fox. This is the foundation of the Integrated Health and Energy System, described in his books, Algoculture: Spirulina, Hope for a Hungry World, and Spirulina, Production and Potential (1996).4

The enthusiasm, participation and training of the village people are vital to the success of the integrated system. Villagers must be shown how they can improve their own sanitation, health, nutrition and village ecology, and the means to generate income from the compost, biogas fuel, fish and algae. The system is flexible enough to accommodate various cultural traditions.

Latrines eliminate the source of intestinal parasites. Where houses are spread out over a wide area, family latrines can produce compost to improve soil fertility. In a village center or market, central latrines can provide continuous wastes to a biogas digester.

Animal manure and plant waste are added to the digester which ferments the waste and breaks it down into gas, liquids and solids. A simple gas separator separates biogas into methane (a fuel for cooking and lighting) and carbon dioxide (a nutrient for spirulina). The liquid effluent is sterilized in a series of solar heated pipes and becomes a safe mineral nutrient source for the spirulina pond. Sludge is removed from the digester and composted before spreading on soils.

Solar photovoltaic panels produce electricity to run the paddlewheel in the pond, auxiliary lighting for other facilities, as well as recharging batteries. The spirulina is screened from the pond water and can be added to the aquaculture pond to feed fish or dried in a small solar drier for human food.

Other important elements of the system include a clean water system and tree planting. Livestock pens are strongly encouraged to help prevent overgrazing, the primary cause of desertification in Africa, leaving whole regions denuded and vulnerable to drought.

This Integrated Health and Energy System is a systemic approach to community problems. To succeed, the people themselves need to participate and alter some of their old habits to help revitalize their community. Each successful project becomes the inspiration and training center for the surrounding villages.

8.4. Layout of the Integrated Village Health and Energy System.

The design for the Integrated Health and Energy System won the prestigious 1987 European Award for Appropriate Environmental Technology, sponsored by the European Economic Community and the United Nations Environmental Program.

"Every nation is supported on the shoulders of its villages," says Fox. "We believe by providing technical assistance to improve sanitation and agricultural output and by saving the trees, we can increase the vitality of these villages."5 Since 1981, Ripley and Denise Fox have worked to bring these tools to the Third World.

Karla, India - the first integrated system
Karla village is near Wardha, famous for Mahatma Gandhi's ashram. The Center of Science for Villages (CSV), an organization inspired by Gandhi's vision that India's strength lies in the strength of its villages, operates the village system in Karla.

Today, this project derives income from compost and fish sold to local villagers, and from spirulina sold in Bombay. The CSV has distributed spirulina cookies and noodles to local children with great success, and chapatis are another local favorite.

Since algae grown on waste nutrients must be proven safe to consume, it was important to show pathogens in the original human and animal waste were destroyed in the biogas digester and solar sterilizer. A six month study showed pathogens were virtually eliminated and were lower than in other local foods.
8.5. Dr. Ripley Fox and assistants discussing cultivation in Karla, India.

Farende, Togo - a remote African village
Less than 100 years ago, Northern Togo in West Africa was home to lush forests, elephants and tigers. Today the big animals are gone and little stands in the way of the Sahara sweeping south. These arid grasslands are home to an exploding human population. Family compounds dot the fields and hillsides. The hard working Kabyé people grow millet and root crops. But soil quality in marginal. Growing numbers of people stress the carrying capacity of the environment. Severe problems lie ahead.

The remote village of Farende participated in an experimental project to grow spirulina. Solar panels charge truck batteries that drive the paddlewheels in the basins. A small 100 square meter basin can grow enough to supplement the diet of 100 children a day. Pouring the pond water through a screen, spirulina becomes a thick paste, and its loaded on a screen in a solar heated dryer. Dried algae is distributed at the health clinic.

Undernourished children take spirulina as a daily supplement at the health clinic. The head nurse tells the mothers about its benefits. One tablespoon a day mixed with water brings remarkable results. Children find the taste of this "green medicine" acceptable and within a week begin to show signs of health improvement and gain weight. Mothers from the surrounding countryside brought their children every week to participate in a clinical feeding study in 1989.

From 1984 to 1990, the Foxes assisted the Eglise Evangelique du Togo in building this experimental system, operated by two young village men appointed by the elders. Also cooperating was the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching people about soil composting, vegetable gardening, conservation and growing trees. The first corporate sponsors were DIC of Japan and Earthrise Company of California.

San Clemente, Peru - an urban shantytown
The hot arid coast of Peru with its poor land and scarce fresh water is a typical climate for spirulina. San Clemente is a new town near Pisco, its population swelling from 10,000 to 40,000 in less than five years. The town, perpetually broke, did not have sufficient funds for a sanitation or water system for the shantytown.