“Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be ‘farms’ turning to the more efficient micro-organisms. Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors.”
Reminds me of Soylent Green (wasn't the original Soylent in the movie supposed to be processed algae?)
This formed a large part of Asimov's Robot series, with the first being "The Caves of Steel". To support a "huge" world population (roughly equal to our current size) food rations are cultivated in yeast farms outside the city domes.
Slightly off topic, but it's fascinating to me that we're not seeing any of the major effects of overpopulation that Harrison imagined despite having surpassed the numbers in his book. Maybe the Green Revolution? Or the realization that not everyone in the world has to live in New York City.
Predicting food shortages, particularly of meat, was commonplace then, and increasingly common through the 1970s. Housing shortages were another theme, as was endless billowing torrents of acid rain. Turns out, the EPA actually did its job on that front and headed off a disaster in this country.
“Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be ‘farms’ turning to the more efficient micro-organisms. Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors.”
Reminds me of Soylent Green (wasn't the original Soylent in the movie supposed to be processed algae?)