UN IIMSAM Ambassador Backs Novalgae Ballari Farmers’ Collective Growing Spirulina on Arid Land

Ballari, [India]: His Excellency Asif Ayoob, IIMSAM Ambassador to India, has pledged the support of his office to the Novalgae Ballari Farmers Collective, a network of smallholder farmers cultivating spirulina on arid land in one of Karnataka’s most drought-prone districts.

IIMSAM – the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition – is an intergovernmental institution with observer status at the United Nations, which promotes spirulina as a tool against hunger and malnutrition. The Ambassador visited the collective on 9 September and spent an evening with farmers and their families.

“It is inspiring to see so many farmers coming together as a collective, and even more impressive to see that the new generation of youngsters are making a conscious decision to be in farming. I would like to assure my 100% support to the Novalgae Ballari Farmers’ Collective from my office, and help you produce the spirulina for the world, from Ballari,” he told the gathering.

The collective brings together 8 farming families across 14 acres in Phase 1. 20+ farmers have expressed their interest in joining the collective in the next phase. Farmers retain ownership of their land and cultivate spirulina in shallow ponds; Novalgae supplies the strain, protocols, training and equipment, and procures the harvested biomass at an assured price, removing the market risk that has made conventional cropping in the region increasingly marginal.

“For our farmers to hear from the biggest international body and authority in spirulina that what they are doing in Ballari is a pioneering initiative not just in India, but anywhere else in the world is worth more than any endorsement. To hear that a United Nations intergovernmental body is watching this initiative with excitement is inspiring all of us to embrace the true potential of microalgae and community farming,” said Atul Ghosh, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer of Novalgae.

Two pieces of technology make the model work at this scale. The first is the strain. Ballari Blue™ is Novalgae’s proprietary spirulina strain, selected for the climate and water conditions of North Karnataka rather than adopted from generic commercial stock. Spirulina requires a fraction of the land and water of conventional protein crops and harvests year-round rather than by season.

The second is the processing. Novalgae has filed an Indian patent application for a spirulina dewatering apparatus (Application No. 202641087436) developed for its Ballari operations. The equipment separates harvested biomass from culture water continuously at food-grade hygiene standards, using a filter system that cleans itself during operation — typically the bottleneck at smallholder scale. It was engineered for the conditions and scale at which farmers here actually work, rather than adapted from imported industrial plants.

Farmers in the collective report that the change is measurable. “We have been farming in this land for generations. But climatic conditions and markets were increasingly becoming prohibitive. But microalgae spirulina is giving us 10x more returns and year-round harvesting. I can grow it even in arid lands unsuitable for farming and with less water. With Novalgae doing all the investment, supplying the strains, giving the guidance, training and processing, we can focus on what we do best – farming,” said Muralidhara, one of the collective’s lead farmers.

The Ambassador also met Harikrishna, a final-year graduate student and the son of a farmer, who had planned to move to Bengaluru for a corporate job, but instead stayed to farm the land his family has worked for four generations. “Everybody in my batch wants to move to Bengaluru and get a corporate job. I wanted that too. But spirulina farming changed my perspective. This land is ours, four generations of it. What changed is that the farming is no longer dependent on continuous water or a stable climate – and the harvest is continuous throughout the year,” he said.

“His Excellency spoke about farmland disappearing into plots, and that is one of the problems we are helping with the farmers. Spirulina even grows on arid land that has been written off for conventional farming, using less water. It gives a family a reason to keep the land, farm it and create stable income for the current and future generations, rather than sell it,” said Siva Sankar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Novalgae.

The company is working with academic institutions on applied microalgae research aimed at developing strains suited to other regions, and is targeting annual production of 150 tonnes by 2027.