In recent years, tech companies around the world have offered many innovative solutions to the looming global food crisis: vertical farms, 3D-printed cakes, lab-grown ice cream, juicy steaks made from nothing but thin air. Courtesy of SymbioticA – the pioneering Australian bio-artists responsible for the world’s first-ever piece of meat grown in a laboratory – we can now add to this burgeoning list the Sunlight, Soil & Shit (De)Cycle (or 3SDC) project. It’s claimed to be an efficient, groundbreaking technological system that can produce all the food we could ever hope for – and, as its name suggests, without any need for sunlight, soil or shit.

SymbioticA launch their project at a time when the future of the planet isn’t looking too flash. Temperatures soar. Case numbers skyrocket. Weather systems wreak havoc. A war is waged. Will the public have faith in the 3SDC project? Will somebody invest in it? Can it save us from the mess we’ve found ourselves in?