Development, Production and Environmental Benefits of Microalgae Production. The Case of La Guajira, Colombia

Microalgae are an economically important source of biomolecules and metabolites and constitute a direct source of nourishment, medicine and biofuels, among others. The Guajira (Colombia) territory presents apt conditions for the development and production of microalgae at an industrial level. Of particular interest to it would be the extraction of fatty acids essential to human health, as well as the research on the extraction of oils for the growing third-generation biofuels industry. This paper intends, on the one hand, to further study the development of sub-products of microalgae at an industrial scale in Colombia using closed farming systems which will not compete with the production of human food on land intended for agriculture, and on the other, to highlight the environmental benefits such production would yield.