Seaweed farming could assist clear up world starvation and malnutrition

To assist clear up starvation and malnutrition whereas additionally slowing local weather change, some farmers may shift from land to sea, suggests a current research from the Friedman College of Diet Science and Coverage at Tufts College. The research was printed in International Meals Safety.

Producing and promoting seaweed may increase incomes for farmers in low- and middle-income international locations (LMICs), significantly in coastal areas of Africa and Southeast Asia, mentioned Patrick Webb, the Alexander McFarlane Professor of Diet on the Friedman College and senior creator of the research. The opposite authors had been Natalie Somers, N23, and Shakuntala Thilsted, who works for the Consultative Group on Worldwide Agriculture Analysis and received a 2021 World Meals Prize for analysis and innovation in aquaculture and meals programs. The group reviewed analysis papers, current databases, United Nations and World Financial institution Group studies, and extra.

A extra sustainable various to elevating livestock, seaweed cultivation requires no land, freshwater, or chemical fertilizers, and will turn into significantly worthwhile as demand for nutrient-rich seaweed merchandise grows around the globe, the research discovered. These earnings would imply extra shopping for energy for these households and communities who produce, course of, package deal, and export the microalgae, which in flip would translate into more healthy diets.

“One of many greatest issues of meals insecurity in LMICs is the unaffordability of wholesome diets,” mentioned Webb, who additionally serves as director for the Meals Methods for Diet Innovation Lab at Tufts. “There are roughly 3.5 billion folks on the earth who cannot afford a nutritious diet even when they select native meals at native costs. For a lot of of these folks, cultivating and promoting seaweed would result in larger incomes and improved vitamin via purchases in the marketplace.”

Straightforward and environmentally pleasant

A pleasant crop for each farmers and the atmosphere, seaweed has been grown in elements of Asia for hundreds of years utilizing pretty easy strategies, based on the research.

To start out, farmers connect lengthy strains of rope to the roots of the algae, which nourish the plant by absorbing vitamins from the water. Six to eight weeks later, they collect the seaweed by hand and dry it within the solar.

Plenty of what we’re taking a look at on the farming aspect is just not about discovering new crops or completely different sorts of crops. It is about what’s already being grown that could possibly be scaled up cost-effectively.”

Patrick Webb, the Alexander McFarlane Professor of Diet on the Friedman College and senior creator of the research

On prime of being comparatively simple to develop, seaweed has a miniscule carbon footprint, and should even assist decrease the ocean’s carbon ranges. Although little is but recognized about how a lot CO₂ seaweed releases throughout harvest, analysis has discovered that perennial brown algae farms take up as much as ten tons of CO₂ per hectare of sea floor per yr. Along with its “carbon sinking” powers, when added to livestock feed, seaweed may assist dramatically cut back methane gasoline emissions.

“Except we get vital warming of the oceans, cultivating seaweed gives a manner that’s not simply local weather pleasant, however local weather proof,” mentioned Webb. “We do not know the way quickly the business will begin to expertise the detrimental results of local weather change, however the potential appears to be like good. By farming seaweed, it is not going to speed up these detrimental results. Whereas chopping down bushes and including extra livestock actually would.”

The challenges of manufacturing and processing

However whereas seaweed farming helps the atmosphere, local weather change itself could current obstacles to rising extra of it. Ocean water is turning into more and more acidic, which isn’t best for rising wholesome, edible seaweed, the authors mentioned.

Moreover, seaweed’s major worth as an export can be for its extracts as elements, fairly than as a sea vegetable to be eaten complete, based on the research. And whereas international locations with larger common incomes that produce and export brown, inexperienced, and purple seaweeds in giant portions have already got the infrastructure wanted to successfully course of, check, and regulate what could ultimately land on customers’ plates, most LMICs don’t.

Analysis into processing bottlenecks is restricted, and what little information exists on components reminiscent of shopper patterns is owned by the meals firms who accumulate it, Webb said-;which implies governments and entrepreneurs in lots of LMICs have had few sources or incentives to put money into aquatic plant farming.

“The steps taken between the farm and the fork, that is what we have to deal with,” Webb mentioned. “We have to work extra intently with governments and the personal sector to determine the place the bottlenecks are and easy methods to overcome them.”

A bounty for the taking

If these obstacles will be addressed, the alternatives of seaweed aquaculture are boundless, the authors mentioned. The business has flourished in Indonesia, the place seasonal labor is steadily obtainable and farms can obtain industrial-level economies of scale (in distinction to the family-run farms of, for instance, India and Tanzania). Indonesia is now a key exporter of two seaweed species from which carrageenan, a thickener present in nut milks and meats, is extracted.

“There are lots of various kinds of seaweed, they usually all require considerably of a unique atmosphere by which to develop. The huge coasts of Africa and Asia, not all of it is going to be prime actual property,” Webb mentioned. “However a lot of it is going to be.”

For seaweed farming to develop in these locations, governments should take it critically and create meals security laws and an total atmosphere the place it will probably occur, Webb mentioned. Native and worldwide funding curiosity may also be key. “If it does not occur tomorrow, with the correct situations, it may occur the day after tomorrow,” Webb mentioned.

It is early days for seaweed manufacturing in LMICs, however Webb is assured about its promise for farmers. “The Ministry of Agriculture, and even the Ministry of Fisheries in these international locations in all probability by no means discusses seaweed,” he mentioned. “What in the event that they did? They could uncover a goldmine.”

The lead creator obtained monetary help from the US Company for Worldwide Growth as a part of the Feed the Future Meals Methods for Diet Innovation Lab. The content material is solely the duty of the authors and doesn’t essentially symbolize the official views of the US Company for Worldwide Growth.