Expansion of Worldwide Seaweed Farming Might Contribute Significantly To Solving the World’s Issues

According to research sponsored by the University of Queensland, extending worldwide seaweed farming might go a long way toward tackling the planet's food security, biodiversity loss, and climate change issues.

Ph.D. candidate Scott Spillias from the University of Queensland's School of Earth and Environmental Science believed that seaweed offers a sustainable alternative to land-based agricultural growth in meeting the world's rising demand for food and resources.

Farming more seaweed to be food, feed, and fuel

(Photo : Photo by LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)

According to Mr. Spillias, seaweed has significant commercial and environmental potential as a healthy meal and a building component for commercial items like as animal feed, plastics, fibers, fuel, and ethanol, as per ScienceDaily.

"According to our findings, increasing seaweed farming might help reduce demand for terrestrial crops while also reducing worldwide agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by up to 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year."

The Global Biosphere Management Model was used by researchers to map the possibilities of growing more of the 34 economically relevant seaweed species.

They calculated the environmental advantages of several scenarios based on changes in land use, GHG emissions, water and fertilizer usage, and expected changes in species presence by 2050.

"In one scenario, if we replaced 10% of human meals globally with seaweed products, we could avoid the construction of 110 million hectares of farmland," Mr Spillias added.

Spillias also discovered millions of potential hectares of ocean within global exclusive economic zones* (EEZs) that might be utilized for farming.

The Indonesian EEZ has the most favorable ocean, with up to 114 million hectares predicted to be ideal for seaweed cultivation.

The Australian EEZ also has a lot of potential and species variety, with at least 22 economically viable species and 75 million hectares of appropriate ocean.

Many natural species of seaweed in Australian seas, according to Mr. Spillias, have yet to be explored from a commercial production standpoint.

Spillias likes to think about prehistoric versions of common crops, such as maize and wheat, which were uninteresting, weedy things.

We have built staple crops that underlie contemporary society via thousands of years of breeding, and seaweed may have comparable possibilities in the future.

Professor Eve McDonald-Madden, a UQ research coauthor, said the seaweed solution would have to be done carefully to prevent moving issues from the land to the water.

The study suggested what may be done to alleviate some of the world's rising environmental issues, but it cannot be executed without considerable caution.

UQ thanked researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, CSIRO, and the University of Tasmania for their joint work.

Also Read: Carbon-Sucking Seaweed Farm Proposed to Curb Climate Change

Seaweed Could Be A Surprising But Vital Weapon

People living near the sea in the United Kingdom, like many coastal communities across the world, have gathered and consumed seaweed for millennia, as per CNBC.

Welsh laverbread, which is created by boiling a type of seaweed called laver, is a culinary delicacy so treasured in Wales that it has Protected Designation of Origin status.

Seaweed's use extends beyond the dinner table: it can now be found in everything from cosmetics and animal feed to gardening items and packaging.

With growing worries about the environment, food security, and climate change, this moist, edible gem of the sea - of which there are numerous types and hues - might play a significant part in our planet's and the United Kingdom's sustainable future. wants to join in on the fun.

A project termed the "first specialized seaweed industry facility" in the United Kingdom celebrated its formal launch before the end of April 2022, with those involved believed it would assist jumpstart the commercialization of a sector that is already established in other areas of the world.

The Seaweed Academy is situated near the Scottish town of Oban. The United Kingdom has contributed £407,000 (about $495,300) to the project. government.

The Scottish Association for Marine Science will administer it in collaboration with its business subsidiary SAMS Enterprise and the educational institution UHI Argyll.

In 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will issue a report. Seaweed cultivation is "dominated by nations in East and Southeast Asia," according to the report.

The seaweed industry is a major business, with the FAO reporting separately that it earned $14.7 billion in "first-sale value" in 2019.

With the commercial seaweed industry in the United Kingdom still in its early phases, it has a long way to go before it can compete on a worldwide scale.

Seaweed farming in Asia is frequently big-scale, with locations scattered across wide regions, as illustrated in the accompanying photo of a farm in the Chinese province of Zhejiang.