As worldwide sales of the algae soar, the European Union wants to establish giant seaweed farms.
At a testing site way off the Dutch coast a breakthrough was made this summer.
Some 12km (7.5 miles) out at sea, a converted fishing boat mechanically harvested a batch of farmed seaweed.
The kelp had been grown on netting hanging below a 50m (164ft) long plastic tube that was floating on the water, held in place by buoys and two anchors on the seafloor.
The boat was positioned alongside, and an 8m tall, electric-powered cutting arm was moved into the water. It pulled up the tubing and sliced the long strands of seaweed from the 2m in width net. The seaweed was then automatically bagged-up, and dropped onto the deck.
North Sea Farmers, the consortium behind the test, says it was the world’s first mechanical harvest of an offshore (some distance from the coast) seaweed farm.
Eef Brouwers, North Sea Farmers’ manager for farming and technology, says that the successful harvest was “an important first step” towards the large-scale cultivation of commercial seaweed farms in the North Sea.
North Sea Farmers has almost 100 members including food and consumer goods giant, Unilever, and energy firm Shell. They hope to dramatically increase Europe’s production of farmed seaweed over the next decade.
Currently global seaweed production is dominated by Asia, and particularly China. The total worldwide harvest in 2019 was 35.8 million tonnes, and of that amount 97% came from Asia, with more than half from Chinese waters.
By contrast, Europe produced just 287,033 tonnes that year, or 0.8% of the global total, with almost all of this being the harvesting of wild stocks.
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While most of us don’t give seaweed much thought, it is an increasingly sought after crop. Its uses ranging from a human food and additive, to animal feed, land fertilizer, an ingredient in cosmetics, as a form of bio-packaging in place of plastic, as a biofuel, and to absorb carbon dioxide.
There are thousands of different types of seaweed around the world, but seven are harvested more than most. These include kelp and pyropia. The latter is used to be made nori, the dried Japanese seaweed sheets that wrap rolled sushi.
The seaweed industry was worth $40bn in 2020, according to one report.
