# Seaweed farming

Seaweed farming is cultivation and harvesting of commercially valuable seaweed. Seaweed is a somewhat imprecise term referring to macroalgae which grow in saltwater. The macroalgae might be Rhodophyta (red), Phaeophyta (brown), or Chlorophyta (green).

## Quotes

* Seaweed aquaculture, the fastest-growing component of global food production, offers a slate of opportunities to mitigate, and adapt to climate change. Seaweed farms release carbon that may be buried in sediments or exported to the deep sea, therefore acting as a CO$_2$ sink. The crop can also be used, in total or in part, for biofuel production, with a potential CO$_2$ mitigation capacity, in terms of avoided emissions from fossil fuels, of about 1,500 tons CO$_2$ km$^{−2}$ year$^{−1}$. Seaweed aquaculture can also help reduce the emissions from agriculture, by improving soil quality substituting synthetic fertilizer and when included in cattle fed, lowering methane emissions from cattle.
** Carlos M. Duarte, Jiaping Wu, Xi Xiao, Annette Bruhn, and Dorte Krause-Jensen, (2017). "Can Seaweed Farming Play a Role in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation?". Frontiers in Marine Science 4. DOI:10.3389/fmars.2017.00100.
* The usage of macroalgae in traditional food and complementary medicine was recorded in early Neolithic data of ten thousand years back. Being naturally enriched in key nutrients and in various health-promoting compounds, they are traditionally consumed in many Asian countries like China, Indonesia, Philippine, South Korea, North Korea, Japan and Malaysia for centuries. Recently, they have attained more reputation in western countries. Seaweeds promising candidates for the design of functional foods have become key foods in current nutritional practices (vegetarian, vegans, health-foods, etc.) and are increasingly widely consumed in the USA, South American and European countries. Global demands for seaweeds has been growing together with increases in usage beyond former traditional applications. According to FAO statistics of the most cultivated seaweed taxa, three were used mainly for hydrocolloid extraction: Eucheuma spp. and Kappaphycus alvarezii for carrageenans, and Gracilaria spp. for agar; Saccharina japonica, Undaria pinnatifida, Pyropia spp. and Sargassum fusiforme were the most important in human food usage. The main producing countries were China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
** Nathalie Bourgougnon, "Preface". Seaweeds Around the World: State of Art and Perspectives. 9 April 2020. p. xviii. ISBN 9780081027103.
* An epiphyte is a nonparasitic plant that dwells on another plant and has been well studied in terrestrial plants. However, in the marine ecosystem, these epiphytes thrive on algal thallus for their support and growth, and their infestation has a prime economic impediment in commercial cultivation. They usually belong to various groups, namely, bacteria, fungi, algae, ascidians, bryozoans, sponges, protozoa, molluscs, crustaceans, and other marine sessile organisms. The seaweed farming industry is currently growing at ca. 9% per annum, with global production of 31.2 million wet tons worth US$ 11.7 billion. The first report of an epiphytic outbreak in commercial farms of Kappaphycus in the 1970s caught the attention of several researchers on this devastating epiphyte which causes retarded growth and significant loss of stocking biomass, ultimately leading to the production of inferior quality of raw material. High-density planting in commercial farms is often responsible for recurring epiphytic infestations.
** Sunil Kumar Sahu, Kapilkumar N. Ingle, and Vaibhav A. Mantri, "Epiphytism in Seaweed Farming: Causes, Status, and Implications". Environmental Biotechnology Vol. 1. Environmental Chemistry for a Sustainable World. 44. 2020. pp. 227–242. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-38192-9_9. ISBN 978-3-030-38191-2.

## See also

* Farming

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Seaweed farming on Wikipedia
* The dictionary definition of aquaculture on Wiktionary