Speakers’ corner event – An ocean of opportunities: The potential of seaweed to address food security, environmental sustainability, and gender empowerment

UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UN Global Compact, the Global Seaweed Coalition, and FAO organized a speakers’ corner event titled, “An ocean of opportunities: The potential of seaweed to address food security, environmental sustainability, and gender empowerment” on 12 July at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy. Main speakers were Chantal Line Carpentier (UNCTAD) and Vincent Doumeizel (UN Global Compact). Their presentations explained how seaweed, a versatile marine macroalgae, is rapidly gaining recognition for its multifaceted contributions to food security, sustainability, and gender empowerment.

Seaweed production for both food and non-food purposes, reached a record of 36.5 million tonnes in 2022, mostly from Asia, with the United Republic of Tanzania, Chile, and the Russian Federation leading in other continents. In value, the global market for seaweed has more than tripled over the last two decades, growing from $5 to $17 billion with global imports representing about $1.2 billion. International trade in seaweed and its by-products only represents 14 per cent of this value, indicating significant potential for sunrise industries.

Seaweed is also a great food source. Seaweed is good for animals as feed, and it has the potential to serve as a bio stimulant and replace fertilizer. Some seaweed can also grow extremely fast. The fastest variants can grow up to 40 centimeters per day to reach 60 meters high. Though seaweed forests are disappearing, we can regrow a forest in a few months while we need decades on lands.

Environmentally, seaweed is the sea farming activity with the lowest environmental impacts as it does not need fresh water, fertilizers, or land, while providing environmental services such as absorbing carbon and filtering water system. Moreover, seaweed farming can provide ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, nitrogen cycling, and ecosystem restoration.

Socially, seaweed offers the potential to empower women. In many developing countries, women cultivate and process seaweed as a complementary economic activity in fishing communities to add to family income and food security. Indeed, women represent 40 per cent of starts up in the sector where the sector is still informal.  
To increase seaweed production and use in ways that keep benefitting people and the planet, the speakers offered the following recommendations:

1. Encourage governments to incorporate seaweed into national development, biodiversity, and climate mitigation plans, including the next round of NDCs.
2. Support countries in delimiting ocean space, providing permits, and facilitating access to finance and technology for harvesting and post harvesting treatment of specific target species and uses.
3. Further research on various seaweeds’ carbon sequestration potential, biosecurity risks, nutritional benefits. We can also support science and domesticate seaweed.
4. Advocate for global definition and harmonization of seaweed standards and related food and non-food products safety and security regulations.
5. Create a transparent market for seaweed by defining marketable species, by-products, and market prices.
6. Advance research and development of promising seaweed-based foods, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and non-plastics substitutes product development in developing countries, especially among women and vulnerable coastal communities.
7. Support the creation and recognize associations of producers and harvesters as social solidarity entities that can receive dedicated support.
8. Enable collaboration in this highly fragmented and very nascent industry.