How does seaweed help the ocean

The process of growing seaweed is environmentally friendly. Apart from planting the seeds and ensuring the seaweed is in a clean environment, seaweed often does not need feed or additional attention. The plants can grow naturally. Seaweed farms also create safe and healthy nursery grounds for young fish and crustaceans that can later be harvested commercially or improve wild population levels.

Merely the presence of seaweed farms prevents deep sea bottom trawling in certain areas and protects the sea floor. Open ocean seaweed farms can even improve water quality. Many of the dangers the ocean faces today, specifically ocean acidification , can be mitigated by increasing the amount of seaweed grown.

The World Bank predicts that achieving a global production of million tons of seaweed by would absorb 10 million tons of nitrogen, which is 30 percent of the nitrogen estimated to enter the ocean, and 15 million tons of phosphorus, which is 33 percent of the total phosphorus produced through fertilizers, from the ocean. Rising carbon dioxide levels, the leading cause of ocean acidification, can also be mitigated through seaweed. But much of this work remains in its early stages, because sargassum is tricky for a few reasons.

In the short-term, though, the company is focused on collection using its Littoral Collection Module, which mounts on any small boat and is designed to sweep up sargassum before it reaches shorelines. Securing suitable nearshore sites for cultivation and building the infrastructure for growing, transporting and processing seaweed takes time.

Like many of its peers, The Seaweed Company, founded in , has a variety of projects and products in the works, but it is furthest along commercially with its brand of biostimulants and of seaweed-based animal feed. The same nutrients that benefit human health can also contribute to the healthy growth of farm animals.

Researchers have even found that certain types of seaweed used as feed supplement for cattle can reduce methane emissions from cow farts. Biostimulants, meanwhile, have been shown to improve crop yields , by enhancing nutrient uptake, growth and stress tolerance.

Like most environmental solutions found in nature, the use of seaweed in land-based farming and animal husbandry goes way back. In Europe, coastal communities from the Iberian Peninsula to the northern British Isles used seaweed to enrich infertile agricultural soils at least as far back as Roman times, researchers have found. Much of this knowledge was lost with industrialization, but some local traditions have continued, Wouters said.

Word of mouth helps. Pilot programs designed to transition farmers to nature-based practices often count on farmers teaching each other.

This is the strategy Ficosterra uses on both sides of the Atlantic. The company in spun off from its parent Hispanagar, a year-old producer of seaweed extracts for uses in food production and medical science. As with climate change, government policy is needed to move things along. The good news is that governments have begun to acknowledge the crisis. In , UN member states adopted the " Colombo Declaration, " which aims to halve nitrogen waste by And because water nutrient pollution — unlike global warming — is largely a localized problem, a lot of work can be done at the local, regional or national level.

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