Increasing awareness of the health and environmental benefits of seaweed, coupled with its potential implications for food security, has raised demand. Scientist Jessica Knoop researched the sustainability of
Porphyra in the UK in collaboration with Williams and concluded that local harvesting wasn’t having a negative impact on wild stocks, but argues that that the future of seaweed in Europe is aquaculture. “Cultivation of laver is definitely possible,” she says, although “more research is needed” to make it commercially viable.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates the global seaweed industry is valued at around $6bn (£4bn), destined mainly for human consumption in Asia Pacific, although other uses include cosmetics, feed, bioplastic, fertilisers and biofuel.
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