Seaweed Aquaculture for Food Security, Income Generation and Environmental Health in Tropical Developing Countries
To meet carbon emissions targets, more than 30 countries have committed to boosting production of renewable resources from biological materials andconvert them into products such as food, animal feedand bioenergy. In a post-fossil-fuel world, an in...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26587134/seaweed-aquaculture-food-security-income-generation-environmental-health-tropical-developing-countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24919 |
| Summary: | To meet carbon emissions targets, more
than 30 countries have committed to boosting production of
renewable resources from biological materials andconvert
them into products such as food, animal feedand bioenergy.
In a post-fossil-fuel world, an increasingproportion of
chemicals, plastics, textiles, fuels and electricity will
have to come from biomass, which takesup land. To maintain
current consumption trends theworld will also need to
produce 50–70 percent more foodby 2050, increasingly under
drought conditions and onpoor soils. Depending on bioenergy
policies, biomassuse is expected to continue to rise to 2030
and importsto Europe are expected to triple by 2020. Europe
isforecast to import 80 million tons of solid biomass
peryear by 2020. The expansion of seaweed farming in
tropical developingcountries could have large positive
impacts on localpoverty, ecosystem management and climate
changemitigation. Being able to produce enough biomass and
protein for the growing and increasingly wealthyhuman
population with no new land and freshwater expropriation for
agriculture would dramatically reducehumanity’s ecological
footprint relative to currenttrends and projections. The
growth of seaweed farming is constrained primarily by lack
of proper marine spatial plans and appropriate financing.
The current industry in the tropics isbased on inshore areas
where multiple conflict ingusers vie for space.The need for
technological improvements has consequentimplications for
scale of investment, which couldbe a hindrance to many
potential seaweed growers,creating space for government
engagement to supportnew smaller and medium-scale
entrepreneurs.Other opportunities for engagement by
governmentsand international agencies committed to
sustainable development include investments in transport
infrastructure,storage facilities, food preparation and/or
hydrocolloid extraction plants, applied researchin solar
drying and biogas technology inter alia,technical training
and marine spatial planning. |
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