Hello! Halo! Kumusta! Xin chào! สวัสดี! မင်္ဂလာပါ! ជំរាបសួរ! ສະບາຍດີ!

☘️ Last year, Thailand decriminalized weed (marijuana) in an unprecedented move for the ASEAN region. Since then, the industry has grown to a whopping THB28B (~USD800M) per year industry and is expected to reach THB42.9B (~USD1.2B) by 2025, which is about triple the expectations of the health minister—talk about exceeding high expectations! (Nikkei, 2023).

🚭 However, in spite of its popularity and economic impact, this crop has not been without controversy… the Thai government is now reportedly considering reversing this decriminalization after failing to reach a joint decision on how to regulate the crop and experiencing a change in government leadership this past August (The Guardian, 2023).

👏🏻 To put it bluntly, there’s a lot less controversy with the plant from this week’s issue: seaweed. Unlike its similarly named, land-based counterpart, seaweed is both popular and broadly supported by governments across ASEAN.

💚 Given its various downstream applications for everything from food to cosmetics to animal feed, climate-friendliness, and job creation potential, ig-nori-ng this plant is impossible. That’s why this week, we’re discussing seaweed to kelp you understand why we should eat more like the fish that we covered in last week’s issue!

🤔What’s the deal with seaweed?

🌿 Seaweed is actually a subset of algae, and is also known as macroalgae to distinguish it from microalgae, which describes microscopic phytoplankton.

At a glance, here’s a brilliant infographic that gives you a 15 second overview below:

As the infographic above illustrates, there are 3 broad groups of seaweed based on their color: red 🔴, brown 🟤, and green 🟢. These loose labels actually consist of thousands of different subspecies, but while there are many different species of seaweed, 95% of current seaweed volumes comes from 5 varieties: Saccharina, Eucheumatoid, Gracillaria, Pyropia, and Undaria…

As the chart above shows, seaweed cultivation is a fast growing industry—in the decade between 2000 & 2010 it nearly doubled and between 2010 & 2020 it grew by 75%.

📊 In 2020, 35.1M tonnes of algae worth USD16.5B were cultivated. As a percentage of global aquaculture production, this is about 29% in terms of volume harvested but less than 6% in terms of monetary value, suggesting that it’s a relatively high volume but low margin product (FAO, 2022).

🧑🏻‍🌾 The vast majority of this (97%) is farmed rather than harvested in the wild and it is estimated that if a mere 0.1% of the ocean is dedicated to seaweed production, it will provide 15 times more seaweed than current production (The Seaweed Manifesto, 2020).

🧐 So why has the seaweed industry expanded so rapidly? Well it has to do with a couple of factors: its climate & environmental sustainability as well as its various downstream applications.

🌏 Climate & environment linkages

🔻 Seaweed is negatively impacted by the effects of climate change in that global warming creates shorter growing seasons and warmer waters, leading to a decrease in seaweed yields. However, it is also a major climate solution with about 50% of the photosynthesis on Earth occurs in seaweeds and microscopic algae floating in the oceans (Seaweed Manifesto, 2023).

🌫️ Seaweed indeed has the potential to sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and startups like Indonesia-based Bioniqa, which just raised pre-seed funding, are starting to build businesses around this value proposition.

💚 Moreover, seaweed is arguably one of the most climate / environmentally friendly feedstocks. For instance it is possible to grow about 26 tons of seaweed (dry weight) per hectare near-shore, compared to 2.3 tons of soybeans and 5.1 tons of corn per hectare so it has potential to become a biofuel as well (Bellona, 2017). Beyond this, it also has other environmental ecosystem services such as nitrogen filtering.

🤨 However, it’s worth noting that the science is still a bit mixed on both algae-based biofuels (Scientific American, 2020) and carbon sequestration (MIT Technology Review, 2021).

↘️ Downstream Products

🧬 The diverse seaweed species have different hydrocolloid compounds, which have gelling, stabilizing and thickening properties. The primary compounds are Alginate, Agar, and Carrageenan, which are extracted by producers to create various downstream products that range from food to fabrics to pharmaceuticals.

🍽️ Food & Nutrition

❤️‍🩹 Seaweeds are very nutritious as they are high in omega 3 fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and fiber yet low in fat. As such a nutrient-rich crop, it has been used widely throughout Asian cuisines—especially in Japanese food. If you’ve ever eaten nori, wakame or kombu then you know what we mean (Harvard Chan, 2023)

🍜 However, while popular in Asian cuisines, seaweeds are still only a small fraction of global food consumption…

🌾🐮 Biostimulants & Animal Feed

🪴 Biostimulants refer to agricultural inputs that boost crop productivity & resilience without the need for fertilizers or pesticides. You can think of this as nutrition supplements but for plants.

🐄 In terms of the adjacent agricultural application for animal feed: as mentioned in our issues on organic waste and industrial decarbonization, methane is a greenhouse gas (GHG) with a global warming potential (GWP) that is higher than that of CO₂. Ruminant animals (e.g. cattle, pigs) are a major source of CH₄ (methane), with beef & dairy production in the US alone accounting for 27% of methane emissions (Perspective, 2020).

🌿 Yes, cow burps (not farts) are a major source of methane! Asparagopsis—a species of seaweed—shows a promising ability to reduce the methane emissions in cattle. As little as 20% market penetration of Asparagopsis across European countries can remove up to 15% of total global methane emissions (Journal of Cleaner Production, 2020).

📈 While both of these markets are still quite small, they are expected to grow rapidly as agribusinesses substitute away from conventional chemical-based fertilizers and cattle farmers receive more incentivized to decarbonize beef, dairy, and leather production.

Others: 💄 Cosmetics, 👚 Textiles, 🪣 Bioplastics

Beyond food, biostimulants & animal feed, there are plenty of other seaweed-derived products that show potential:

• Cosmetics, which companies like Voya offer for spa treatments

• Textiles, which startups like Keel Labs are innovating on

• Bioplastics, which we will get into in more detail in the below interview with Biopac…

📚 Want to learn more about this topic?

1. “Global Seaweed: New & Emerging Markets” by The World Bank

2. “Seaweed Revolution” by Lloyds Register Foundation

📢 Shout-out to BANYU and Potato Impact Partners

🌿 BANYU, founded by Dodon Yamin in Indonesia, is the first large-scale seaweed movement in the world with a mission to revolutionize the seaweed industry by creating a technology-driven, integrated seaweed ecosystem.  

💚 Seaweed farming has proven to contribute to climate change mitigation in various ways. It absorbs CO₂ during the photosynthesis process and acts as a carbon sink. Seaweed farming also helps to improve water quality by absorbing excess chemicals, benefiting marine ecosystems. BANYU works with the farmers to implement sustainable seaweed farming practices while encouraging collaboration on advanced research. Currently BANYU is seeking pre-seed funding to support their mission and develop the product. 

Those seeking further information can contact the founder at [email protected].

🥔 Potato Impact Partners (PIP) is the US-based social ventures arm of Potato Productions, a Singaporean social enterprise holding company, which fosters collaboration between the US and Southeast Asia through early-stage venture investments and institutional partnerships.

💰 PIP is focused on advancing sustainability by supporting visionary, early-stage startups in the seaweed value chain contributing to global food security and the blue economy. Our investment interests include applications along the seaweed value chain, from sourcing to production and distribution, in areas such as agricultural feed, methane reduction, and bio-stimulants. Our women-led team incorporates a gender lens to strengthen coastal resilience, particularly for Southeast Asian communities.

To learn more, please visit: https://www.potatoimpactpartners.com/investments.

🗞️ Recent News

👍🏻 Good News

🚀 Indonesia launches new front in climate campaign focusing on seagrass (Mongabay, 21 November 2023)

🚺 Philippines’ women seaweed farmers keep coastal families afloat (Eco-Business, 23 June 2023)

🤝 New tech partnership to boost seaweed farming in SE Asia (The Fish Site, 15 May 2023)

👎🏻 Bad News

🧑🏻‍🌾 Seaweed farmers in eastern Indonesia struggle in a changing climate (Mongabay, 23 July 2023)

💸 Funding, research hamper Indonesia’s seaweed potential for biofuel (Jakarta Post, 28 January 2023)

📢 Other Voices

 💚 “Meet the startup that’s making seaweed more sustainable” by Mary Kate McCoy (Conservation.org, 11 October 2023)

🎙️ Interview with Noryawati of Biopac

💡 Why were you initially inspired to work on seaweed to begin with?

😞 The human trafficking rate is decently high in East Nusa Tenggara, one of the reasons being that there is a lack of job opportunities in the region. Coincidentally, it is also one of the highest potential seaweed producing provinces in Indonesia. I saw that as a chance for me to create impact there and it convinced me to choose seaweed instead of other biomaterials. Knowing that it could increase the rate of employment which will then provide livelihood for the people in the region gave me confidence that this was the right path to follow. Not only is it good for the environment, but it is also helping the community.

🛠️ How exactly is Biopac taking action against this problem?

📦 We utilize seaweed as a default packaging material. We started by launching seaweed sheets, but now we have some other product variants, including sachets, gussets, pouches, drawstring bags, roll/cling wraps, and even seaweed-based ink.

💚 Biopac products are both convenient to use, and environmentally friendly! We provide our food packaging in edible grade; which means that it is safe if consumed. It is also disposable in land, river, and sea - it promptly dissolves in water and helps enrich soil nutrients.

😲 What is a misconception or surprising fact about seaweed?

♻️ One surprising fact is that single-use seaweed is biodegradable within 4-6 weeks, unlike regular plastic, which may take hundreds of years to decompose. It is also very beneficial to our oceans as it is able to absorb carbon emissions and lower water acidity.

🎬 What actions can readers support Biopac?

😇 You can support us through taking real, personal action, no matter who you are, by using our products as alternatives to your plastic use!

For instance if you use single-use plastic in your daily activities—such as wrapping your food and cut fruits 🍉—you can use our cling wrap. If you have a pet, you can also use our pet waste bag to dispose your pet waste 🐕💩.

📢 Another thing you can help do is promote Biopac through your social media platforms and through your network, as well as encourage your workplace to use our products instead of conventional plastic.

🦸🏻 What do you do when you’re not saving the world?

🧑🏻‍🏫 When I’m not working on seaweed with Biopac, I’m a lecturer at Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta, Indonesia.

⏭️ Next week, we’ll be wrapping up our three-part blue economy series with an issue on aquaculture!

❓ Did you enjoy this week’s issue? If yes, please do forward to your friends who would enjoy the read as well. Also, feel free to let us know what you thought by giving us feedback at [email protected].

🌊 SEA you next week!

Karina & Massimiliano1998