CEBU, Philippines: After a stormy night, the sea off the coast of Compostela, a small town north of Cebu, has calmed. Right as dawn breaks, a mechanical whirring signals the start of a daily operation.
The permaculture project is part of an ongoing effort by the Climate Foundation - an independent nonprofit focused on food security and climate change mitigation - to use deep-sea marine permaculture to reinvigorate seaweed farming in the Philippines, and eventually around the world. An aerial view of the 1,000 square metre prototype seaweed array, deployed at Compostela, Philippines. Climate change has had devastating impacts on the commercial seaweed industry across the region. In the Philippines, it supports an estimated 200,000 families across the country, but is in anIn Indonesia, the sector is even more important.
Because oceans absorb the vast majority of the heat from global warming, those colder waters are now deeper and not upwelling to the surface. Many traditional seaweed operations, as a result, are suffering inconsistent yields and a litany of diseases. Once the economically-scaled model is proven with this design, it has ambition to launch such systems in communities at a great scale across the region, leaning on finance from development banks.
“This is literally what builds climate resilience into our coastal communities across Asia. And I see that as fundamental because the weather is not going to get any simpler.”At its research base in Compostela, a small team comprising engineers, biologists, scientists and local fishermen are busy experimenting with seaweed varieties, automation methods and development of by-products from their cultivation.
A fable that still gets told today tells of the wealth being accumulated by those farmers, that when it was dry season and the island was running out of water, the farmers had enough money to wash their hands with beer instead.Around Bohol, many seaweed farmers have simply abandoned the practice. Seaweed operations and processing stations have disappeared entirely.
The productivity of seaweed strains that used to thrive has drastically reduced. Ice-ice disease, which resembles bleaching in coral, has spread widely in shallow water farming. Prof Largo is supportive of efforts to focus on deeper water farming, despite the logistical challenges. But he said greater efforts in seaweed innovation and research should be a national priority as well.
“I think we need to close the gap between the results of our science to the farmers and actually we're already there. And most of the farmers are very receptive with the technology that we are presenting to them. Because first and foremost, that's their livelihood,” he said.He said the applications for seaweed and its by-products are vast and often underappreciated. Markets are ready to be further tapped if Philippine farmers can meet the demand.
Already, the foundation is distributing and selling a seaweed biostimulant that can replace conventional fertilisers for rice farmers across Bohol.In Bohol, the foundation is buying local seaweed and using cold press machines to extract the juices, before they are sent to be processed into the biostimulant, which farmers can spray directly onto their crops.