India bets on seaweed's future as food industry appetite grows

  • 📰 straits_times
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 100 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 43%
  • Publisher: 69%

Sverige Nyheter Nyheter

Sverige Senaste nytt,Sverige Rubriker

In contrast to other crops, it can be grown without taking up more land or fresh water. Read more at straitstimes.com.

MANDAPAM, India - Adjusting their swimming goggles and wrapping their fingers in cloth to protect them from the jagged coral below, a group of women plunge into choppy waters off southern India to gather seaweed - their routine since childhood.

As global interest in seaweed farming grows, India has outlined ambitious plans to drastically ramp up and modernise its small-scale production of the underwater plant, hailed for its climate-friendly credentials and nutritional value. In contrast to other crops, it can be grown without taking up more land or fresh water as climate change impacts - including harsher heat, drought and floods - pose a major emerging threat to global food security.

A woman harvesting wild seaweed in the waters off the coast of Rameswaram in India’s Tamil Nadu state. PHOTO: AFPAside from sushi and salads, seaweed extracts - agar, alginate and carrageenan - are used as thickening and gelling agents, and are in high demand from a number of industries including food processing, biostimulants, cosmetics, and even making alternative plastics for packaging.

In a report last month, the World Bank said 10 emerging global seaweed markets - from animal feed to yield-boosting biostimulants - have potential growth of up to $11.8 billion by 2030, in part because of the plant’s capacity to store planet-heating carbon and boost marine biodiversity. The waters around Dr Veeragurunathan’s office in Mandapam are the richest in the country for seaweed diversity, home to about a quarter of the 844 native varieties that grow in Indian waters. Building rafts from bamboo and string, a group of student scientists stood in mucky waist-deep water in the Palk Strait off Tamil Nadu one recent morning to run tests on different seaweed strains.

In the mid-2000s, beverage manufacturer PepsiCo attempted to cultivate an imported strain of seaweed from the Philippines near Mandapam, referred to by local women as “Pepsi pasi” - pasi means seaweed in the Tamil language. The Philippines government, through its National Seaweed Technology Development Centre , is leading efforts to culture old seaweed varieties in laboratories, in a bid to come up with more disease-resistant kinds.

 

Tack för din kommentar. Din kommentar kommer att publiceras efter att ha granskats.
Vi har sammanfattat den här nyheten så att du kan läsa den snabbt. Om du är intresserad av nyheterna kan du läsa hela texten här. Läs mer:

 /  🏆 5. in SE

Sverige Senaste nytt, Sverige Rubriker

Similar News:Du kan också läsa nyheter som liknar den här som vi har samlat in från andra nyhetskällor.

- Vistara merger approved, SIA to get 25% stake in Air IndiaSingapore Airlines will pump in millions for a 25 per cent stake in Air India, which has won approval for merger with Vistara, in which SIA has a 49 per cent share.
Källa: IndependentSG - 🏆 9. / 63 Läs mer »