Seaweed could help feed the world and reduce the impact of the climate emergency, a UN adviser on food has suggested.
Speaking at the Hay festival in Wales, Vincent Doumeizel suggested that the term “sea forest”, which is how seaweed is referred to in Norway, would be more appropriate, “because we would understand that we need to protect and preserve them as we do with all the land forests”.
All of the approximately 12,000 known varieties of seaweed are edible, says Doumeizel, whose book The Seaweed Revolution is currently out in French. If we used all of these varieties of seaweed more effectively, Doumeizel believes, we could “feed the entire world” sustainably, while “repairing the climate”, “mitigating biodiversity loss” and “alleviating poverty”.
Many are so nutritious that studies have estimated that 2% of the ocean would be sufficient to feed 12 billion people, without using any animal or vegetable resources. And unlike some other plants, it retains all of its nutrients when dried.
Seaweed also releases much less carbon than land plants, and it was possible for the carbon it does produce to be sedimented and put “back where it used to be before we started to take it out of the soil”, he said.
Production of nori, the kind of seaweed used in sushi, was already a hugely profitable business worldwide, but there was so much more that could be done with the resource, said Doumeizel. There would always be people who say “I want my T-bone steak!” he said. “So let’s feed our livestock with seaweed.”
Seaweed’s high protein content and immune-boosting properties makes it a great animal feed, and as a side benefit, feeding livestock seaweed also “cuts methane emissions”, said Doumeizel. If every cow was fed just 100 grams of seaweed a day, he said, it would suppress their wind enough that “the impact on climate change would be equivalent to stopping each and every car and truck on the planet”.
Seaweed, he said, could also be used as a biodegradable substitute for plastic, citing the London startup Skipping Rocks Lab, which has provided seaweed water pods to the London marathon.
There is “unlimited potential for innovation” when it comes to seaweed, according to Doumeizel. But currently pioneers are working “in isolation” around the world and “need to get together to attract investors, accelerate change, accelerate science”.
Another barrier to seaweed becoming the solution to global problems, of course, is that many people simply do not like the taste of it. Doumeizel suggested using a small amount “like pepper or salt” to get used to the taste. “Let’s start with this,” he said, and “we may be remembered as the first generation on this planet” that solved issues of global heating and hunger. “I really think we can do it,” he said, “but it will have to be all together.”