Seaweed Aquaculture for Food Security, Income Generation and Environmental Health in Tropical Developing Countries

World Bank Group

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: aquaculture;    food security;    seaweed;    tropics;    carbon;   

RP-ID  :  107147

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

To meet carbon emissions targets, morethan 30 countries have committed to boosting production ofrenewable resources from biological materials andconvertthem into products such as food, animal feedand bioenergy.In a post-fossil-fuel world, an increasingproportion ofchemicals, plastics, textiles, fuels and electricity willhave to come from biomass, which takesup land. To maintaincurrent consumption trends theworld will also need toproduce 50–70 percent more foodby 2050, increasingly underdrought conditions and onpoor soils. Depending on bioenergypolicies, biomassuse is expected to continue to rise to 2030and importsto Europe are expected to triple by 2020. Europeisforecast to import 80 million tons of solid biomassperyear by 2020.The expansion of seaweed farming intropical developingcountries could have large positiveimpacts on localpoverty, ecosystem management and climatechangemitigation. Being able to produce enough biomass andprotein for the growing and increasingly wealthyhumanpopulation with no new land and freshwater expropriation foragriculture would dramatically reducehumanity’s ecologicalfootprint relative to currenttrends and projections. Thegrowth of seaweed farming is constrained primarily by lackof proper marine spatial plans and appropriate financing.The current industry in the tropics isbased on inshore areaswhere multiple conflict ingusers vie for space.The need fortechnological improvements has consequentimplications forscale of investment, which couldbe a hindrance to manypotential seaweed growers,creating space for governmentengagement to supportnew smaller and medium-scaleentrepreneurs.Other opportunities for engagement bygovernmentsand international agencies committed tosustainable development include investments in transportinfrastructure,storage facilities, food preparation and/orhydrocolloid extraction plants, applied researchin solardrying and biogas technology inter alia,technical trainingand marine spatial planning.