I spend quite a bit of time on farms for , but recently I visited a very different kind of farm, heading out on a boat in Cornwall’s St Austell Bay, to see a pioneering food production method that some people claim could be the solution to many of the issues we face as a species. That food is seaweed. Can seaweed save the world? “Seaweed is the greatest untapped resource we have,” says Vincent Doumeizel, author of The Seaweed Revolution (Hero £18.
99). If we learn how to grow it sustainably, Vincent believes seaweed could solve a lot of the problems that are facing our world: it could feed both people and animals, replace fertilisers and plastics, decarbonise the economy, clean up the ocean, rebuild marine ecosystems and reduce social injustice by providing jobs and income in coastal communities where fishing resources are dwindling. Seaweed can also help combat climate change by cooling the atmosphere through carbon sequestration.
“Some seaweeds can grow up to 40cm a day to reach 50m high,” Vincent told me. “They are real forests, so they absorb a lot of carbon.” Seaweed reproduces quickly without needing food, fresh water or pesticides.
Seventy per cent of our planet is covered by the oceans, yet less than 2% of our food comes from them. “If we want to build something regenerative, something really global, really sustainable, then we have to start with the ocean,” Vincent said. There are lots of people in lots of countries working towards a world where far.
