Sea-farmed supercrop: how seaweed could transform the way we live

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By Richard Orange, The Guardian. 

Excerpt: experts believe that seaweed could be a key crop in the “protein shift” away from meat. Some of last spring’s harvest here hit about 30% protein, close to the level that would make it compete against the world’s other big protein sources like meat and soya. Steinhagen also believes passionately that this plant – long eaten as “green laver” on the coasts of Britain – can be a more sustainable alternative to soya. Sea lettuce doesn’t draw on scarce resources of land and fresh water. “There is no other option,” she says later, ... “Climate change is affecting most of our crop systems and we are in urgent need of new production. We cannot extend terrestrial farmland – so we need to go into the ocean.” It’s not just a protein source. As we shift to a bio-based rather than fossil-fuel-based economy, seaweed could provide a lot of the compounds we need. For example, Ulrica Edlund... is a professor of polymer science who has used polysaccharides extracted from seaweed to make plastic films, filaments and other plastic materials. “It’s circular because it provides a route away from fossil-based plastics....“You don’t have to wait 50 years for the forest to grow until you can harvest those polymers.”.…

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