Barbados and other Caribbean countries are being urged not to miss out on opportunities to produce fertilisers and animal feed additives from the sargassum seaweed that has inundated beaches.
Urging the region not to let the massive amounts of sargassum go to waste, founder of the Guernsey-based The Seaweed Food Co. Ben Tustin said more research should be done to determine how the algae could be used to help boost food security.
“I am not suggesting seaweed is a single solution to the world food crisis or climate issues at all, but it’s a massive part of it and people don’t seem to be aware of it,” he said on Friday during a session on Building Climate Resilience Through Food Security at the Virtual Island Summit 2022.
Tustin, whose two-year-old company collects seaweed and uses it to produce seasonings and skincare products, said he was surprised more use was not being made of the natural resource that many countries had “literally sitting on their doorstep”.
“Sargassum is incredibly useful. It doesn’t have the variety of all types of seaweed but it is full of nutrients, it is full of vitamins, it can be used as fertiliser. It doesn’t need to be processed at all. It can be worked into the soil and grow the vegetables that we need and the vegetables to feed the animals that we need,” he said.
“What it can also be used for is in parts of dietary supplements for cattle…. Between five and ten per cent of their diets is made up of seaweed. It can reduce their methane emission anywhere from 60 to 90 per cent, and methane is the worst greenhouse gas.
“….So, in terms of the drift seaweed, we really need to use it as fertiliser or potentially animal feed as long as it can be tested and it can be shown to be edible. There is not enough research done,” Tustin added.
Further making a case for use of the resource as fertiliser, the seaweed aficionado pointed to the rising cost of fuel which he said was resulting in a decline in production of chemical fertilisers.
He said the sargassum seaweed was a readily available and easy source.
“It doesn’t need to be washed, it can be put straight into the land, it can be pounded or it can be left on the top and it would be able to naturally take the nutrients into the soil. It is a natural fertiliser that very few of us are using, which is quite staggering. If you are using it on the land it will repair chemical-fertilised land within 18 months,” Tustin insisted.
However, just two weeks ago, Minister of the Environment and National Beautification Adrian Forde said studies have shown that the sargassum seaweed contains higher than accepted levels of arsenic, mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals that make it harmful for consumption.
While acknowledging that the seaweed is able to absorb heavy metals, Tustin said what had to be determined, however, was whether those chemicals were transferred to the soil and, subsequently, to plants.
“Also, what is the worst scenario? You are probably currently eating vegetables that were grown using glyphosate [a herbicide], which is horrific, and it does get into vegetables,” he contended.
“I am not saying that heavy metals are great. However, I would be testing the end plant and not the seaweed . . . It is not the elements – chemicals or molecules – themselves that pass directly from seaweed to soil to plant, it is the process that [is important]. What we are trying to do is encourage microbial activity in the soil. If we got soil that is very active with good microbes they will process pretty much everything. Admittedly, heavy metals are more difficult but ultimately it is what is ending up in the plant. I would suggest testing the plants, not the seaweed,” Tustin advised. (MM)
