Figure 2. Trial of regenerative
coastal aquaculture in Singapore
The roles of stakeholders and investment in seaweed farming and production can be summarized as in Figure 3:
Figure 3. Role of stakeholders and investors in seaweed farming
Farmer or farmer family is a place where spouses and relatives share work and income among themselves. In seaweed farming, men are often responsible for heavy works such as planting, maintenance and harvesting, while women and children are responsible for less heavy works like tying seedlings, drying and sorting dried seaweed. Seaweed farming requires a lot of seasonal labor, so job-based pay is often used. Workers often come from the same community and may be neighbors. Sometimes they work together in a group or for different farmers.
Farmer organization is organization established by farmers for the purpose of sharing resources in providing inputs, cultivation technique, marketing and selling of the seaweeds. The organization could be official such as cooperative, association and cooperative group or unofficial such as team, group or club.
Trader include collectors and exporters. Their function is not limited to (1) collecting/transporting, (2) sorting/cleaning/drying, (3) pressing and wrapping, and (4) selling or exporting raw dried seaweed for domestic or international processors. Collectors often assist seaweed farmers and buy back products.
The government, non-government organization (NGO) and other supported actors programs/projects can provide active support to farmers through training and equipment initiatives, and training on best practices directly to farmers.
Two common Kappaphycus farming methods
are used for cost benefit analysis. They are floating bamboo raft and fixed-off
bottom plot. The size of the analysis is for a family of three persons (8,100
m cultivation line) consist of 135 floating bamboo raft or 15 fixed-off bottom
plots.
The size of the floating bamboo raft used
is 3.0 m x 3.0 m and consists of four main bamboo poles (3.6 m each) tied
together by four diagonal bamboo slats (1.2 m each) in a square shape. square
and a fishing net is attached underneath to prevent fish-grazing. In each raft,
there are 20 three meters cultivation lines, each line sows 20 seedlings,
weight about 200 g/seed. The rafts are anchored at the farming site with iron
anchors (20 kg), each anchor holds a cluster of 5 rafts.
Fixed-off bottom plot (30 m × 20 m) was
constructed using casuarina and bamboo poles, and a polypropylene rope was
securely tied to the stakes at a distance of 0.5 m from the bottom. Approximately
200 g of seed was inserted into a loop with seed spacing of 20 cm in 30 m PP (3
mm) rope and line space of 1.0 m. Total cultivation line length is about 540m
for each plot. The economic analysis for two K. alvarerzii farming models are
presented in Table 2 and Table 3.
Table 2. Economic analysis for two
K. alvarerzii farming models of family of three persons
|
Items
|
Unit
|
Total cost for 135 rafts
|
Total cost for 15 plots
|
|
A. Production parameters
|
|
|
|
|
1. Total length of lines
|
m
|
8,100
|
8,100
|
|
2. Size of farming plot
|
sqm
|
1,750
|
9,000
|
|
3. Number of cycles per
year
|
cycle
|
6
|
6
|
|
4. Length of a cycle
|
days
|
45
|
45
|
|
5. Annual yield of dry
seaweed
|
kg
|
21,166
|
18,049
|
|
6. Annual productivity
|
kg/m/year
|
2.61
|
2.23
|
|
7. Cycle productivity
|
kg/m/cycle
|
0.44
|
0.37
|
|
8. Farmgate price
|
USD/kg
|
0.34
|
0.34
|
|
B. Gross revenue
|
USD/year
|
7,244
|
6,177
|
|
C. Total annual cost
|
USD/year
|
2,300
|
1,766
|
|
D. Economic analysis
|
|
|
|
|
1. Net return (B-C)
|
USD/year
|
4,944
|
4,411
|
|
2. Cost of production
(C/A.5)
|
USD/kg
|
0.11
|
0.10
|
|
3. Return on investment
(D1/C)
|
%
|
215
|
250
|
|
4. Infrastructure cost
per m of cultivation line
|
USD/m
|
0.46
|
0.28
|
Note: 1 raft 3 x 3m, 60m cultivation
line; 1 Fixed-off bottom plot of 20 x 30 m,
540m cultivation line
Source: (Shanmugam,
et al., 2017)
Table 3. Comparison of investment
cost for floating bamboo raft and
off-bottom monoline culture plots methods operated by a family of three
persons in US$
|
Items
|
Total cost for 135 rafts
|
Total cost for 15 plots
|
|
Total investment
|
Economic life (year)
|
Annual cost
|
Total investment
|
Economic life (year)
|
Annual cost
|
|
Grand total of infrastructure and operational costs (A + B)
|
5,132
|
|
2,300
|
3,521
|
|
1,766
|
|
A. Insfrastructure
|
3,701
|
|
1,120
|
2,236
|
|
733
|
|
HDPE Fishing Net
|
1,247
|
3
|
416
|
1,386
|
3
|
462
|
|
1.5 mm HDPE rope
|
106
|
3
|
35
|
12
|
3
|
4
|
|
3 mm PP rope
|
319
|
3
|
106
|
213
|
3
|
71
|
|
5 mm PP rope
|
277
|
3
|
92
|
|
|
|
|
6 mm PP rope
|
65
|
3
|
22
|
|
|
|
|
10 mm PP rope
|
34
|
3
|
11
|
190
|
3
|
63
|
|
12 ft. bamboo
|
887
|
3
|
296
|
|
|
|
|
Iron anchor (20 kg)
|
185
|
3
|
62
|
|
|
|
|
Anchors (50 kg each)
|
|
|
|
41
|
3
|
14
|
|
Anchors (25 kg each)
|
|
|
|
205
|
3
|
68
|
|
Float
|
|
|
|
89
|
3
|
30
|
|
Seed cost
|
488
|
10
|
49
|
54
|
10
|
5
|
|
Transportation cost
|
92
|
3
|
31
|
46
|
3
|
15
|
|
Cost per meter of culture
line
|
0.46
|
-
|
|
0.28
|
|
|
|
B. Operational cost
|
1,431
|
|
1,180
|
1,285
|
|
1,034
|
|
Storage (10 m × 5 m)
|
171
|
3
|
57
|
171
|
3
|
57
|
|
Cost of drying bed (300m2)
|
205
|
3
|
68
|
205
|
3
|
68
|
|
Cost of boat / Catamaran
|
684
|
1
|
684
|
684
|
1
|
684
|
|
Maintenance
|
370
|
1
|
370
|
224
|
1
|
224
|
Source: (Shanmugam,
et al., 2017)
The infrastructure cost per meter of
culture line for floating bamboo raft is 0.46 USD/m and fixed-off bottom plot 0.28
USD/m. Although the investment for the fixed-off bottom is lower but it is difficult
to locate a good location and might lose crop during rough weather. Whereas, floating
bamboo raft can be utilized in shallow or deep waters and You can move your
floating rafts if need to protect from rough weather. The return on investment
for both system is higher than 200%. That is high enough rate for sustainable
aquaculture business.
Conclusion
In general, marine plants, such as cultivated seaweeds, will continue to sequester more CO2 than terrestrial plants from the atmosphere (even if the capture is only for a relatively short period of time). in seaweed growth and processing cycles). Seaweed forests and enhanced future farming practices will assist in mitigating global warming beside producing food for people and animals. Cultivation of Eucheumatoids seaweed is labor intensive and low profit, therefore modifications of farming techniques and especially integration of some levels of mechanization is needed. Seed production for Eucheumatoids are vegetative propagated via cutting although some effort on micropropagation techniques have been trial. The seaweed is still susceptible to ice-ice disease and and epiphytic and epiendophytic “ infections”. It is clear that the success of eucheumatoids farming has been related to the joint-efforts of different stakeholders of the seaweed industry.References
Ginigaddara, G., A.I.Y.Lankapura, L. R. & Bandara, A., 2018. Seaweed farming as a sustainable livelihood option for northern coastal communities in Sri Lanka. Future of Food: Journal on Food, Agriculture and Society, 6(1), pp. 57-70.
Hatch Innovation Services, 2022. Seaweed Insights. [Online]
Available at: https://seaweedinsights.com/
[Accessed 25 May 2023].
Hayashi, L. et al., 2010. Review of Kappaphycus Farming: Prospects and Constraints. In: A. Israel, R. Einav & J. Seckbach, eds. Seaweeds and their role in globally changing environments. Springer Science Business Media B.V., pp. 251-283.
Shanmugam, M. et al., 2017. Successful establishment of commercial farming of carrageenophyte Kappaphycus alvarezii Doty (Doty) in Sri Lanka: Economics of farming and quality of dry seaweed. Journal of Applied Phycology, Volume 9, p. 3015–3027.
