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In the past few years seaweed has emerged as a potential game-changer in the way we perceive food as well as the way in which the world is trying to move towards more sustainable practices. It functions well in a wide range of products from textiles to cosmetics and is a great alternative for biodegradable packaging as well as biofuels.
While seaweeds have been cultivated for centuries now with traditional practices of cultivating them on ropes under the water, it restricts large scale cultivation. Tackling the problem of ocean farming is Shrikumar Suryanarayan– co-founder and CEO of Bangalore-based Sea6 Energy as well as the former head of research and development at Biocon (an Indian pharmaceutical company that specialises in biologically-sourced medicines).
Hoping to mechanize ocean farming like tractors did for agriculture, Sea6 Energy was founded in 2010 and uses sea combine, an automated catamaran that simultaneously harvests and replants seaweed in the ocean. The machine travels back and forth between lines of seaweed, harvesting the fully-grown plants and replacing them with freshly-seeded lines as reported by CNN.
In the last decade, the European Union has funded research on seaweed being a biodegradable alternative to plastic and London-based startup Notpla has been creating sustainable packaging for sauces and drinks with this. Sea6 Energy is still in the early developmental stages of its biodegradable film that will replace plastic and paper bags, the Indian startup is attempting to revolutionise the space in its own way. As CNN further reports, “...the company’s boldest ambition is to convert seaweed to biofuel, helping to reduce India’s dependence on crude oil. Scientific research carried out by the company shows it would be technically feasible, but Suryanarayan admits there’s still a long way to go before it becomes commercially viable.”
Nonetheless, Sea6Energy opens up an exciting space for sustainability practices as well as ocean farming and all of this will be particularly interesting to watch in the coming years. As Suryanarayan says, “Sea agriculture is one of the ways to improve the sustainability of the planet. Our job and journey will be well achieved if we can show that it is economically viable.”
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