Waist deep in sparkling blue water off the white beaches of the Indian Ocean spice island of Zanzibar, seaweed farmer Mtumwa Vuai Ameir gently ties seedlings to wood poles.
Seaweed farmed on the Tanzanian archipelago is one of Zanzibar’s key exports — used for food, cosmetics and medicine in Asia, Europe and North America — but now the vital industry is struggling with warmer waters killing the crops.
“We are desperate, and some farmers have been discouraged and abandoned the work,” said Ameir, who has been a seaweed farmer for more than 20 years.
She works alongside her daughter and husband in the small village of Muungoni, about 42km southwest of Zanzibar town.
As crop yields decline, cheaper production and transport costs in Asia are also challenging Zanzibar’s position as the world’s third-biggest producer of spinosum seaweed.
More than 23,000 farmers grow and harvest the seaweed, according to government statistics. However, tens of thousands more depend indirectly on an industry that provides a key income for families with few other means to earn a living.
Seaweed from Zanzibar is exported to China, South Korea, Vietnam, Denmark, Spain, France and the US. It is used as an ingredient base for cosmetics, lotions and toothpaste, as well as in medicines. It is also eaten as a vegetable.
Farmers say that reduction in demand from abroad and subsequent falling prices has made turning a profit a challenge.
“Seaweed is now cheaper in Asia, compared to our price, therefore we must drop prices to maintain our buyers,” said Arif Mazrui, who runs Zanque Aqua Farms, a seaweed business, blaming price fluctuation in the world market. “We have no control over the price, we have to adjust our prices to keep our buyers. It is unfortunate that while we adjust our prices to compete with Indonesia and the Philippines, the farmers are the great losers.”
In recent years, Zanzibar has exported about 16,000 tonnes of seaweed per year, according to Zanzibar government statistics.
However, levels are declining. In the first three months of this year, levels were less than half the amount produced during the same period a year earlier. Prices are falling as well: The price of spinosum seaweed was previously about 700 Tanzanian shillings (US$0.31) per kilogram, but is now less than half, selling for 300 shillings.
The plants also face a threat from disease as well as poor weather.
Narriman Jidawi, from the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Dar es Salaam, said research into the production decline was under way.
“When it is too hot ... seaweed [does] not grow very well, so a lot of women have stopped actually cultivating,” Jidawi said.
The university’s marine scientists and environmentalists are encouraging seaweed farmers to try and grow their crop in deeper, cooler waters in a bid to minimize infection, after tests showed the seaweed fared better there.
However, farming in deeper water is harder to do.
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