First seaweed seedlings in Hauraki Gulf for new industry

Lucas Evans of Premium Seas attaches baby seaweed plants onto the first crop at Coromandel. Photo / Scott Sinton

It's the beginnings of what's hoped will be a new sector for the aquaculture industry.

EnviroStrat is almost a year into a $5 million three-year pilot project using seaweed plants grown in a custom-built nursery in Tauranga and planted in consented aquaculture space south of Coromandel Town, and off Ponui Island.

The goal is to establish economically viable ocean farming with an environmental purpose by propagating the key native kelp species known as Ecklonia radiata.

The brown kelp is an important species in the ecosystem and has never been harvested from the wild.

"What's really historic about today is this is the first time in New Zealand that we've had Ecklonia grown in a hatchery and put onto a farm," said EnviroStrat CEO Dr Nigel Bradly.

"What we're seeing now, we hope, is the start of something exciting, where we're able to help ocean farmers create a supply chain with seaweed as a part, or all, of what they do."

The plants were grown from reproductive tissue sourced from wild seaweed in the area and did not alter the genetic makeup of the parent plant.

Iwi representatives give their blessing for the first commercial crop being piloted to grow native seaweed for aquaculture. Photo / Scott Sinton

EnviroStrat senior project manager Rebecca Barclay said the pilot allowed farmers to learn best methods for growing the species and scientists to better understand the whole life cycle of the seaweed.

"What we've already learned in the lab has increased productivity tenfold so we can take less reproductive tissue from the wild."

It's hoped the pilot will help develop seaweed farming at scale in New Zealand, opening opportunities to tap into the US$14 billion global seaweed market.

Ecklonia is sought after by project partner and Maori Hi-Tech Company of the Year, AgriSea, which pioneered the seaweed industry in New Zealand and uses it for multiple applications including animal and soil health in the dairy industry.

Tiny seedlings of Ecklonia attached to ropes were dropped into ocean farm space south of Coromandel Town as project partners watched on, on Tuesday.

Aquaculture businessman and iwi representative Harry Mikaere said growing native seaweed is an opportunity to build resilience into the oyster and mussel farming sector, which was currently handicapped by the availability of mussel spat from the wild.

"We've just got to get it so right," he said.

Past mistakes from industrialisation of the land and the desire to establish an industry that solved more environmental problems than it created, had informed the work so far.

Bradly said the pilot will deliver essential information to underpin the commercial realities of seaweed productivity in New Zealand.

"There's a lot of belief that we're doing the right thing. Harry and I had a conversation about restoring the mauri of the gulf and how important it is that we don't end up with the industrialisation that leads to the outcomes we don't want."

He said finding investment had been the number one challenge.

Ministry for Primary Industries injected $2m, which was essential to achieving the lessons from a pilot project, while most of the remainder was made up of overseas investors.

"It's a new sector, it's a pilot, therefore there's a lot of risk, and Kiwi are conservative. I think they're behind where a lot of the world is, with the maturity of thinking. Everyone might talk about climate finance, sustainability finance, and there's billions announced every year. But so little of it is being invested.

"Overseas folk describe it as catalytic capital and it's recognising there's a role to be the catalyst to enable things to happen.

"You need the investors to walk the talk."

Collaborating on the pilot is Ngati Pukenga, Ngai Tai ki Tamaki, Premium Seas, the universities of Auckland and Waikato, and AgriSea.

The pilot had benefited from collaboration with regenerative ocean farming model, GreenWave, whose co-founder Bren Smith was present at the outplanting.

He said communities around the globe were searching for solutions "to make a living on a living planet".

"The good thing is when you get this right, it's easy to scale. You have to do all the learning, but the great thing about ocean farming is you can scale everything really quickly."

The seaweed grown at his farm in the United States was sugar kelp. Chefs favoured the baby leaf for use in high-end restaurants, he said, which could be cut and regrown.

UoW researchers Dr Marie Magnusson and Dr Rebecca Lawton are overseeing the research and trial design.

Clare Bradley, who is chair of the Aotearoa New Zealand Seaweed Association, said there was a lot of interest in seaweed and more than half the members of the newly established association were not currently working in the sector.

On Monday this week Bradley signed an MOU with her Australian counterpart, Australian Sustainable Seaweed Alliance chair Jo Kelly to collaborate for the benefit of the transtasman seaweed business ecosystem.