Gas-busting red seaweed, Asparagopis armata.
While New Zealand may be best known for its meat and dairy industries, it will be calling on the aquaculture sector of New Zealand for some help in the coming years. Recent science has found that a native seaweed can help the agriculture sector with its problematic methane emissions.
The Nelson-based Cawthron Institute, which has been awarded $100,000 from the Government’s Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures Fund, is looking to grow a native red seaweed “Asparagopsis armata” into a greenhouse gas-busting cattle feed supplement for the domestic and global markets.
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In previous trials — the initial discovery was made in Australia — Asparagopsis has reduced greenhouse gas emissions in livestock by up to 80 per cent compared with other products which offer reductions of 10 or 20 per cent.
The Cawthron Institute will be looking at having farms of the red seaweed, rather than just taking it from wild fishing. “We will be working out how to grow it at scale so it is useful in reducing methane emissions,” said Professor Charles Eason, CEO of the institute.
“We see it as one solution to methane for cattle, one thing farmers can have in their toolbox,” adds Cawthron Institute group manager of aquaculture, Dr Serean Adams.
By 2025, the aquaculture sector is set to grow from its current $600 million to $3 billion in revenue, says Adams. She’d like to see the emergence of a seaweed aquaculture industry in NZ out in open ocean space, she says.
“Our marine environment is 15 times our land space so there is plenty of opportunity,” she says.
Although this is a long-term project, Cawthron’s CEO, Professor Charles Eason says the Institute will be working with farmers from early on in the project, and a number have gotten in touch to participate.
The Ministry for Primary Industries' vision is that New Zealand is globally recognised as a world leader in sustainable and innovate acquaculture, says Eason.
“To be part of enabling that, advising [other] primary sectors with what should be sustainable and lower the [methane] emissions footprint, is exciting,” he says.
One primary sector can help another to reach the place where New Zealand wants to be, he says.
The Cawthron Institute is also working with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Wakatū Incorporation on developing the Karengo native seaweed with its potential health-promoting bioactivities for relieving chronic inflammatory conditions such as COPD, metabolic syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease.
While the Cawthron Institute is looking at research going on in Australia and Norway, it is about using our natural resources, says Adams.
“When you look at New Zealand’s primary industries and where we are trying to head, having a point of difference for our product, adding value, if we can have these points of difference with our endemic species in New Zealand, it enables us to go out there and be in a higher product category,” says Adams.
So far, the New Zealand aquaculture sector has been very successful with green-lipped mussel powder used as a supplement for arthritis sufferers. The value proposition part is our marine environment, says Professor Eason.
Compared with other jurisdictions, New Zealand has huge areas of sea water.
Gill South