Impacts of large-scale seaweed farming trends on the local environment and community

Seaweed farming has been growing globally as a sustainable food production method and by expanding applications for human health to agricultural and industrial materials. Recent literatures published within ten years were examined with some keywords including “large-scale seaweed farming” and “seaweed industrialization.” This comprehensive literature review on large-scale seaweed farming suggested that there are both concerns and opportunities regarding ecological-environmental and socio-economical perspectives brought by such current growing trend. While negative impact on other concurrent natural organisms, pollution, and disease and pest outbreaks, are concerning, seaweed farming can also contribute to water quality and carbon sequestration. Moreover, seaweed farming needs to consider producers’ economical conditions and health, as well as potential environmental burden by suboptimal farming conditions. There are technological challenges to meet the growing demand, while seaweed farming has potential value in food security and women empowerment. Considering these multiple impacts generated by upscaling seaweed farming, global actions to maximize benefits and mitigate negative consequences is necessary. It is crucial to enhance capacities and develop technologies for production and processing. The insufficient coverage of existing international and regional frameworks for biosecurity of aquaculture requires improvement of disease monitoring and surveillance mechanism along with increasing investments in research and capacity building. They also need consistent terminology and optimized local-level practices to address multiple challenges including social and human aspects, which can provide valuable knowledge for sustainable development.