People living by the sea in the United Kingdom have been eating seaweed for hundreds of years.
Welsh laverbread, made from cooking a type of seaweed called laver, is a delicacy so revered that it is protected as of origin.
Today, seaweed is found in everything from cosmetics and animal feed to gardening products and packaging.
With concerns about the environment, food security and climate change mounting, this wet, edible treasure of the sea could have a major role to play in the sustainable future of our planet.
The first dedicated seaweed industry facility in the United Kingdom celebrated its official opening at the end of April, with those involved hoping it will help spur the commercialization of the sector.
The Seaweed Academy is located near the Scottish town of Oban. The project received funding from the U.K. government.
It will be run by the Scottish Association for Marine Science in partnership with its trading subsidiary.
One of the academy's goals is to encourage the growth of seaweed in the UK.
Rhianna is a seaweed researcher. She gave an insight into the type of jobs that went on at a seaweed farm.
She said that it is less industrial than you might think.
She explained that when you look at it from the outside, all you can see are the buoys in the water and the huge swathes of seaweed under the water.
She said that when you want to harvest it, you get the rope and pull it into the boat.
Setting up a farm in the first place can be very different from the process that is apparent.
Obtaining licenses from different organizations in England and Scotland can be very time consuming and expensive.
She said that there were other factors to consider.
There was innovation on the horizon, but it would take a few years to get to the area where we need for real scaling.
The U.K.'s interest in cultivating and harvesting seaweed is not limited to the area around Oban.
The Cornish Seaweed Company has been harvesting since 2012 in the picturesque county of Cornwall on the southwest tip of England.
Tim van Berkel told CNBC that the firm harvests seaweed from the shores for food purposes.
The business started to farm seaweed from the spores in the waters off the Cornish fishing village of Porthallow.
Van Berkel said that the seaweed was grown on lines suspended in the water.
The main business of the company is shore-based harvesting.
SeaGrown is based in the coastal town of Scarborough, Yorkshire, and is working on setting up a seaweed farm in the North Sea.
The operations of Seaweed Farming Scotland are located in Oban and are focused on native species.
seaweed farming is dominated by countries in East and Southeast Asia according to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.
The seaweed sector generated $14.7 billion in first-sale value in 2019.
With the U.K.'s seaweed sector still in its infancy, it has a long way to go before it competes on the global stage.
The above photo shows a large-scale seaweed farm in the province of Zhejiang, China.
Dozens of seaweed farms can be found in waters off New England, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
There are other benefits to seaweed farming, one of which is that it does not require fresh water.
Seaweeds are efficient at sucking up carbon dioxide and using it to grow, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The industry in the U.S. has expanded in recent years and is the fastest-growing in the world.
It says that the state's first commercial harvest of sugar, ribbon, and bull kelp saw a 200 percent increase over the previous year.
Over the past two decades or so, the industry seems to have been on a rapid course of expansion. The global production of marine macroalgae has risen from 10 million metric tons in 2000 to 32.4 million metric tons in 2018, according to the report.
The global production of farmed aquatic algae, dominated by seaweeds, experienced relatively low growth in the most recent years.
An aerial view of a site used for seaweed farming in waters off Bali, Indonesia.There are many products and benefits associated with seaweed farming, but there are also issues that need to be addressed and managed going forward.
The World Wildlife Fund notes that seaweeds can become Invasive' when grown outside their natural range.
There is no credible documented occurrence of theentanglement of protected species with seaweed farm rope structures.
The Seaweed Academy is located in Scotland, and the head of the academy is optimistic about the future.
We will see something if we work together to get the message and to get the training and to get development right.
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