FOOD & FERTILIZER SHORTAGES

Copyright © 2022 Philip C. Cruver

The May 20th, 2022, issue of The Economist forecasts a foreboding future of mass hunger and malnutrition from a battered global food system dependent on wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Together these two countries produce nearly 30 percent of the world's traded wheat and some 26 countries around the world get more than half their supplies.

Furthermore, these two nations, along with Russia's sanctioned ally Belarus, also supply vast amounts of fertilizer and continued disruption could set off an agricultural time bomb leading to a global food catastrophe. Food and fertilizer prices were at record highs even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February and now a confluence of factors driven by the skyrocketing price of natural gas is setting a perfect storm for food scarcity.

Could there be a silver lining in this gloomy cloud leading to more sustainable global food security in the future by farming the sea? Consider that seaplants provide beneficial ecosystem services, do not require precious freshwater or land usage and are a renewable resource not requiring fertilizer. Seaplants also absorb carbon dioxide for mitigating ocean acidification - the evil twin of climate change.

Seaplant Noodles

Instant noodles, originating in Japan, have become a global food supporting the diets of people around the world, with more than 100 billion servings consumed annually.  Since most noodles are made of wheat flour, increasing noodles consumption leads to massive wheat imports for non-wheat producing countries. Wheat consumption may also cause allergy, asthma, autoimmune response, or gluten sensitivity in some people leading to increased demand for gluten-free products which flour from seaplants would provide.

Due to their sensory attributes, low cost, ease of preparation and transportation, and relatively long shelf life, noodles have been a source for nutraceuticals, such as vitamins and polyunsaturated fatty acids. In fact, noodles were among the first foods permitted by the U.S FDA for vitamin and iron enrichment in the 1940's.

A paper published in the International Food Research Journal in 2015 documented the potential of flour produced from Eucheuma seaplants incorporated into wheat flour for manufacturing nutritious noodles. The results showed "increased protein, fat, ash, and dietary fibre contents, with reduced carbohydrate content of the noodles. Furthermore, the incorporation of marine plant flour to wheat flour also produced noodles with acceptable culinary properties such as texture, colour, aroma, and flavour."

Recent research by the Technological University Dublin, Seaweeds as nutraceuticals for health and nutrition, reveals that "seaweed nutraceuticals or functional foods have dietary benefits beyond their fundamental macronutrient content. Some seaweeds contain 10 to 100 times more minerals and vitamins per unit dry mass than terrestrial plants or animal derived foods. Protein constitutes 5%-47% of seaweed dry mass with red seaweeds having the greatest content and most seaweeds score higher in protein than most plant-based products." The paper further states "Since the majority of these foods are produced using refined white flours, the fibre, protein, mineral and vitamin content is poor, while starch content is high. Therefore, enrichment of cereal-based products with high fibre, nutrient-dense functional ingredients such as seaweed has the potential to increase the dietary intake of essential nutrients. Several studies have successfully incorporated seaweed and their extracts into cereal-based products."

Seaplant Fertilizer

Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) or wet pyrolysis, is a relatively new process that treats biomass with hot compressed water instead of drying which offers several advantages for processing wet feedstock such as seaplants.  The product, called hydrochar, is a valuable resource for soil conditioning and carbon storage and can achieve up to 95% carbon efficiency in matter of hours using mild temperatures and pressure for recovery of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), the key elements in fertilizer.

A recent paper published in March 2021 by Canadian scientists, Hydrothermal Carbonization (HTC) of Seaweed (Macroalgae) for producing Hydrochar, shows encouraging data for seaplants helping to fill the looming fertilizer gap when used as a soil amendment. The research revealed that hydrochar, produced in 120 minutes at 220 C, showed carbon content at 48.5% and the energy density and carbon to nitrogen ratio in the hydrochar increased significantly as compared to raw seaweed. Moreover, HTC reduced the ash yield and volatile compounds of the seaweed while retaining the phosphorus along with the potassium with a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio.

Another paper by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, The Fate of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Hydrothermal Carbonization, concluded: " Nutrient analysis revealed that most N was in the form of organic-N and was contained in the hydrochar, whereas most P was measured in the process water. One third of the output-N and more than half of the P contained in the hydrochar were readily plantavailable, indicating that the output materials from HTC have good short-term plant fertilising properties."

Nutrient pollution, caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the air and water is one of the most widespread, costly, and challenging environmental problems. Pernicious nitrogen, produced from climate endangering natural gas, and the limited reserves of phosphorus is being depleted at an alarming rate. At current consumption levels, we will run out of known phosphorus reserves in around 80 years. Nearly 90 percent of phosphorus is used in the global food supply chain, most of it in crop fertilizers. If no action is taken to quell fertilizer use, demand is likely to increase exponentially. If phosphorus ran out we would have to live without food, it cannot be replaced and there is no synthetic substitute.

Seaplant biomass converted into hydrochar with HTC technology could help lower the environmental cost of fossil-based nitrogen and supplement dwindling phosphate reserves but where could seaplants be farmed at scale for supplying stupendous demand as food and fertilizer.

Scaling a Seaplant Industry Offshore East Africa

The artisanal farming of seaplants in East Africa is concentrated in Zanzibar (Tanzania) producing 102,960 Fresh Weight Tons (FWT), followed by Madagascar with 53,370 FWT, and Kenya at approximately 1,000 FWT. Seaplant mariculture production in East Africa, led predominantly by women, has improved the livelihoods of its coastal people but must be modernized for commercial scaling to help mitigate the existential food and fertilizer crisis.

Careful planning and professional management of East Africa's offshore ocean resources, with an emphasis on adopting innovative technologies with protective biosecurity regulations, could project the region as an environmental, social, and gender showcase for the global seaplant industry.

The major challenge will be introducing modern farming systems that are more efficient and can be scaled for commercial deployment into offshore ocean waters not conflicting with coral reef ecology, ocean tourism, vessel traffic, and the fisheries industry. Moreover, offshore mariculture would mitigate theft and vandalism which is a significant risk factor in a world of turmoil. Furthermore, offshore depths provide the ability to submerge the farming structure for protection from typhoons and for positioning in cooler and more nutrient-rich waters for increasing seaplant yields and decreasing disease. Research shows that ocean depth significantly affects abiotic factors of temperature, sunlight, salinity, and nutrients which are critical factors for seaplant survivability and growth.

With extensive ocean space, East Africa is positioned to become a global leader in producing, processing, and exporting sustainable seaplant products for contributing to food security and combating climate change.

SEAPLANT SUPERFOOD FROM THE SEA REPLACING PLANTS FROM DIRT-POOR SOIL

Copyright © 2022 Philip C. Cruver

Seaplants are simple organisms that exploit sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen and during the photosynthesis process they transform into a valuable protein source for becoming a sustainable superfood. There are various edible seaplants for human consumption that have high protein content and as a result of absorbing minerals from seawater contain 10 to 20 times more essential amino acids than land plants.

Seaplants have a highly variable composition depending on the species, time of collection, habitat, and also external conditions such as water, temperature, light intensity, and nutrient concentration in water. They have a relatively high protein quality compared to cereal and soy flour and higher proportions of total essential amino acids than wheat flour.

The high mineral content of seaplants is attributed to their ability to absorb inorganic substances from the ocean environment and they also contain a small amount of lipids as polyunsaturated fatty acids.  Seaplants are super rich in potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus and are a source of essential trace elements, such as iron, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt, selenium, and iodine.

Estimates on the size of the global commercial seaplant market vary but research firm MarketsandMarkets estimates it at $16.7 billion in 2020 with growth to $30.2 billion by 2025. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, Asia dominates the seaplant market with 97.4 percent of world production and in the past 50 years seaplant production increased form 2.2 million metric tons to 35.8 million metric tons. The rapid rise in seaplant farming is propelled by global demand, increasing industrial, agricultural, and feed-related applications and rising market for seaplants as a healthy nutritious ingredient for snack products, shakes, and powders for the $168 billion Dietary & Supplement Industry.

The ocean is a rich resource loaded with nutrients for cultivating sustainable seaplants as compared to increasingly depleted dirt-poor land soil. Consider that a carrot 50 years ago had 50 times the essential nutrients than a carrot does today. A landmark 2004 University of Texas study compared what's now on store shelves to vegetables from 1950 found declines of 5% to 40% in certain nutrients among 43 types of produce. Terrestrial food production is losing its nutritional value and taste to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits such as size, growth rate, and pest resistance.

Noticeable nutrient decline began after the Green Revolution in the 1950s and 60s when farmers were introduced to practices for increasing yields using chemical fertilizers. American farmers, who produce most of the food to feed the planet's burgeoning population, annually spend over $23.5 billion on fertilizer. Scientists researching these practices discovered that while these techniques increase the quantity of food grown, the increased yield also comes with a decrease in vital nutrients and minerals known as the “dilution effect.” Over the past 50 years the nutrient content of soil has been depleted by these intensive farming practices making the content of the plants grown less nutritious.

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere further accelerates dirt-poor soil. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is changing the chemical makeup and diluting vitamins and minerals in key crops with rice losing protein, iron, zinc, and vitamins B1, B2, B5 and B9; carrots and tomatoes depleted of magnesium, iron, copper, and potassium; and fruits have less calcium, magnesium, and sodium.

“With Earth’s burgeoning human populations to feed, we must turn to the sea with new understanding and new technology,” Cousteau presciently predicted in his 1973 television show The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. “We need to farm it as we farm the land.”  

I agree that we must turn to the sea with new technologies, but I disagree with farming the sea as we have the land using polluting petrochemicals stimulants for increasing yields having lower nutritional quality.

NATURE-BASE SOLUTION FOR NUTRIENT POLLUTION

Copyright © 2022 Philip C. Cruver

Eutrophication, the over-enrichment of freshwater and coastal ecosystems with nutrients, is being recognized as a rapidly growing environmental crisis. Eutrophication occurs when nutrients, particularly nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), from water runoff or atmospheric deposition stimulate the growth of algae and cause cascading environmental effects.

Research is showing that offshore ocean waters, traditionally perceived to be nutrient sparse particularly in oligotrophic environments like the Caribbean, is rapidly changing. The deposition of organic chemical and nutrient-loading pollution into the marine environment globally increased 65% between 2003–2013, contributing to eutrophication choking oxygen from oceans creatures. Worldwide, approximately $164 billion is spent annually on water and wastewater treatments and despite these massive investments in nutrient management, coastal waters across the globe continue to experience significant and growing nutrient loading

Enhanced nutrient levels are stimulating the growth and subsequent decay of micro and macroalgae, contributing to severe ecosystem impacts, such as noxious and harmful algal blooms, reduced water quality, and low dissolved oxygen conditions causing massive “dead zones” where overgrowths consume so much oxygen that nothing else can survive. Consider that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone caused by nutrient pollution grew to 6,634 square miles in the summer of 2021. 

Environmental credit trading programs have gained traction for pollutants like atmospheric carbon emissions but there has been minimal media buzz about ocean nutrient pollutants. Could this be the next frontier for a nutrient pollutant credit trading market promoting ocean acidification as the evil twin for climate change?  

Nutrient trading markets would allow operators producing point sources of water pollution to offset that pollution by purchasing credits representing reductions elsewhere. Just as the purchase of a carbon offset gives its buyer credit for reducing their carbon footprint, such a trading market would allow a participant to buy and sell the credit for reduction of nutrient pollution. 

Seaplants are marine “fixators” for bio-remediating eutrophic waters having the potential to help mitigate this least recognized, and increasingly most urgent, ecological crisis destabilizing the Earth's natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycle. Seaplants could significantly reduce excess nitrogen flowing into coastal waters, while also replacing synthetic fertilizers to reduce the amount of nitrogen entering the ocean from agricultural sources. The nutrient extraction capacity of seaplants grown in Xincun Bay, China was reported by scientists to remove 53.8 metric tons of nitrogen and 3.7 metric tons of phosphorus during the 1999-2000 growing season.

Market opportunities will soon emerge for seaplant mariculture, as a nature-based solution, to become a cost effective and revenue generating intervention for remediating ocean nutrient pollution.

SEAPLANT CHAIN OF CUSTODY

Copyright © 2022 Philip C. Cruver

The most under-exploited crop on our planet are seaplants which are recently receiving more publicity due to their ability to be sustainably cultivated in offshore ocean waters not requiring precious freshwater resources for irrigating dirt-poor soils that have been depleted of nutrients by decades of toxic chemical additives for intensive agriculture.

Seaplants promise to become an important alternative to the global vegetable diet for augmenting the global food supply chain driven by the existential threat of climate change and greater awareness of agriculture's enormous carbon footprint. Moreover, seaplants are marine “fixators” for bio-remediating eutrophic waters. 

As seaplants are introduced into western diets, there will be increased interest from the health-food industry about their nutraceutical benefits. Seaplants are loaded with bioactive compounds including polysaccharides, proteins, carotenoids, phenolic compounds, vitamins, essential minerals, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. These compounds mitigate diseases affecting humans, such as hyperglycemia, diabetes, metabolic disorders, cancer, pathogenic diseases, aging, obesity, bone-related diseases, and neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.

This emerging “Seaplant Pharma Industry” will mandate innovative methods to standardize or control the nutritional value because of the widely variable composition attributed to seaplants ability to rapidly adapt to abiotic and biotic factors. The variation of the nutritional values is dependent on the species cultivated, seasons, seawater nutrients, and other environmental stress factors such as temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, UV radiation, light, and damage from herbivory and disease.

Currently, there is also a lack of regulation requiring food or supplement companies to have labels with information about the essential minerals and its potential heavy metal content such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic. There will be a need to control extraction, production, and processing for certifying and standardizing products with these ingredients for classifying them as safe. Nutritional values will be monitored in the future for standardization, quality control, and certification.

Several global certification programs exist for seaplant sustainability, although none have been widely used. The most robust program was created jointly by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and the Marine Stewardship Council. Key requirements for receiving the ASC-MSC certification include ensuring that wild seaplants stocks are sustainable, environmental impacts including pollution are minimized, worker safety and fair wages are in place, and community relations are positive.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates seaplants that circulate in interstate commerce in its whole form as a food product. However, when used as a food additive, the FDA considers seaplants "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS).  A "food additive" legally refers to any substance for which the intended use results in it becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food. Thus, food additives are not subject to FDA's premarket review and approval with a GRAS designation.

The GRAS loophole will drive seaplant products to the global $168 billion Dietary & Supplement Industry. However, this loophole, emerging sustainability certifications, and nutrient variables will require a transparent and resilient supply chain for assuring customers of a secure chain of custody from seed to sale.

Submersible Seaplant Structures

Copyright © 2022 Philip C. Cruver

Preface: I'm on a mission to change the colloquial nomenclature for "seaweed" to "seaplant" as "weed" has a pejorative connotation that usurps the positive branding message for this amazing regenerative and sustainable biomass. 

Background

In 2021, I was retained as a consultant by the Inter-American Development Bank to develop a marketing and distribution strategy for seaplant exports from Belize to international markets.  Prior to the pandemic, Belize's artisanal seaplant operations consisted of a handful of small farms producing about 6,000 pounds annually used in beverage shakes for the local tourism market. Interestingly, one of the seaplant farms was a cooperative owned and operated exclusively by women that had received positive publicity because of the recent movement for gender equality. The timing was providential for creating an export market exploiting the touchstones of social, gender, and environmental justice and jobs for a post pandemic devastated Belize economy based upon tourism.

Therefore, the targeted market for a Belize seaplant industry was determined to be high-value exports to the United States as a regenerative food ingredient for human consumption. There is a major potential market for sustainably traceable seaplants harvested from pristine ocean waters that could be branded as nutritious superfood. Seaplants have 92 of the 102 essential minerals required for strengthening human immune systems for healthy living. Furthermore, seaplants can double their biomass in two weeks for sequestering massive amounts of CO2 as a nature-based solution for the decarbonization of our planet.

I had previous experience with seaplants (California's Giant kelp) while serving as a Principal Investigator for the $25 million MARINER (Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources) contract funded by the Department of Energy. However, that research project was focused on seaplants as a renewable biomass for biofuels for fueling the future. Belize's native seaplant Eucheuma is edible, which presented a new and exciting learning experience for feeding the future. 

Commercial Development of Global Eucheumatoid Farming

The history of Eucheumatoid (Eucheuma and Kappaphycus) seaplant farming for specialty chemicals and its introduction to 40 or more jurisdictions across the globe is fascinating. Starting as experimental farming in the Philippines during the 1960s, Eucheuma and Kappaphycus gained commercial traction in the 1970s resulting in their introduction to other warm weather countries such as Indonesia and Tanzania. In most of these countries Eucheumatoids were not indigenous which would be controversial today. Also, these seaplants are finicky about temperature and sunlight and only do well as a farmed crop when grown within 20 degrees North and South of the Equator.  

The impetus for introducing non-native seaplant feedstocks was market demand from hydrocolloid manufactures who desperately needed cultivated raw biomass sources for biochemical production in the 1960s. Eucheumatoid wild stocks were being depleted and demand for carrageenan (used for food processing) expanded rapidly before leveling off to about 250,000 metric tons by 2007.

Not counting China, Indonesia is the global seaplant leader followed by the Philippines for producing over 80% of the world’s carrageenan. Other countries include South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and India.  Zanzibar, located 18 miles off the coast of Tanzania, is also a major producer employing about 25,000 farmers, of which about 80% are women for exporting 15,000 metric tons annually.

In all these countries seaplants are cultivated using traditional methodologies including the fixed, off-bottom line method, the floating raft method, and basket method. Remarkably, the massive seaplant industry has remained artisanal despite explosive growth.  

Carrageenan, extracted from red seaplants such as Eucheuma, is used as a thickening, emulsifying, or suspending agent in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The worldwide market for carrageenan was valued at $1.6 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $3 billion by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of 9.6% during the forecasted period.

Hydrocolloids, also extracted from seaplants are used in the functional food industry as thickeners, stabilizers, coagulants, and salves (in the wound and burn dressings) and as materials to produce bio-medical impressions in the food, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries. The global hydrocolloids market was valued at $9.7 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $13 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period.

How can the hydrocolloid industry meet the massive projected demand in five years employing impoverished artisanal laborers without modern seaplant farming methods for assuring quality control and a resilient supply chain? In my opinion, the industry must be reimagined with innovative technologies that are sustainable and scalable for producing higher paying "Blue Jobs" that promise social, gender, and environmental justice for the future.

While it is astonishing that there has been no technological advances over the past two decades for improved, more modern farming methods, the recent research report "Floating Cage: A New Innovation of Seaweed Culture" published in 2020 provides promising data for seaplant cultivation in Indonesia. Using cages suspended from PVC floating rafts, having multifilament netting, produced a 54.9% increase in Eucheuma growth in 40 days as compared with traditional long line cultivation. The specific growth rate increased to 6.4% per day using the floating cage in Indonesia and hopefully the global industry will adopt this method of cage cultivation with further improved features for meeting the challenges of expanding offshore and the abiotic perils caused by climate change.

Submersible Seaplant Structures

In 2010, KZO Sea Farms developed a submergible cage for fish farming with engineering support from the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering at the University of New Hampshire and ISCO Industries, the largest HDPE fabricator and distributor in North America. See tabs "Mariculture Parks" and "News" at www.kzoseafarms.com for cage images.

We reconnected for designing a Submersible Seaplant Structure constructed with High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes. The unique and innovative design provides four transformative benefits for seaplant mariculture:

1) The buoyant HDPE pipes can be filled with seawater by opening valves submerging the structure for protection from storms and hurricanes.

2) The submersible capability allows the structure to be positioned in the ocean water vertical column having optimum cultivation characteristics for producing significantly higher crop yields.

3) The technology employs cage culture for protecting seaplant crops from losses due to pest predation, epiphyte attachments, and storm shocks. Traditional long line culture is vulnerable to storm breakage whereby the crops are washed away by the current. Submersible cage culture also helps to protect the crops from ice-ice disease that infects long line cultivation. This is attributed to summer surface water heat and monsoon freshwater salinity changes causing stress and bleaching.

4) The proprietary features facilitate an innovative farming, monitoring and distribution system that is traceable to the cage a seaplant was grown and the day it was harvested for transparently meeting sustainable certification standards.

The technology has monitoring sensors for recording sunlight, current, salinity, and temperature. These factors are critical for seaplant growth and survival, and the structures can be moved to more favorable locations attributed to variable seasonality changes and other influencing abiotic factors.

Research reveals that the future for a commercial seaplant industry will be expanding farming operations offshore to deeper waters not conflicting with coral reef ecology, ocean tourism, and fisheries. Furthermore, offshore mariculture will help mitigate theft and vandalism. Moreover, offshore depths provide the ability to submerge to cooler and more nutrient-rich waters based upon seasonality and a changing thermocline from global warming.

Most importantly, the submersible technology is essential for protection from storms, typhoons, and hurricanes which are predicted to increase with climate change. With a few days’ notice, HDPE pipes can be filled with seawater lowering the structure to a depth that has an exponential decrease in ocean energy from storm winds and currents.

Seaplant Mariculture 4.0

This primitive seaplant industry is ripe for disruption for feeding and fueling the future. Recent collaborative R&D between academia and the mariculture industry are leading to new technologies and innovations for improving the efficiency and productivity of seaplant farming systems and for making them more eco-sustainable and appropriate for the emerging blue economy. 

Submersible Seaplant Structures would produce higher crop yields and provide protection from predators such as rabbitfish, turtles, and long-spine sea urchins as well as storm damage from typhoons in tropical regions. Furthermore, the technology would provide traceability data on when and where the seaplant crops were harvested for meeting rigorous sustainability standards. 

There is a huge opportunity for developing strategies and technologies to reduce fouling issues and identify solutions for determining optimal stocking density and photon fluence levels. There is also a major opportunity to develop novel seaplant strains that are more sunlight and thermally tolerant and epiphyte disease resistant. The abiotic factors such as light, temperature, salinity, and nutrient concentration greatly influence the composition of seaplants. Recent research shows the correlation between seaplant compound variation with abiotic factors such as UV radiation and salinity, and cultivation can be optimized by water depth selection to obtain a higher pigment yield with favorable exposure to solar radiation.

The massive ocean area is currently not a limiting factor for expanding offshore seaplant mariculture, but climate change with the consequential changes in water temperature and water chemistry could lead to a future reduction of suitable near shore cultivation areas. As a result, large scale seaplant operations may be required to move further out into the open ocean which will require innovations for enduring the challenges of the harsh open ocean environment. Thus, a new multidisciplinary level in the seaplant mariculture industry is emerging with an emphasis on biological sciences and engineering.  

Large Marine Ecosystems of the World

Copyright © 2022 Philip C. Cruver

There are sixty-four Sea Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) on planet Earth and three of the most productive are the California Current, Guinea Current and Arabian Sea.  All three are unique upwelling LME’s where KZO Sea Farms is the only company developing offshore sustainable shellfish mariculture projects.  Seventy percent of the Earth is ocean and ninety percent of the ocean is “desert’ because there are no nutrients available for marine life food chain.  The nutrients are there but too deep to reach without natural upwelling, which occupy only .1 percent of the ocean surface but produce nearly half of the world’s ocean fish.  The phenomenon of upwelling elevates deep offshore nutrients to the surface for the propagation of phytoplankton, which is the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, and the currency for the health of our oceans.  

Phytoplankton are feed-stock for lower-trophic shellfish which could be the only sustainable ecological and economical solution for feeding a higher-trophic and malnourished future global population of 9 billion.  Phytoplankton thrives under near shore summer conditions as single-celled algae supporting the base of the marine food chain. The vast majority of marine life in coastal waters could not exist without these naturally occurring microscopic plants. Nutrient rich waters, combined with long sunlight days, cause the phytoplankton to bloom.  The resulting abundance of phytoplankton becomes the natural food for filter feeding bivalve shellfish.  Most marine animals and plants live in the top 120 feet of the water column.   When they die, their remains sink to the bottom.  In shallow coastal waters the nutrients can be recycled from these highly productive areas.  But if the water is deeper than about 120-300 feet the remains sink below the euphotic zone, which is the uppermost layer of a body of water with sufficient light to enable photosynthesis.  This enriches the deep ocean water but the nutrients are unavailable for the propagation of surface dwelling phytoplankton.  Deep ocean nutrients can re-enter the food chain only in locations where the unique phenomenon of upwelling forces them up to the surface.   This does not generally happen in warm and temperate regions of the oceans due to the density difference between the warm surface water and the cold deep ocean water.   As a result most tropical and temperate oceans have low productivity.  However, in cold waters at high latitudes and in regions where currents bring cold polar water from the high latitudes, the ocean surface temperature drops to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and its density is similar to that at the bottom.  The nutrient-rich deep water is then easily brought to the surface by turbulent mixing.  This upwelling phenomenon is restricted mainly to the west coasts of continents, and is responsible for the high productivity of near shore waters producing the most productive ocean fishing grounds in the world.  

The transport of nutrients to the euphotic zones explains why such a large percentage of global ocean natural production occurs in upwelling regions.The California Current LME, carrying water cooled by its passage through the northern latitudes, flows southward along the shore from the Washington-Oregon border to Southern California.  It has a surface area of about 2.2 million square kilometers.  It is one of the world’s five LMEs that undergoes seasonal upwelling of cold nutrient rich water that generate localized areas of high primary productivity supporting fisheries for sardines, anchovy and other pelagic fish species.  Beginning in March, prevailing westerly winds, combined with the effects of the earth's rotation, drive surface waters offshore.  These waters are replaced by deep, cold water that flows up over the continental shelf to the surface, carrying with it dissolved nutrients from the decay of organic material that had sunk to the ocean floor.

The Gulf of Guinea is a Class I, highly productive LME characterized by seasonal upwelling off the coasts from July to September weakening from January to March. Seasonal upwelling drives the marine biological productivity of this LME, which includes some of the most abundant coastal and offshore fisheries in the world. Sixteen countries border this LME, which covers an area of about 2 million square kilometers on the largest continental shelf in West Africa.  The cold nutrient-rich water of this expansive upwelling system extends up to 200 kilometers offshore from the coast.  The Arabian Sea LME covers an area of about 3.9 million square kilometers and is also a Class I highly productive ecosystem. It is characterized by seasonal upwelling off the coasts with intense upwelling from July to September weakening from about January to March.  The most stable, seasonal persistent front develops in the Gulf of Aden.  Seasonal upwelling drives the biological productivity of this LME, which like the Gulf of Guinea includes some of the most productive coastal and offshore waters in the world. Upwelling fronts are similar to the seasonal evolution of the major upwelling zones off Northwest Africa and California Current System. 

First Shellfish Ranch is Federal Waters-Offshore California

The Southern California Bight - the eastward curvature of ocean region between Santa Barbara and Mexican border - has a coastal population of 17 million people.  It is rich with untapped marine resources and increasingly under pressing policies from the encroachment of urbanization and commercial exploitation.  The challenge is to protect the ecosystem and marine life of this massive 100,000 square mile bight while also accommodating societal and economic opportunities that would benefit its citizens.  Californians should encourage policies producing projects and opportunities that would not compromise the health of this potentially productive resource.  This would showcase best practices for commercialization that would be in the public interest.  It would also provide science-based data for allocating this massive ocean space for important human economic and recreational needs that would not conflict with marine life and ocean ecology.  KZO Sea Farms is developing a 100-acre shellfish farm approximately nine miles offshore Long Beach in the 130,000-acre San Pedro Basin.  It is the first open ocean shellfish farm permitted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has sole jurisdiction in federal waters.  This pilot farm will consist of 45 ropes about 600 feet in length anchored in depths of about 125 feet and spaced about 100 feet apart.  The shellfish cultivation gear, suspended from the ropes, will be submerged 30 feet under the surface to prevent intrusion with commercial and recreational uses. After rigorously monitoring and documenting the environmental, economic and sociological impacts, the farm will be expanded based upon best practices supported by science-based data. 

In contrast to shellfish typically harvested from intertidal bays and estuaries, this project presents a new paradigm for cultivation in pristine waters of the open ocean.  Offshore shellfish farms are showing higher growth rates, better meat yields, and heavier production compared with inshore farms.  This is attributed to lower stress from unpolluted water and the abundance of phytoplankton providing the shellfish with food for rapid growth.  Oysters and mussels are filter-feeding bivalves that consume nutrients from the water column.  The nearby offshore oil platforms legs are covered with mussels thriving on these single-celled algae that are the basis of the marine food chain.  Beginning in March, prevailing westerly winds, combined with the effects of the earth's rotation, drive surface waters offshore along the Southern California Bight.  These waters are replaced by deep, cold water flowing upwards over the continental shelf to the surface, carrying dissolved nutrients from the decay of organic material that had sunk to the ocean floor.  This seasonal phenomenon of upwelling the cold nutrient rich water produces phytoplankton, the feedstock of shellfish supporting the food web of fisheries including sardines, anchovy and other pelagic fish species. 

California is the world’s fifth largest supplier of food commodities.  It has the potential to emulate this land-based agriculture success with offshore shellfish aquaculture for increasing economic and food security.  With high unemployment, California could use the jobs. NOAA Fisheries data show more than one million jobs were created from the seafood industry in the United States during 2009.  Studies show that in a small percentage of state and federal waters within the Southern California Bight could generate a multibillion-dollar offshore aquaculture industry.  Consider: California could emulate New Zealand, which has the goal to triple the value of aquaculture production to $1 billion by 2025, and in a sustainable way that preserves its pristine environment.  The National Aquaculture Act of 1980, which applies to all federal agencies, states that it is “in the national interest, and it is the national policy, to encourage the development of aquaculture in the United States”.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently proclaimed: “When properly sited, operated, and maintained, commercial shellfish aquaculture activities generally result in minimal adverse effects on the aquatic environment and in many cases provide environmental benefits by improving water quality and wildlife habitat, and providing nutrient cycling functions”.  Quoting Dr. Michael Rubino, Manager of NOAA’s Aquaculture Program: “From the point of view of jobs and economic opportunity, the place we can expand right now is on the shellfish side.  Shellfish farming has far less-intensive impacts on ecosystems in comparison to finfish, especially the controversial, carnivorous species like salmon that require significant wild fish resources for their feed.  Filter-feeding bivalve shellfish like mussels, clams and oysters need no feed and typically have net ecological benefits in terms of improving water quality.” 

The cultivation of shellfish currently makes up about two-thirds of United States marine aquaculture production. In 2010, National Marine Fisheries Service data show that commercial landings at approximately 28 million pounds (meat weight) with imports at about 34.6 million pounds for a total of 62.7 million pounds.  The USDA Economic Research Service data for 2011 show 26.8 million pounds of imported fresh oysters and 63.8 million pounds of imported fresh mussels.  About 85 percent of our nation's seafood comes from overseas - mostly from China – producing a seafood deficit amounting to a staggering $10 billion. China produces roughly two-thirds of the world’s seafood and is projected to soon shift from a net seafood exporter to a net seafood importer with the emergence of its middle-class. This shift promises to present significant supply and pricing challenges for the seafood industry.  The recent National Academy of Sciences report Ecosystem Concepts for Sustainable Bivalve Mariculture “suggests that the United States could triple domestic production of shellfish to more than 300,000 metric tons per year (live weight) by 2025; in volume terms this could displace all current shellfish imports”.  Americans have two choices: continue to import thereby increasing the deficit; or, “grow our own” which would create jobs by producing a local supply of healthy shellfish.  

Shellfish are also one of the world’s most perfect foods that are extremely high in proteins, calcium and iron, and an excellent source of selenium and Vitamin 12.  They are also a good source of zinc and folic acid, while low in fat and calories and contain huge amounts of omega-3s.  Offshore shellfish cultivation in federal waters of the Southern California Bight would be in the public interest by increasing jobs and reducing America’s huge seafood trade deficit with no negative environmental impact.  By showcasing science-based solutions for a sustainable shellfish industry, California would assume a leadership role in the fastest growing global food industry.

The Price of seafood will soar

The seafood industry is confronted with a major challenge.  Based on numerous scientific studies, most of the world’s major fisheries are over-exploited and current wild catch levels are projected to be at their maximum sustainable yields.  Given that capture fisheries are maxed-out, growth in demand will need to be satisfied by marine aquaculture where harvests would need to increase by more than 75 percent by 2025 – and that assumes per capita consumption stays flat.  Without rapid implementation of sustainable fisheries management practices, supply cannot meet growth in demand and the reduction in seafood supply is inevitable as we deplete one of the world’s most valuable food resources.  Unfortunately, fisheries management is immensely complex involving disputed allocation rights over a global resource, issues of national sovereignty, private and public sector interests, economic development, employment and basic food security.  This is further complicated by scientific uncertainties over the amount and distribution of edible marine life in the oceans.  FAO conservatively estimates that the global fishing fleet is approximately 30 percent larger than it needs to be to fully harvest the available resources.  Other studies estimate global overcapacity at 150 percent, meaning there is 2.5 times the catching power needed.  This promises a vicious capitalistic cycle whereby rising prices for fish will continue to create financial incentives for further investment in industrial-scale fishing. 

As a more informed public understands the impact of plundering of our oceans sustainable seafood certifications and eco-labeling will become de rigueur for “green” consumers.  The proliferation of seafood tracing applications for mobile devices and social networks will provide the mechanism for mass-scaling the adoption, compliance and enforcement of sustainable seafood.  Walmart reached its goal of only selling 100 percent sustainable seafood in 2011 and Target and Kroger both plan to achieve that goal by 2015.  Costco, Shaw, and other big box chain grocery stores are now selling certified seafood.  McDonald’s restaurants in Europe and Russia only sell 100 percent certified sustainable seafood.  Since global capture fisheries are at their maximum sustainable yield and while marine aquaculture continues its impressive growth rate, there will be a gap between supply and demand.  Over the longer-term sustainability certifications may result in greater supply, but compliance over the near-term, will further drive up prices. 

Economics 101: Seafood supply will diminish and prices will soar from demand. 

Oyster Gardening

Oyster Gardening 

in California

Incredibly, an adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, allowing sunlight to penetrate so that foundations of the food chain can thrive; once water clarity increases, bottom vegetation, such as eelgrass, flourish. 

The general public is unaware that beds of bivalve shellfish provide ecosystem services by naturally filtering nutrients from the water.  Bivalve shellfish are filter feeders that remove suspended solids from surrounding waters, thereby increasing water clarity, enabling seagrass growth and reducing the likelihood of harmful algae blooms.  Bivalve shellfish were once the global ecosystem engineers and enablers of prosperous habitats for other species.

According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, enormous oyster beds “could once filter a volume of water equal to that of the entire Chesapeake Bay (about 19 trillion gallons) in a week.  Today, it would take the remaining Bay oysters more than a year. 

“Native Olympia oysters were once ecologically and economically dominant along coastal Southern California. “Olys” were considered commercially important as a delectable food source until a combination of over-harvesting, dredging, pollution, and wetlands destruction in the 1930s depleted natural populations. 

Recent Southern California oyster restoration initiatives in Newport and Alamitos Bays were designed for “habitat not harvest”.  Nor do these projects measure the impact of increased oyster populations for mitigating eutrophication, which is the over-enrichment of an ecosystem with chemical nutrients, typically nitrogen, phosphorus, or both.  Quantifying the ecosystem services of oysters could create economic incentives for expanding and accelerating restoration programs.  Studies conducted on the East Coast reveal that the cost of removing nitrogen with wastewater plans is about $28 per pound.  For every 2,000 oysters harvested, about a pound of nitrogen is removed which is dwarfed by the nitrogen removal by bivalve bacterial denitrification. 

Could native Olympia oysters once again become a nutritional food source while also improving the water quality in Southern California? Successful programs in Oregon, Washington, and the Chesapeake Bay have set positive precedents.  

Oyster gardening, pioneered on the Chesapeake Bay, is a community-based program for growing baby oysters in bags under docks, piers, and other structures until the “spat,” reaches a size making them safe from predators.  The spat is then released onto nearby oyster beds where their density promotes propagation.  Citizen scientists get hands-on harvesting experience while learning the economic and ecological benefits of the marine habitat.  

KZO Education is promoting oyster gardening legislation for the State of California and is developing plans for a local hatchery to produce the requisite native shellfish seed.  Oyster gardening may be a low cost option for cleansing estuaries and coastal embayments but could they be ever be eaten?  Since the oysters will be suspended in cages from the bottom there is no danger from heavy metals so that leaves bacteria and toxins, which can be detected during episodic contamination seasons and not harvested. 

Quoting Jonathan Swift: "Twas a brave man indeed that 'et the first oyster".  If there are no future blogs, I was the brave man that et that oyster from Alamitos Bay.

Feeding the future with Shellfish

There are sixty-four Sea Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) on planet Earth and three of the most productive are the California Current, Guinea Current, and the Arabian Sea.  All three are unique upwelling LME’s where KZO Sea Farms is the only company developing offshore sustainable shellfish mariculture projects.  

Seventy percent of the Earth is ocean and ninety percent of the ocean is “desert’ because there are no nutrients available for marine life food chain.  The nutrients are there but too deep to reach without natural upwelling, which occupies only .1 percent of the ocean surface but produce nearly half of the world’s ocean fish.  

The phenomenon of upwelling elevates deep offshore nutrients to the surface for the propagation of phytoplankton, which is the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, and the currency for the health of our oceans.  Phytoplankton are feed-stock for lower-trophic shellfish which could be the only sustainable ecological and economical solution for feeding a higher-trophic and malnourished future global population of 9 billion. 

Phytoplankton thrives under near shore summer conditions as single-celled algae supporting the base of the marine food chain.  The vast majority of marine life in coastal waters could not exist without these naturally occurring microscopic plants.  Nutrient rich waters, combined with long sunlight days, cause the phytoplankton to bloom.  The resulting abundance of phytoplankton becomes the natural food for filter feeding bivalve shellfish.  

Most marine animals and plants live in the top 120 feet of the water column.  When they die, their remains sink to the bottom.  In shallow coastal waters, the nutrients can be recycled from these highly productive areas.  But if the water is deeper than about 120-300 feet the remains sink below the euphotic zone, which is the uppermost layer of a body of water with sufficient light to enable photosynthesis.  This enriches the deep ocean water but the nutrients are unavailable for the propagation of surface dwelling phytoplankton.  Deep ocean nutrients can re-enter the food chain only in locations where the unique phenomenon of upwelling forces them up to the surface.  

This does not generally happen in warm and temperate regions of the oceans due to the density difference between the warm surface water and the cold deep ocean water.  As a result, most tropical and temperate oceans have low productivity.  However, in cold waters at high latitudes and in regions where currents bring cold polar water from the high latitudes, the ocean surface temperature drops to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and its density is similar to that at the bottom.  The nutrient-rich deep water is then easily brought to the surface by turbulent mixing.   This upwelling phenomenon is restricted mainly to the west coasts of continents and is responsible for the high productivity of near shore waters producing the most productive ocean fishing grounds in the world.  The transport of nutrients to the euphotic zones explains why such a large percentage of global ocean natural production occurs in upwelling regions.  

The California Current LME, carrying water cooled by its passage through the northern latitudes, flows southward along the shore from the Washington-Oregon border to Southern California.  It has a surface area of about 2.2 million square kilometers.  It is one of the world’s five LMEs that undergoes seasonal upwelling of cold nutrient rich water that generates localized areas of high primary productivity supporting fisheries for sardines, anchovy, and other pelagic fish species. Beginning in March, prevailing westerly winds, combined with the effects of the earth's rotation, drive surface waters offshore.  These waters are replaced by deep, cold water that flows up over the continental shelf to the surface, carrying with it dissolved nutrients from the decay of organic material that had sunk to the ocean floor.  

The Gulf of Guinea is a Class I, highly productive LME characterized by seasonal upwelling off the coasts from July to September weakening from January to March. Seasonal upwelling drives the marine biological productivity of this LME, which includes some of the most abundant coastal and offshore fisheries in the world.  Sixteen countries border this LME, which covers an area of about 2 million square kilometers on the largest continental shelf in West Africa.  The cold nutrient-rich water of this expansive upwelling system extends up to 200 kilometers offshore from the coast.  

The Arabian Sea LME covers an area of about 3.9 million square kilometers and is also a Class I highly productive ecosystem.  It is characterized by seasonal upwelling off the coasts with intense upwelling from July to September weakening from about January to March.  The most stable, seasonal persistent front develops in the Gulf of Aden.  Seasonal upwelling drives the biological productivity of this LME, which like the Gulf of Guinea includes some of the most productive coastal and offshore waters in the world.  Upwelling fronts are similar to the seasonal evolution of the major upwelling zones off Northwest Africa and California Current System.