Asparagopsis farming: key learnings and challenges to overcome

About the speaker: 

Leonardo Mata, PhD has over 25 years’ experience in seaweed aquaculture research and production for bioremediation and bioproducts for various industries, particularly for the red seaweed Asparagopsis. He has developed and managed on-land macroalgae aquaculture systems in Europe, Australia and Asia. Leonardo has led research programs to demonstrate scalable production of seven macroalgae species, publishing 39 internationally peer reviewed scientific papers, with over 2,500 citations. He is the Chief Scientist of Greener Grazing, the leading company working to establish large scale ocean-based Asparagopsis cultivation.

Organisation:

Greener Grazing is the world's leading initiative developing scalable ocean farming of Asparagopsis to significantly improve the climate and economic performance of beef and dairy production. Founded in 2018 by Australis Aquaculture, a global leader in tropical marine aquaculture, Greener Grazing has completed >400 studies demonstrating the complete production chain.

Presentation:

Most startup companies that have emerged to farm Asparagopsis have opted for on-land cultivation of the sporophyte phase, ranging from high-rate algal ponds to photobioreactors or a mix of both. While on-land cultivation methods are simpler (require mastering only one phase of the life cycle) it is questionable whether these systems will be capable of achieving industry targets in terms of biomass cost and supply, to make a significant impact in methane emissions reduction. Leonardo will present learnings, key data and challenges faced during twenty-odd years of on-land Asparagopsis farming in multiple countries and explain why Greener Grazing has chosen to focus on master sea-based farming techniques for Asparagopsis, highlighting the breakthroughs and challenges needed to overcome to make this new seaweed farming sector a reality.