DENMARK
coastal fishery in Grenaa and Bønnerup, an activity that, according to Ms Breindahl, has been shrinking partly because of the falling quotas and the lower prices compared to those at harbours, for instance, on the west coast. The coastal fishery is an absolute priority and half the funding available to the FLAG
will benefit the coastal fishery in one way or another. The FLAG is looking at different ways of selling the catch so that the fishers can earn a higher price, and at methods that will add greater value to the catch, she says. At the same time, she is aware, that alternative sources of income also have to be considered.
Working with tourists could be one, harvesting seaweed could be another. In other countries synergies exist between fishing and seaweed cultivation so that fishers catch shellfish one half of the year and harvest seaweed the other half, and similar synergies may be possible in Denmark too.
It is a delicate balance the FLAG must strike between putting resources into maintaining the coastal fisheries and at the same time funding an escape route should the plan fail. For the time being, however, Ms Breindahl is categorical, “we are not ready to give up, we are not yet admitting defeat for the coastal fishery.”
Kattegat Seaweed explores the potential of farming algae and harvesting wild stocks
Leading from the front Kattegat Seaweed is part of Davai, a company specialising, among other activities, in the service and maintenance of physical infrastructure such as bridges, wind turbines, and transformer stations. Investing in seaweed stems from a conviction that a local company should be the first to find out whether a resource on its doorstep can be viably exploited.
B
ased in Grenaa, Kattegat Seaweed is betting on the demand for seaweed increasing in the future as research reveals more and more about marine algae and its applications. Already Nordisk Seaweed, another Grenaa company, is using marine macroalgae in a variety of products for human consumption and is planning to expand production to items that will require even greater volumes. Kattegat Seaweed, however, is focused on the first part of the value chain – producing the seaweed by cultivating it or possibly by harvesting it from the wild. To this end the company has invested in a vessel that will be used to test harvest at a site about an hour’s sailing away from Grenaa. The vessel was originally an oil boat supplying ships with fuel. Davai has converted it into a work boat equipped with a crane, a restructuring project that was partly funded by the FLAG Djursland. Farming seaweed is about putting out the
lines the anchors and the buoys and then waiting for the seaweed to grow. Kim Brueld Olesen, the managing director of Davai, and a former fisherman himself, feels that some of the methods used for traditional fishing might also be used to harvest seaweed. He thinks that harvesting seaweed is likely to be an overwhelmingly manual job, which for fishermen is hardly something they are unfamiliar with as fishing too involves much manual work. This is fortunate because, as he says, the pool from which people to do this work can be hired is largely one of fishermen.
Growing seaweed has to take unpredictable weather into account The site where the seaweed is grown is offshore in the open sea and is completely exposed to the elements so that there is only a limited window when the work can be carried out. The weather is too unpredictable to permit
Interest in cultivating seaweed is growing as its versatility becomes increasingly apparent.
activity over long periods. However, Mr Brueld Olesen, thinks that it should be possible to sail to the site, remove the lines growing seaweed from the bearing rope, heave them on board, and sail back again before the weather turns. The lines are brought ashore, the seaweed is cut off, they are then returned to sea and re-attached to the bearing rope. He emphasises that it is important to cut rather than tear
the seaweed off as the latter would destroy the root. And his calculations show that it is necessary to preserve the root so that a total of three crops can be harvested from the same root. Doing it this way rather than trying to carry out the entire operation at sea he thinks is more flexible and more convenient for the people who actually do the work. For a coastal fisherman working with seaweed
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