Royal Greenland has been given DKK5.5 million (€740,000) to support seaweed farming in Greenland.
The funds from the Danish Ministry for Agriculture and Food’s Green Development and Demonstration Programme (GUDP) will help scale up production, making use of a new setup coming into operation this summer in the inshore waters off the coast of Maniitsoq.
Royal Greenland first began cultivating seaweed in 2018 in Maniitsoq, an island off Greenland’s west coast – an ideal place for seaweed which thrives in exposed, cold waters.
“Greenland presents a unique opportunity to grow seaweed of very high quality, which we are tapping into with this project,” explained Lars Nielsen, chief operating office at Royal Greenland.
“Over the next few years, we are aiming towards a good harvest of approximately 38 tonnes. In the future we hope to have a production capable of delivering much larger quantities,” he added.
The collaboration with GUDP will focus on three key areas:
- Developing simple and climate friendly processes for processing the fresh seaweed to a product with good shelf life.
- Development of a high-value, tasty, healthy and safe product ready for consumption.
- Investigate and document the effects on the climate made by the new processing methods as well as how seaweed can be part of a health, climate-friendly diet with less reliance on meat.
Royal Greenland will team up with the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Copenhagen and Nordisk Tang over a period of three years, beginning in April 2023.
