Epilogue—Pathways Towards Sustainable Ocean Food Production

Abstract

While there is a great deal of global interest in the development of combined uses of open ocean installations, for commercial scale multi-use platforms for food and energy production and other potential applications, the transition from concept to reality has yet to come to fruition. While much is known about the economics, environmental, political and societal effects of individual production sectors, there are many unknowns and challenges with regard to economics, engineering, liability and social aspects of multi-use. Mutually agreed upon principles, such as those articulated in the Bremerhaven Declaration, and EU directives and grant funding opportunities to advance research and development indicate that progress, although measured, is being made. The development of true commercial-scale multi-use offshore platforms will require investment in demonstration projects and multi-national cooperation and collaboration across public and private sectors.

Feasibility study of Ulva sp. (Chlorophyta) intensive cultivation in a coastal area of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

“…On a global scale, most offshore seaweed biomass is produced in Indonesia, the Philippines, China, India, and Tanzania, and is currently under investigation in US and EU biomass programs . The concepts of offshore marine biomass cultivation include farms for kelp growth, tidal flat farms, floating seaweed cultivation settings, ring cultivation systems, and, most recently, wind‐farm integrated systems and underwater ropes …”

Climate-Friendly Seafood: The Potential for Emissions Reduction and Carbon Capture in Marine Aquaculture

“…Consideration of on-farm energy requirements and supply sources are particularly relevant when establishing large-scale farming sites, especially those located offshore (e.g., Taelman et al 2015 ). The colocation of offshore mariculture farms with energy generation (e.g., windfarms; Buck and Langan 2017 ), increased use of low-emissions energy supplies, and the on-site use of seaweed-derived biofuel products for energy production (Aitken et al 2014 ) will be critical to achieving sustainable expansion. However, changes in a country's energy portfolio and the market forces driving the availability and affordability of biofuels are likely to occur at a national or regional level, with single farm operators having little control over these overarching drivers of on-farm GHG emissions (Hall et al 2011 ).…”

“…The labor, infrastructure and finance required to make such a change to cultivation practices and farm design could be a significant barrier, but, depending on the existing culture method and product markets, it may only require minor operational adjustments. For example, suspended bivalve farms could incorporate vertical seaweed cultures between bivalve stocks (e.g., baskets, line cultures), whereas the infrastructure for offshore bivalve cultures can readily incorporate seaweed longlines (Buck and Langan 2017 ). Of course, the capacity of such cocultures to truly sequester carbon (i.e., store it for hundreds to thousands of years) depends on the fate of the harvested bivalve shells (van der Schatte Olivier et al 2020 ) and seaweed (Duarte et al 2017 ), as was discussed in previous sections.…”

The Evolution Road of Seaweed Aquaculture: Cultivation Technologies and the Industry 4.0

“…In the last years, offshore aquaculture has become an innovative research field due to the growing interest to move large scale aquaculture operations further out into the open ocean, demanding original solutions to tackle the challenges of the harsh and/or exposed environment [ 294 , 302 , 303 , 304 , 305 , 306 , 307 , 308 , 309 ]. Due to the hard-offshore environment, novel technologies for automatic cultivation and harvesting are required [ 47 ].…”