Fredrik Gröndahl
1Department of Sustainable Development Environmental Science and Engineering (SEED), KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
The future is “Blue” we need to unlock the potential of the oceans for mariculture in-order to achieve a prosperity for humanity. This work presents the new Swedish “Blue Food Centre” where seaweed cultivation and the utilization of the biomass for food and fed are an essential part of the 13 million € investment with eight academic partners and 70 industrial companies from the seafood sector. The human population will increase from 7.3 billion people in 2015 to 9.8 billion by 2050 and reach 11.2 billion by 2100. The oceans can help to satisfy the global demand of food by both direct food production or indirectly by the harvesting of biomass for fed. The current and growing population is both a nutritional challenge connected with hunger, undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. But also, a growing global demand for food and biomass. The total food demand is projected to increase by 60 % by 2050. Our oceans are home to a large number of resources that are marginally or not exploited and may improve food security and wellbeing for humans. A sustainable use of this resources could release some of the pressure that has been put on both land-based agriculture and industrial fishing and may also have a positive environmental impact on the global, regional and local environment. Today’s exploitation of ocean resources is not sustainable from both social, economic and environmental aspects. The potential is connected with mariculture that may increase 50-100 times if focused on low trophic levels e.g., seaweeds.