A woman working in a her seaweed field in Bweleo, Zanzibar

Seaweed farming is one of the emerging and important sources of incomes to small holder farmers and also revenues to the Government in Zanzibar. The seaweed farming industry in Zanzibar started in 1989.

Seaweed farming has improved the livelihoods of the small holder farmers who use income derived there from to provide basic needs to their families including education, food and medical services.

“Seaweed farming has greatly improved the life of my family. I managed to build a good house and also take my children to school. I’ve also bought a scooter that my two sons use to supply my customers with seaweed products,” says Safia Mohamed one of seaweed farmers from Bweleo, in Urban West region in Zanzibar.

Other women in different parts of Zanzibar share similar stories as Safia. Ms. Sihaba Juma from Paje Village in South West region says that since the time she began to grow seaweed, life has completely changed for her.

The farmers were also equipped with skills on how to process the seaweed into different products as part of value addition efforts.

Today there are 50 products that farmers produce including liquid soaps, shampoos, and foods such as seaweed juice, cakes, cookies, salad and jam. Farmers sell these products at higher prices than the raw unprocessed seaweed. Value addition has indeed increased seaweed farmers’ income and improved their livelihoods.

However, challenges facing seaweed farming almost drove off the women from this business. “Recently, seaweed farming has been affected by climate change especially the increase in surface seawater temperatures causing seaweed diseases that caused failure to grow,” says Dr. Flower Msuya of Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam based in Zanzibar.

This prompted an immediate action by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar through the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Livestock and Fisheries. Together they initiated a study that involved an expert from the Philippines who together with Dr. Flower studied the seaweed diseases in ten villages and made a number of recommendations based on their findings.

One of the recommendations was to farm seaweed in deeper water where water temperature is lower by developing appropriate farming techniques. The other was to search for new seaweed varieties that could be farmed as alternative or complimentary to the currently farmed seaweed. For instance, one export company brought a new variety of the farmed seaweed from the Philippines which is being tried by farmers in Zanzibar. So far it has proved to be more resistant than the local ones. Farmers have been very fast in adapting the new variety and slowly they are getting back to their farms to continue with seaweed farming.

In his recent visit to Paje, FAO’s Director General, Jose Graziano da Silva, commended the women seaweed farming groups and the close cooperation between the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania and Zanzibar. “I didn’t know that seaweed could produce all these products. For sure this is a great achievement. The seaweed value chain from farming and harvesting to drying and adding value through making seaweed products could employ so many people most especially the youth,” FAO’s Gaziano da Silva said.

He then saw an exhibition of seaweed products by the women.