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Commercially Exploited Seaweed Species in Africa: Occurrences, Chemical Composition, Current Value Chain and Opportunities for Value Addition
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Africa's coastlines are rich with seaweed, a nutritious food already valued for its protein and health-promoting compounds, but most of it gets shipped elsewhere for processing instead of being turned into food or supplements locally. This review pulls together existing research showing that before seaweed can become a bigger part of our diets or animal feed, scientists need to do more testing for safety concerns like heavy metals, harmful bacteria, and microplastic contamination. For consumers, this means seaweed products could offer real health benefits, but stronger safety testing and local production systems are needed to ensure what ends up on your plate is both nutritious
ABSTRACT Africa has a wide range of coastal environments that support a diverse array of seaweed species. Despite this, only a few African countries are involved in the commercial harvesting and value addition of seaweed. Instead, most of the seaweed harvested in Africa has been exported as dried seaweed for value addition. This review discussed the different seaweed species commercially exploited in Africa, their nutritional composition, their current and potential uses as food, paying attention to food safety aspects regarding heavy metals and microbiological safety, and their use as animal feed ingredients and as sources for the production of polysaccharides, proteins, and biostimulants. It was noted that many factors limit seaweed value addition in Africa, including limited access to financial capital, a lack of seaweed research activities, a lack of seaweed storage and processing facilities, limited technical capacity, and weak domestic markets. Thus, in this review, the authors suggested that seaweed value addition in Africa should be regional (East, South, West, and North Africa), driven by species largely grown in those regions. These suggestions can leverage existing value chains across different regions in Africa. To achieve this, more regional cooperation among countries producing similar species is necessary, knowledge sharing on best farming practices, and more research on chemical composition, safety (microbial, heavy metals, microplastics), and efficacy, as well as funding and policy for human capital skill development and the technical skills necessary for seaweed processing.
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