Harvesting and potential uses of selected red seaweeds in the Philippines with emerging high-value applications

While seaweed cultivation is indeed practiced globally, it is by no means a mature industry. In part, this is because that in spite of the tremendous biodiversity available within this “polyphyletic rag bag” of distantly-related photosynthetic organisms, very few species have actually been studied sufficiently to bring them into domestication for production. This is not unlike the situation with terrestrial agronomy.

The history of extensive cultivation of seaweeds is several centuries old. One of the major, global centers for innovation and production of industrial-scale quantities of biomass for processing has been the Philippines and in turn the Coral Triangle.

However, the species and strains of seaweeds currently in cultivation, often clonally propagated on account of their relative ease of producing propagules, have been victim to their own success. Farmers and industry have simply used the same, limited pool of biomass and techniques for too long. This has led to declines in yield and quality of constituents due to loss of vigor and increased incidences of pests and diseases. Innovation is urgently required both in the choice candidate species for cultivation and also the necessary steps and techniques required for the reliable and sustainable production of industrial quantities of biomass.

Once again, the Philippines is at the forefront of leading technologies for the selection of novel candidate species for responsible, phyconomic activities. These species are economically valuable candidates, not only for their colloidal constituents, but also the more innovative applications of biologically active compounds from seaweeds used for the benefit of human, animal, plant and microbial products. Selected examples of these biologically active constituents and their applications are briefly reviewed.

This chapter summarizes advances being made in the Philippines and outlines developments in several candidate species as future cultivated, marine crops.