Seaweed cultivation in the Faroe Islands: Analyzing the potential for forward and fiscal linkages

Seaweed has been coined the ultimate sustainable crop for a green transition. The European Union considers seaweed an important tool for mitigating CO2 emissions and making EU self-sufficient in proteins for feed purposes, but cultivation is still nascent outside South-East Asia. This paper studies seaweed cultivation in the Faroe Islands, which could provide the EU with large amounts of macroalgae due to promising geobiophysical conditions, and asks whether seaweed cultivation is beneficial for the Faroe Islands too. According to staples theory, this depends on whether resource-extracting industries are embedded in society through forward linkages (local processing) and fiscal linkages (tools for rent collection). The analysis suggests the potential for developing forward and fiscal linkages is negligible. Thus, if expansion challenges are successfully addressed, the findings serve as an early warning for policy makers: they must consider ways to circumvent market volatility if seaweed cultivation is to benefit the Faroese society.