Milne Bay exports it first seaweed to Asia

Increased seaweed production and now localized buyers saw the first export shipment of seaweed out of Milne Bay at the weekend.

The local fisheries authority who had been spearheading the seaweed drive were the happiest, a market secured for seaweed farmers in the province.

Nathan Belapuna, Principal Advisor for the Division of Fisheries & Marine Resources was a happy man.

There are two seaweed export licenses to operate in the province as it is, Boboana Export Limited is the first one to begin actual buying and they’ve filled up two container loads of dried seaweed, around 33,900 kilograms shipped off to the Asian market at the weekend, a milestone first for Milne Bay under a proper commercial license, after the last trials in 2014.

Currently they are buying at K1 per kilogram, the provincial government assisting to raise this to at least K2 a kilogram.

Everyone’s happy about this progress., Belapuna says while not a huge demand, it is an alternate product to other fishery markets.

This seaweed species takes 6 weeks to mature in a cycle and could deliver six to eight cycles in a year.