TN to get India’s first seaweed park

The Government of Tamil Nadu has decided to set up a seaweed park in Tamil Nadu in collaboration with the Central Government. 

There are 844 species of seaweed in the Indian Ocean. Of these, 60 species are commercially important. Of these, 10 species of seaweed are highly cultivated. Steps are being taken on behalf of the Fisheries Department to promote seaweed farming in Tamil Nadu as an alternative livelihood activity for fishermen.

The Central and State Governments have jointly provided 16,262 seaweed floats and breeding ropes to 1,926 fishing women to cultivate seaweed. Due to this an average of 10,000 metric tons of seaweed is grown in Tamil Nadu per year. In this situation, steps are being taken to set up a seaweed park in Tamil Nadu in collaboration with the Central Government.

The park will be set up as 2 centres. The first centre will house a tissue culture laboratory, a young plant breeding unit, an outdoor seaweed seed culture centre, a training centre and dry sites.

The second centre will house a seaweed processing plant, an administrative building, an innovation development centre and an entrepreneurship development centre. It is noteworthy that this would be the first of its kind in the entire country.