Seaweed, a gift from nature to coastal fishermen, likes to grow on the surface of rocky reefs in the intertidal zone. Fujian's 3,752-kilometer coastline has many islands and reefs, which have been rich in seaweed since ancient times, and are most famous for the "altar seaweed" on Haitan Island in Pingtan County
The texture of "altar seaweed" is delicate and delicious, and it was a tribute to the imperial court as early as the Northern Song Dynasty.
Wild seaweed has the characteristics of adversity growth, the more steep and windy the reef, the higher the seedling attachment rate, the better the growth. In pursuit of this delicacy, early fishermen tied ropes to their bodies and desperately harvested seaweed on the slippery reef.
For thousands of years, people have continuously explored the method of artificial cultivation of seaweed, and there are records that Fujian fishermen began to cultivate seaweed during the Song Dynasty. During the Yuan Dynasty, fishermen in Pingtan had already figured out the "vegetable altar breeding method" of sprinkling lime water on the rock reef to kill Qingtan (extinguishing weeds and harmful small organisms) so that wild seaweed seedlings could be attached to growth and increase yield. This semi-artificial breeding method that relies on natural reefs and natural seedlings has lasted for a long time, but after all, the natural reef resources are limited, and the scale of artificial cultivation of seaweed has been difficult to expand.
Fishermen cultivate seaweed on rocky reefs
Source: Jimei University Altar Seaweed Laboratory
And the modern seaweed farming technology system
It was established after the founding of New China
In 1955, Zeng Chengkui was an academician
A major breakthrough has been made in the study of the life history of seaweed
Discovered the secret of the growth of seaweed
Since then, artificial culture of seaweed has ushered in key technological innovations
A new era of artificial cultivation of seaweed has officially begun
Schematic diagram of the life history of seaweed Source: Jimei University Altar Seaweed Laboratory
The growth cycle of seaweed is one year, which is mainly divided into two stages: filamentous and leafy. Starting from the spring, nursery households select artificially cultivated or naturally grown mature seaweed leaf bodies as seed algae, collect a large number of fruit spores released by the leaf bodies during this period and inoculate them on the shell matrix, and cultivate them indoors into shell filaments for seedlings; in autumn, after the shell filaments mature, the shell spores are released, and the fishermen attach the shell spores to the net curtains set up in advance on the seashore, and cultivate them into leafy bodies by using the high tide of the seawater.
Seaweed filaments growing on shells
Seaweed leaf-like bodies grown on mesh curtains Image Source: Today's concern
Before 1955, Fujian seaweed was mostly a natural seedling breeding mode; with the breakthrough in the study of the life history of seaweed, Fujian Province began to experiment and promote the raft-style seaweed breeding mode in Dongshan, Xiamen, Jinjiang and other regions; in 1966, people used oysters, scallops and other shell substrates to successfully solve the technical problems of artificial cultivation of seaweed filaments.
From the reef to the intertidal zone, from natural seedlings to artificial seedlings, the seaweed industry, which relies on natural breeding conditions, has rapidly developed in many coastal fishing villages in Fujian and has become a pillar industry in many places.
Laboratory seedlings (Source: Jimei University Altar Seaweed Laboratory)
At present, Fujian tan nori farming has been promoted to more than 20 coastal cities and counties, forming a series of perfect industrial chains covering indoor seedlings, sea cultivation, dry product processing, deep processing and sales (among which Fuqing, Lianjiang, Dongshan, Xiapu, Jinjiang and other places are particularly prominent). By 2018, the marine aquaculture area of Fujian seaweed was 14,895 hectares, with an output of 74,628 tons, accounting for 36.99% of the country's total output.
Indoor nori filament cultivation
Cultivation of seaweed leaves in the sea area (Source: today's attention)
Fishermen dry dried seaweed round cakes at home
Factory-based dried seaweed processed products
Under the background of the modernization process, the economy of Fujian's coastal areas has developed rapidly. With the development of urbanization, informatization and the transformation of consumer demand, as well as the continuous maturity of seaweed breeding technology and breeding mode, the development of the traditional seaweed industry has also ushered in new opportunities and challenges. How to effectively adapt to the new requirements of the times is an urgent problem that needs to be solved in the optimization and development of the Seaweed industry in Fujian.
Industrial optimization and upgrading
At present, although Fujian seaweed has formed a certain industrial scale and industrial support, the development of secondary and tertiary industries is not deep enough, and it is urgent to carry out industrial optimization and upgrading. From the perspective of processing industry, the processing of altar seaweed in most areas of Fujian is still dominated by the initial processing of round dried seaweed. The deep processing is mainly concentrated in the Jinjiang area, mainly in the seaweed crisp, seaweed soup buns, sandwich seaweed and other product types, the market share is less than 10%, and there is still huge room for the development of product added value.
Seaweed farming
In the past few years, with the acceleration of the urbanization process, industrial wastewater and domestic wastewater are discharged in disorder, which greatly increases the risk of water pollution and ecological environment damage in the beach, and the growth of seaweed has faced the threat of reducing or stopping harvest; and the direct occupation of some projects in the near beach area has forced fishermen to leave the "sea field" on which they depend for survival and give up aquaculture production. Various factors have directly compressed the space for marine aquaculture, and the traditional seaweed industry has given way to other industries.
In recent years, the governments in Fujian have strengthened environmental protection efforts, drastically banned polluting factories, strictly controlled reclamation projects, strictly abided by ecological red lines, and carried out the "Blue Bay" ecological restoration project accordingly, which may be a new opportunity for the optimization and upgrading of Fujian's seaweed industry.
As a primary productive force in the marine system, in addition to the value of food supply, there are actually other ecological benefits worth paying attention to and developing. For example, the photosynthesis of seaweed not only removes carbon from seawater, but also improves the dissolved oxygen of seawater, plus its growth process can absorb nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrient salts in seawater, which has the benefits of ecological service functions such as seawater purification and ocean carbon cycle regulation.
With the development of recreational fisheries, the landscape value and rest value of seaweed farming have also begun to receive attention. Xiapu County, the "hometown of Chinese seabill", attracts a large number of photography enthusiasts to take pictures of seaweed labor every autumn and winter, forming a beach photography culture. Some fishing villages, represented by Xiamen's Xiaodeng Island, have also tried to develop fishing village tourism products with the seaweed picking experience as the core.
Images of seaweed farming and labor
In the transformation of Fujian's seaweed industry, we should perhaps focus on how to tap new values and market demand from traditional fisheries. Under the background of The construction of Ecological Civilization in China, in line with the new requirements of modern economic development for traditional agriculture and fisheries, from the perspective of coordinating the development of tertiary production, we will deeply tap the development potential of the seaweed industry.
Reconstruct the quality and safety trust system for aquatic products
In 2017, someone on WeChat posted several videos to spread rumors that several Fujian Jinjiang seaweed processing enterprises used plastic to "make seaweed", causing a whirlpool of public opinion and causing the entire seaweed industry to fall into a rumor storm, resulting in serious damage to the image of Fujian seaweed. For a time, many seaweed processing enterprises faced the dilemma of suspension of production or semi-suspension of production, and no one came to buy the cultured seaweed, with direct economic losses of hundreds of millions of yuan, and the livelihood of many farmers was seriously affected. At that time, although industry associations, mainstream media and competent departments quickly refuted rumors and let rumor-mongers be punished by law, the shadow of "plastic seaweed" still shrouded Jinjiang seaweed farmers and processing enterprises, and the brand image was difficult to reshape in a short time.
With the rapid development of China's Internet network and the general improvement of public food safety awareness, many of the product quality and safety information originating from the self-media and unverified aquatic products has been widely disseminated on the Internet, which has had a profound impact on the aquatic industry
Media debunking rumors (Source: Oriental Satellite TV)
The reason why these false information can have the soil for breeding and spreading is partly because the production and circulation of these aquatic products are too "far away" from consumers, and consumers basically have no clear concept of how aquatic products are produced and sent to them. The concerns about food safety superimposed on the concerns caused by information asymmetry, while leaving a lot of room for the public's imagination in the early stage, but also allowing some false information that may catch the wind and catch the shadow, or know why it is so, or simply brain supplementation have the opportunity to flourish.
There are many types of aquatic products in China, the distribution of aquaculture regions is wide, and the differences in breeding models are large, which makes it difficult to establish a set of universally applicable aquatic product production information collection system; and the chinese people's preference for fresh food determines that the product form of aquatic products on the Chinese market is mainly primary products, most of which are not packaged, which also limits the loading of information such as production and circulation on products, and restricts the reach of information to consumers.
The crisis of trust caused by the information gap has always been a shadow on the aquatic industry. The development and application of smart devices, blockchain and other technologies provide a guarantee for the construction of the aquatic product traceability system and the landing of the edible agricultural products qualification certificate system, and the real data in the production and circulation of aquatic products is expected to be collected in real time and fully presented, which is also an important cornerstone for reconstructing the quality and safety trust system of aquatic products.
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