A Seaweed Revolution in the UK?

Seaweed farming could be a huge boon for the UK, restoring biodiversity, cleaning the sea and could even be capturing carbon. Seaweed is healthy and delicious but UK grown seaweed has a very low profile with only a handful of farms across the country and few people eating it. In this programme Leyla Kazim finds out why this is and what a future focused on seaweed could look like.

She talks to Vincent Doumeizel author of The Seaweed Revolution who believes seaweed is an answer to many of the crises we face as a species. In St Austell bay, Cornwall she meets Tim van Berkel from the Cornish Seaweed Company and sees one of the few seaweed farms in the UK. What is the current state of Seaweed farming? We hear from Elisa Capuzzo CEFAS. Leyla meets Douglas McMaster at his restaurant Silo to talk about seaweed as an ingredient. She also talks to Olly Hicks, adventurer and seaweed farmer who has a licence for a huge seaweed in Devon but is currently selling the seaweed for use in agriculture.

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sam Grist