Tonga grows seaweed for export [1]
Monday, March 20, 2000 - 11:00. Updated on Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 11:24.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 15, no. 1, March 2000.
Tonga’s three-year-old sea-weed export industry expects the coming sea-weed season from June to December to be the best yet.
‘Ulunga Fa’anunu, the Principal Fisheries Officer with the Ministry of Fisheries, said that Tonga began exporting sea-seed to Japan in 1997, at an average of about 400 tonnes per annum. They were followed by Sea Star in 1998.
The quantity of sea weed that is available for export annually depended very much in the weather, said ‘Ulunga. “The sea weed does not like the hot weather and it grows better here than in Vava’u and Ha’apai.”
At the start exporters were harvesting only the wild sea-weed but last year companies started cultivating their own sea weed.