Conclusions for South Australia From the Analysis

Linking Value Chain To Industry Development Strategies

Understanding the key elements of the macroalgal value chain leads us to an appreciation of the industry development challenges and associated strategies. Key amongst these is an appreciation of the major steps in domesticating target species and the development of associated processing technologies.

In general terms, species selected for aquaculture based production of macroalgae should exhibit the following characteristics:

• 1.

  In the Cultivation Phase: Be readily propagated, seeded and moved into the growing environment; high productivity; rapid nutrient uptake; already occurring in the ecosystem; high survivability and high general robustness (biomass produced remains in place until harvested).

• 2.

  In the Harvesting Phase: Be easily harvested using mechanical equipment and potentially automatic harvesting system.

• 3.

  In the Extraction Phase: Be suitable for high value products and biorefinery processing where the residue is suitable for either feed, fertiliser and bioenergy production or some combination thereof. A reflection of the high portfolio value achieved by the approach outlined in Table 3 of chapter 2 is beneficial when the specific production structure is established

Skjermo et al. (2014) identified R&D needs for industrial scale macroalgae cultivation (Table 1) and it is likely that most of these needs are equally valid for South Australia.