Seagriculture Speaker

About the speaker:

Jeff Hafting is the Senior Scientist, Cultivated Seaweeds at Acadian Seaplants Limited (Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, Canada) where he is responsible for all research on the commercial production of seaweeds on-land. Jeff designed and operated the USA’s largest on-land seaweed cultivation facility from 2000-2007, with 8,000m2 of tank area producing Palmaria mollis as Abalone feed at Big Island Abalone Corporation in Kona, Hawaii. Since 2007 he has been researching the optimization and production of cultivated seaweed functional products with Acadian Seaplants Limited at the world’s largest on-land seaweed farm (30,000 m2 tank area) located in Southern Nova Scotia. Jeff leads a diverse research team developing seaweed products from newly domesticated species, optimizing seaweed production, and integrating new technologies. Jeff obtained his academic training at the University of British Columbia (B.Sc. 1991, Ph.D. 1998), where his research focused on the early stages of on-land cultivation of Pyropia yezoensis (nori). His post-doctoral research investigated the optimization of Gelidium vagum production on-land for agarose extraction with Marine BioProducts, Hawaii (1998-2000).

Company info: 

Acadian Seaplants Limited is a fully integrated, research-driven, biotech manufacturer of marine plant-derived products with brands in over 80 countries. Its products for people, animals, and plants include unique cultivated sea vegetables and functional ingredients derived from select species of marine plants, animal feed supplements, and natural plant and crop biostimulants and nutritional products. In 1981, Acadian Seaplants was founded and established the seaweed industry in Canada. Today, Acadian Seaplants is the largest independent marine plant processing company of its type in the world and the global leader in its industry sectors. As a fully integrated company, Acadian Seaplants is responsible for every stage of its operation including sustainable harvesting and cultivation, scientific research and technology development, engineering, manufacturing, market development, sales and technical customer support.

Presentation:

The commercial cultivation of seaweed on-land can be successful when biology, engineering, and market development work synchronously for the harvest of high value products. Scale is a vital consideration to offset fixed costs. With on-land cultivation, biomass of standardized quality with predictable harvesting of the highest value is possible. Profitability is possible only when the right products from the right species/cultivars are developed. Nova Scotia’s Acadian Seaplants Limited is the world leader in on-land seaweed cultivation and the state of the art will be presented.

Keywords:

On-land, cultivation, state of the art, Canada, Acadian Seaplants Limited