Seaweed farming produces food, biofuel feedstock, and food ingredients with no animal welfare concerns and significant environmental benefits. Understanding seaweed as a food system component helps position it within sustainable food transitions.
Seaweed farming represents a food production system with essentially no individual animal welfare concerns -- seaweed is not sentient -- while delivering significant environmental co-benefits that improve wildlife welfare through better water quality and carbon sequestration. Supporting seaweed farming and seaweed-derived products is therefore a welfare-positive food choice that also supports ocean ecosystem health. As a component of sustainable food system transition, seaweed complements alternative proteins by providing ingredients and nutrients that reduce dependence on animal agriculture.