Zanzibar is seeing a seaweed boom. Can the women collecting it cash in?

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania — Women wade with baskets near beaches, their colorful dresses attracting tourists’ cameras. The sunscreen worn by vacationers may even contain the product the women collect: Zanzibar seaweed.

An eco-friendly local industry that employs thousands of women, seaweed farming looks like a postcard, even if the reality of the work is grimmer than meets the eye.

“I experience back, waist and chest pain from working at sea. There are also risks of being stung or bitten,” said farmer Mwanaisha Makame Simai. “Sometimes strong waves wash you away. I have personally witnessed three cases of drowning.”

Seaweed has been farmed off Zanzibar, part of Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast, for decades, but a new boom is underway as global demand increases.

Algae are mainly exported to the global food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, which extract their thickening and stabilizing agents.

In Zanzibar, private investment and donor dollars have increased. Seaweed is the third largest contributor to the local economy after tourism and spices.

“Ten years ago, people thought you were crazy for working in the seaweed business,” said Klara Schade, director of Mwani Zanzibar, which describes itself as a seaweed farm and factory in the village of Paje. “Now it’s become a buzzword.”

Mwani even organizes seaweed tours in Paje to showcase the work.

For the government of the semi-autonomous archipelago, seaweed is at the heart of its “blue economy” initiative aimed at stimulating growth from sustainable marine and coastal resources.

Cargill, one of the world’s largest commodities trading companies, invested an unspecified amount in Zanzibar seaweed in 2020 as part of a partnership with The Nature Conservancy, aiming to improve yields and incomes for farmers.

Other non-governmental organizations have increased their funding, including the Global Seaweed Coalition, which oversees the safety and sustainability of the sector as it grows.

Most of Zanzibar’s 25,000 seaweed farmers are women, which is remarkable in a society where fewer than half of women are employed, according to a 2021 government census.

The Associated Press spoke with five of the women, who described sometimes difficult working conditions in manual labor. The vast majority of seaweed producers work independently or collectively and sell to local intermediaries. There are few or no protections.

Long days are spent wading under the equatorial sun. Back pain and skin irritations can result, with bites from sea urchins or other creatures being another worry.

“This work has health and safety concerns,” said Simai, a self-employed farmer who says she earns about $50 a month to support her small family of two. The work can be more difficult for those with large families, she said.

“It’s not easy work, it’s tedious,” says Pili Khalid Pandu, 43, who works for Mwani, rotating between his factory and collection at sea.

A new risk has emerged in recent years due to rising sea temperatures.

“Climate change is forcing women to go to deeper waters” for optimal collection, said Mhando Waziri, project manager for blue economy initiatives at the nonprofit Milele Zanzibar Foundation.

Milele’s programs include teaching seaweed farmers how to swim, to combat what Waziri calls a growing drowning crisis.

The hope for the sector, as for many natural resource industries in Africa, is to make the supply chain more local. This is the goal of Mwani Zanzibar, where Schade has focused on training seaweed farmers to make cosmetics.

Mwani’s workers spend more time in his Paje workshop and less at sea. Schade said Mwani’s high-end cosmetics – a bottle of his “superfood for facial and body skin” sells online for $140 – mean his workers earn far more than the average seaweed farmer. She did not want to give details.

“Empowerment gives them the means and options to continue,” Schade said.

Fauzia Abdalla Khamis, 45, said she went from being a farm worker to a supervisor at the factory for more than a decade.

Milele also offers programs to help women develop algae-based products, primarily cosmetics. Waziri estimates that they can bring in 10 times more money locally than the raw, unprocessed product.

“Many partners want to get more involved in the seaweed sector,” Waziri said. “But people raise the challenge: ‘If a program comes here, how will it benefit farmers?’ »

Simai said she was concerned that seaweed producers like her were too far down the value chain to benefit from new investments in the local industry.

“Most of the money goes to those with office jobs, rather than hard-working farmers,” she said.

___

To learn more about Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

___

The Associated Press receives financial support from the Gates Foundation for global health and development coverage in Africa. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropic organizations, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas at AP.org.