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The global seaweed industry, valued at USD 17 billion in 2023, is growing fast as demand rises across food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and biofuels. Countries like China, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan are leading the way, backed by large-scale farming and processing of high-value varieties.
Bangladesh, with its 710 km coastline and 25,000 km² of coastal and shallow marine areas, possesses ideal conditions for seaweed cultivation, though it is only just beginning its journey of Bangladesh’s Seaweed Sector. The Bay of Bengal particularly the “Swatch of No Ground” (SoNG) canyon, currently supports over 13 million people through fishing and marine resources, contributing significantly to food security and coastal livelihoods.
However, this vital region faces critical challenges, including overfishing, biodiversity decline, poor conservation management, and industrial pollution, all of which threaten its rich marine biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Against this backdrop, since 2018, the Department of Fisheries has initiated successful seaweed cultivation efforts. Pilot projects in Cox’s Bazar and other coastal regions have demonstrated that seaweed farming can thrive even in challenging environments. Yet the industry remains highly nascent, constrained by systemic hurdles such as limited farmer skills and knowledge, restricted access to finance and essential inputs like seedlings, vulnerability to climate shocks, inadequate infrastructure, and an unstructured policy landscape.
With the right support improved market opportunities, stronger processing facilities, and active stakeholder participation, seaweed could move beyond being just a new crop. It holds the potential to provide sustainable livelihoods for coastal communities while contributing to marine conservation.
To promote sustainable marine resource management and support the Department of Fisheries (DoF) in developing the seaweed value chain, GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) is working to strengthen coordination among key actors for the protection and sustainable use of the Sundarbans and the Swatch of No Ground (SoNG) Marine Protected Area.
Its mandate includes enhancing planning and surveillance in coordination with the Coast Guard, advancing scientific monitoring, and encouraging active participation from women and youth in marine conservation. Linking these efforts with seaweed cultivation, GIZ seeks to enhance local livelihoods, protect marine ecosystems, and stimulate economic growth.
The initiative also directly contributes to output indicator 3.1 of the SoNG project by training 500 fishermen and women in sustainable artisanal fishing and processing across five landing sites.
LightCastle was commissioned by GIZ to conduct a comprehensive value chain study to provide the necessary information for the sustainable strategic planning of seaweed cultivation in Bangladesh. The team examined current production, consumption, trade, and key stakeholders, while reviewing processing capacities and institutional gaps.
The study analyzed domestic and international market trends, pricing, and regulations, with a focus on high-value opportunities such as pharmaceuticals. Comparative insights from global markets, including Korea and Indonesia, were used to inform lessons for Bangladesh. The project culminated in a strategic roadmap with clear recommendations to expand production, strengthen competitiveness, and ensure the sector’s sustainable growth.
The LightCastle research team employed a mixed-method approach, following a structured four-step process to achieve the study’s key objectives. The team began with an extensive desk review of global and local seaweed cultivation practices, value chains, key players, their roles, interconnections, and strategies used by international competitors.
The study examined several key themes, including seaweed taxonomy in Bangladesh, focusing on geographical distribution, usage, and abundance. It also explored the production process, pricing, species, end markets, value chain dynamics, market opportunities, and bottlenecks, while assessing local forward markets and employment opportunities in cultivation, extraction, and processing—particularly in Cox’s Bazar.
While investigating the seaweed value chain dynamics in both local and global contexts, the LightCastle team identified its significant role in value-added products and their potential in the short, medium, and long term. The desk research helped identify critical barriers, gaps, and opportunities in the local value chain, enabling the team to pinpoint key problems, develop hypotheses, and map essential stakeholders for primary reach-out. These findings informed an objective mapping exercise, which guided the development of quantitative and qualitative research instruments.
As part of the primary research, the team conducted field visits to two key seaweed cultivation regions: (a) the Barisal–Patuakhali Belt (Kuakata) and (b) the Chattogram Belt (Nuniarchar, Reju Canal, Khurushkul, and Moheshkhali).
The quantitative survey focused on two groups: (i) active seaweed farmers, with 85 samples collected, and (ii) non-farmers, with 39 samples from individuals who had ceased or tried seaweed cultivation once, those engaged in related farming activities, and residents of seaweed-prone areas.
To triangulate findings, the team conducted 15 Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with input market actors, forward market actors (collectors, traders, retailers), HORECA representatives in Cox’s Bazar and Dhaka, animal feed manufacturers, academicians, government agencies and research institutes (Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute [BFRI], Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute [BARI]), entrepreneurs, and seaweed technical experts.
Additionally, the team carried out 21 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with producers, 10 IDIs with consumers (urban and rural), and four focus group discussions (FGDs) with male and female farmers in both the Kuakata and Cox’s Bazar regions.
Figure: Snippets from Field Visits in Kuakata and Cox’s Bazar
In the analysis stage, the team assessed the profitability of seaweed farming across species, cultivation methods, and processing options, mapped the value chain using a participatory approach to identify actors, relationships, inefficiencies, and climate vulnerabilities, evaluated farmers’ knowledge, skills, and motivation to pinpoint capacity gaps, and developed a feasibility framework to guide opportunities, constraints, and potential for success across production, markets, supply chains, finance, and environmental and social outcomes.
Through this study, LightCastle Partners conducted a comprehensive landscaping of Bangladesh’s nascent seaweed sector, examining its systems, stakeholders, regulators, and operational structures to uncover both its latent potential and inherent fragilities.
By systematically mapping the value chain and engaging stakeholders across farming communities, processors, traders, and urban buyers, the team was able to create a granular view of the sector’s current dynamics. This process highlighted persistent bottlenecks across production, post-harvest handling, market linkages, and governance, factors that continue to prevent the transition from scattered pilots to a cohesive industry.
The findings reveal that while coastal households view seaweed as a viable supplementary income, profitability remains constrained by weak consumer demand, dependence on project incentives, inconsistent product quality, and the absence of established industrial buyers.
LightCastle’s analysis highlights the opportunity to reposition the sector through high-value product development, industrial-scale processing pilots, and entrepreneur-led ventures. Equally critical is building export readiness by introducing certification standards and embedding structured advocacy frameworks that translate research outputs into market applications, strengthen partnerships, and foster consumer trust in seaweed-based products.
This work provides a roadmap for GIZ and the Department of Fisheries to build on current interventions and gradually strengthen the seaweed value chain. By focusing on practical improvements in production, market linkages, and livelihoods, the sector can support coastal communities and contribute to Bangladesh’s emerging Blue Economy vision in a measured, sustainable way.
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