Seaweed farming is helping to economically empower Kenyan women living on the country’s coastlines. At a time when male fishermen’s incomes are decreasing due to overfishing, seaweed agriculture, primarily being developed by women, is providing a welcome new source of household income.
Most of the harvest produced by the sea farmers is exported to markets in South Africa, the US, and China, and the extracts from dried seaweed are used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries as well as for soil fertilizer.
Seaweed farming mostly employs women in a new construct that formerly banned women from participating in fishing. The women who are seaweed farming add important financial resources to families and single-mother homes such that fewer children go hungry. Many of them also see it as being more lucrative than farming.
Video Courtesy of africanews
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