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Women walk near the beaches carrying baskets, their colorful dresses a center of attraction for tourist cameras. The sunscreen worn by vacationers may also include the product the women are collecting: seaweed from Zanzibar.
An eco-friendly local industry that employs thousands of women, seaweed farming looks like a picture postcard – even if the reality of the work is more grim than meets the eye.
“Labor in the sea causes pain in my back, waist and chest. There is also a risk of being stung or bitten,” said Mwanaisha Makame Simai, a farmer. “Sometimes the strong waves wash you away. I have personally seen three cases of people drowning.”
increasing global demand
sea kelp has been cultivated zanzibarpart of tanzania Indian Ocean coast, for decades but is undergoing a new boom as global demand increases.
Seaweed is primarily exported to the global food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries to extract its thickening and stabilizing agents.
In Zanzibar, private investment and donor dollars are increasing. Seaweed is the third largest contributor to the local economy after tourism and spices.
“Ten years ago, people thought you were crazy to work in seaweed,” said Clara Schade, director of Mwani Zanzibar, which describes itself as a boutique seaweed farm and factory in the village of Paje. “Now it has become a topic of discussion.”
Mawani also runs seaweed tours in Paje to introduce the work.
For the semi-autonomous archipelago’s government, seaweed is at the center of its “blue economy” initiative to promote development from sustainable marine and coastal resources.
Cargill, one of the world’s largest commodity trading firms, invested an unspecified amount in Zanzibari seaweed in 2020 in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, with the aim of improving yields and farmers’ incomes.
Other NGOs have increased funding, including the Global Seaweed Coalition, which oversees the protection and sustainability of the sector as it grows.
According to a government census conducted in 2021, the majority of Zanzibar’s 25,000 seaweed farmers are women, which is notable in a society where less than half of the workforce is female.
sun exposure, sting and drowning
The Associated Press spoke to five women who described sometimes harsh working conditions in manual labor. Most seaweed farmers work independently or collectively to sell to local middlemen. There is little if any security.
Long days are spent basking under the equatorial sun. While back pain and skin irritation may occur, stings from sea urchins or other creatures are another concern.
“There are health and safety challenges in this work,” said Simai, an independent farmer who said she earns about $50 a month to support her small family of two. He said that this task can be more challenging for people with large families.
“It is not easy work, it is tiring,” said Pili Khalid Pandu, 43, who works for Mawani, shuttling between its factory and collection at sea.
In recent years, a new threat has emerged from rising ocean temperatures.
“Climate change is forcing women to go into deeper waters for optimal collection,” said Mhando Waziri, project manager for the blue economy initiative at the non-profit Mille Zanzibar Foundation.
Miley’s programs include teaching female seaweed farmers to swim, in order to combat what Waziri calls a growing drowning crisis.
Local women want more benefits
Like many natural resource industries, there is hope for this sector AfricaMaking the supply chain more local. That’s the goal in Mwani Zanzibar, where Shade has focused on training seaweed farmers in cosmetics manufacturing.
Mawani’s employees spend more of their time in its Paje workshop and less at sea. Schade said Mwani’s high-end cosmetics – a bottle of its “face and body skin superfoods” sells for $140 online – means its workers earn far more than the average seaweed farmer. She would not give details.
“Empowerment is giving them the tools and options to continue forward,” Schade said.
Fauzia Abdullah Khamis, 45, said she has progressed from farm worker to factory supervisor over the course of more than a decade.
Miele also has programs to help women develop products from seaweed, mostly cosmetics. Vaziri estimated that they could get 10 times more money locally than with the raw, unprocessed product.
“A lot of partners want to engage more in seaweed,” Vaziri said. “But people raise the challenge: ‘If a program comes here, how will it benefit farmers?'”
Simai expressed concern that seaweed farmers like him are too far down the value chain to benefit from new investment in the local industry.
“Most of the money goes to people who have office jobs instead of hard-working farmers,” he said.
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