An Investigation Of Development Pathways For An Economically Viable Seafarm Cultivation At The Kosterfjorden, Sweden

Abstract: New opportunities for sustainable economic development have emerged from the transdisciplinary collaboration of aquaculture and biotechnology. As a response to the European Commission’s call for a European Bioeconomy, SEAFARM, a five-year program pending funding from FORMAS, aims to develop a sustainable aquaculture as a milieu for and in support of further research in blue biotechnology in five collaborating institutions in Sweden. This thesis aims to explore aquaculture technologies, notably IMTA and long-line systems, established and emerging seaweed-based products, the proposed Kostefjorden site, a case study of a similar project in Scotland, BioMara, and some other technological and socio-economic hurdles that will affect the SEAFARM cultivation - all to enable the development of two economically viable but contrasting scenarios for the cultivation. Scenario ONE represents a BioMara inspired cultivation optimised for the industrial production of biofuel feedstock, while scenario TWO explores the potential of a small-scale and diverse IMTA cultivation. These scenarios were cross-referenced against the scenario context criteria. The final result indicated scenario TWO, the small-scale diversified IMTA, would be a more adaptable and economically resilient option, delivering a greater variety of species for biotechnological scrutiny, potential for a diverse and specialised range of products and revenues, while also optimising the conditions necessary for the pursuit of SEAFARM research objectives, notably through the development of the first IMTA in Sweden.