Current Science

Santlal Jaiswar ¹, Vaibhav A. Mantri ²

Affiliations
1 Applied Phycology and Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSIR-CSMCRI), Bhavnagar 364 002, IN
2 Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad 201 002, IN

Abstract

Agar-yielding seaweed commonly known as agarophytes are sourced for commercial exploitation from countries of the Middle East, Japan and to a certain extent from the Republic of Korea¹. This industrially lucrative gel commands a high prize (US$ 18 kg^–1) globally due to its natural high gelling strength and low gelling temperature compared to other seaweed hydrocolloids such as alginates (US$ 12 kg^–1) and carrageenans (US$ 10.4 kg^–1)². The unique phycocolloid is being extracted from the cell walls of red seaweed species mostly from Gelidium, Gelidiella and Gracilaria. The agar trade annually requires about 125,200 dry tonne of biomass for the production of 14,500 t agar worth US$ 246 million³. The Moroccan government has now put restrictions on legal annual harvest of Gelidium to negate the decline of wild populations and thereby enforcing trade limits on export. This development has triggered agar scarcity in the global market. A recent trend indicates a shift, wherein Gracilaria is preferred as the raw material source consisting of over 91% of material supply chain (i.e. 114,100 dry t) with only about 9% (i.e. 11,100 dry t) represented by Gelidium³. Nevertheless, unlike other phycocolloids, where only a couple of species dominated the trade, several regional species are important in agar business, contributing immensely to the local economy⁴.

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