Where should governments invest in the seaweed sector?

If you're interested in state level aquaculture investment strategies --- this episode's for you...

Joost Wouters (The Seaweed Company) and Peter sit down with Bord Iascaigh Mhara's (BIM) Joanne Gaffney and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund's Cathal Fitzgerald to discuss the nation's potential as a seaweed farming hub, how to approach collaboration, investment strategy and licensing bottlenecks.

Joanne Gaffney is Aquaculture Technical Manager at BIM - a state agency that supports and develops the Irish seafood sector, providing technical expertise, business support, funding, and training. Joanne's remit includes the investigation and commercialisation of innovative solutions to industry challenge, novel technology transfer and the development of new cultivation techniques and species with a particular focus on the sector's response to climate and biodiversity challenges. She is an Irish industry expert on the complex process of environmental impact assessments (EIA), emerging marine policy and enhanced fishery certification.

Cathal is Senior Investment Director - Food and Agriculture for the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), managed and controlled by the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), is a sovereign development fund with a unique mandate to invest on a commercial basis to support economic activity and employment in Ireland. Food and Agriculture is one of ISIF’s four priority Investment themes and it’s seeks to support the development of new sectors leveraging Ireland’s natural advantages and also support Irish companies scale and grow internationally. Cathal leads a team with responsibility for investments in the Food and Agriculture sector. He has experience in building growth platforms for food businesses in Ireland and across many international jurisdictions and has developed a number of award winning innovative funding structures for the Agriculture sector both in ISIF and former roles.

In this episode, some highlights include: 
0:02:00 - Introductions
0:04:57 - Why does seaweed make such an interesting investment opportunity?
0:07:13 - Why is Ireland uniquely positioned for being a production hub for seaweed?
0:10:53 - As an investor, where would you like to see more deployment of intellectual and financial capital?
0:15:30 - How should we approach collaboration in this sector and how would you build a strategy for this space in Ireland? 
0:19:20 - Why isn't there more focus on improving the licensing process for aquaculture in Ireland? Who should lead the charge to improve that process?

Hope you enjoy!