SEAWEED COLLECTION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4561, 17 April 1942, Page 4

SEAWEED COLLECTION

PLANS FOR ITS MANUFACTURE MAKING OF AGAR Investigations carried out under the direction of Mr A. H. Honeyfield, regional controller of supplies for the Auckland province, show that large quantities of pterocladia lucida, a seaweed from which agar is manufactured, can be obtained on the east coast of North Auckland, the Coromandel coast, Bear Island, Motiti Island, and the east coast from Whakatane to Tolaga Bay. Collectors, including a large number of Maoris, have been organised in these areas.

It is understood that the manufacture of agar is not to be licensed as an industry meantime, but a factory is to be established under the control of either the Internal Marketing Division or the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Collectors will be paid 9d per lb for the dried weed and agents, in most cases local storekeepers, Is per lb., c.i.f. Auckland. Agar is chiefly used in the canning of meat. It is also used medicinally, as culture media in hospitals and in making confectionery and cosmetics. Till recently practically the whole of the world’s requirements were obtained from Japan, New Zealand alone importing £7OOO worth a year.