AGAR SEAWEED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 65, Issue 5493, 3 July 1942, Page 2

AGAR SEAWEED

EXTENSIVE DEPOSITS AT KAWHIA IMMEDIATE UTILISATION ADVOCATED Some prominence has been given during recent months to the search for agar seaweed around the New Zealand coastline and an intensive survey has been conducted. Agar seaweed, which is the medium from which grows the bacteria so largely used in our hospitals, had its former origin in Japan, but with the interruption of supply consequent upon the war, there has opened both the need and the opportunity for the utilisation and development of any other supply sources. Miss Moore, of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wellington, has just concluded an extensive search along the West Coast. Returning from Kawhia on Wednesday, she informed a Courier representative that one of the richest fields of the New Zealand coastline covered the beaches extending from Kawhia, Albatross Point, Taharoa and southwards The Department had conducted the necessary research and had proved the capacity of existing services within the Dominion to convert the agar seaweed into good and necessary use. She had explained to the people of Kawhia the latent resources of theii coastline, and had urged them to organise for the collection and the drying of the seaweed. This was one Vitally important sphere of war work for them to undertake. “The Kawhia coastline,” she added, “is better than any yet surveyed.” There is a prolific yield of the seaweed and there is an immediate market demand for all that can be gathered. Generally, those who undertook the work should be guided by the broad rule that wherever the paua shellfish is found, so also will be found the agar seaweed in the same locality. Her investigation from Kawhia southward to Taharoa had proved this the richest yielding area in New Zealand. She did not doubt that the deposits would extend all the way along the coast to Marakopa or even beyond that.

The people could be assured that in at once organising for the collection and the drying of the seaweed they would be performing most useful and necessary war-work, and she. was hopeful that a new enterprise'' would be started which would put to good use yet another of the latent resources of this Dominion. Moreover, at this time particularly, a supply much needed by the hospitals would be provided.