Native plants, seaweed and policies: food, invasive species and how we regulate it all!

What if I told you that you might have seaweeds in your fridge right now? Seaweeds have been part of the human diet for centuries - not only in Asian cuisine like sushi, but here in Ireland too. While it might seem like seaweed has disappeared from our European plate, many of us eat seaweeds every day without even realizing it. In this talk, I will show you how to spot seaweed in your everyday food and explain how scientists are working at boosting sugar yields in seaweeds. After this, you will never look at seaweeds – or your fridge - the same way again.

This talk explores how inclusive collaboration between policy, research and practice drives innovation and sustainability in agriculture, forestry and related sectors through the Multi-Actor Approach.

You can probably identify lots of animals without thinking about it but how many of our native plants can you name? For most people, it is considerably fewer. Why? Are we just less interested in plants or is there a more complicated reason? We will discuss this phenomenon and explore some of the wonders of Irish native plants.