The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's science and knowledge service. It employs scientists to carry out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to EU policy. The JRC is data collator on algae and spirulina aquaculture farms. It gathers the data on algae production facilities directly from the European farmers.
During the last 2 years, JRC made an effort to increase the quality of the mapping of the algae production facilities which included the launch of a survey with the industry and a consultation with experts. Resulting from this work the number of algae companies in the database almost duplicated, including now more than 200 macro- and microalgae companies spread between 17 countries. The updated database also includes some new categories of data such as the species and volumes produced by each company which adds interesting information to the global understanding of the sector in Europe. Besides algae-based products, the aquaculture farms deliver also valuable data for the blue bio-economy.
Algae and spirulina are farmed all around Europe. Spirulina (Arthrospira) has even become one of the most popular food supplement in western human nutrition since the 1970's. You can now visualise where they are produced in Europe by accessing the dataset on the various algae and spirulina production facilities on the EMODnet Human Activities portal.
