Small scale entrepreunership of seaweed in Serewe Bay, East Lombok, Indonesia: Challenges and Opportunities

Improving the livelihoods and socio-economic conditions of coastal communities is important to make people more secure and less vulnerable to both external pressures and inevitable socio-economic changes. This study aims to describe the characteristics of small-scale entrepreneurs based on seaweed and market characteristics, describe the challenges and opportunities of seaweed business, and find out the government intervention and potential recommendation. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were prepared to obtain qualitative and quantitative data. Interviews were conducted with seaweed farmers and other related actors involved in seaweed value chains. The finding shows that SMEs of seaweed in Serewe are dominant in production activity (farming) by using floating longline in small-scale under bonding with local collector. Developing seaweed industry in East Lombok has some obstacles related to low seeds quality, disease attack (that is, ice-ice), post-harvest quality, high dependency of farmers on traders, unstable financial capital, less advocacy from extension service, and natural impact of climate change, and market. Therefore, some collaborative actions between central government and local government need to be taken to improve diversification of seaweed for value-added product, capacity building, and encourage dissemination of research products (that is, seed and technology) to local community to achieve better seaweed farming production and prices.   Key words: Small-medium scale entrepreneurs (SMEs), Seaweed, Serewe Bay.