Seaweed Fertilizer Making Business (Cost to Start)

How to start seaweed fertilizer making business (Cost to Start)

Seaweed fertilizer is a comprehensive fertilizer, which is prepared with an idea to use seaweed as a fertilizer. As it provides complete nutrition to the plants including the trace elements like Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium (NPK) and hence it acts as a comprehensive bio-fertilizer to the plants. The seaweed fertilizer is a kind of bio-organic fertilizer that is prepared from marine algae plants as the main raw material and the bio-organic fertilizer is produced through the fermentation process. The main ingredients in the seaweed are the natural bioactive substances that are extracted from seaweed.

Ideas to start a seaweed fertilizer making business in India

The nutrients from the seaweed are highly beneficial to plant growth and development, compared to other organic fertilizers. The mineral nutrient in the seaweed, which is absorbed by the seaweed from the ocean, gets enriched in the seaweed. Hence these nutrients are extracted from the seaweed through the fermentation process and manufactured as a seaweed fertilizer.

Which plants need seaweed fertilizer?

Using seaweed fertilizer increases the variety of crop yields, including plants like potatoes, strawberries, apples, peppers, cucumbers, okra, and even oranges. This fertilizer not only helps in god growth it also makes the fruits sweeter and gladiolus flowers larger in size.

The market potential for seaweed making fertilizer business

Based on the benefits of the seaweed, compared with the traditional fertilizers, it is considered as comprehensive nutrition. By using this seaweed fertilizer, the crops will have balanced nutrition compared to other organic fertilizers. In addition, to this it has a significant effect on crop yield, crop improvement, and also helps in curing the mineral deficiency disease.

Apart from these, the seaweed fertilizers contain a large number of disease-resistant factors and special components that help the plants to fight against plant diseases and grow well. Thus, the seaweed when compared to the other organic fertilizers, has double effects of fertilizer and medicine, and significantly improves the disease-resistance of crops after applying seaweed fertilizer to the plants. A seaweed fertilizer has gained more importance as it contains a large number of highly active components, that can be are easily absorbed by plants even through their cellulose cell-wall. Seaweed fertilizer is rich in organic matters but the main important factor in it is the slow-release factors that show long fertilizer effect which in turn improves the soil micro-ecology making it fertile in condition. Seaweed fertilizer is natural, safe, easy to prepare, and pollution-free. Seaweed fertilizer in agriculture is playing an important role especially in making the crops disease-resistance.

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Seaweed fertilizer in India has a great demand, because of its uses and long fertilizer effect. This makes the point to start with the seaweed fertilizer making business. As discussed earlier, if you want to start a business on seaweed fertilizer production would be a good choice.

The business plan for making seaweed fertilizer

Before starting the business you need to make a perfect seaweed fertilizer making a business plan. You need to plan for the license, permissions, and registrations required starting the business, fertilization process, and machinery required raw materials, packaging materials, etc.

License and registration required to start a seaweed fertilizer business in India

Below is the list of licenses, registrations, and permissions required to start the business:

• First, you need to take the fertilizer license
• You also need to get the registration with the National center of organic farming (NCOF), Department of Agriculture, MoA, GoI, under bio-fertilizers, and organic fertilizers which are covered in fertilizer (Control) Order, 1985.
• Registration under Companies Act is mandatory
• Good Manufacturing Practice (for production of sterile fermentation products)
• You need to get registration from ISO/ BIS for the prevention of cross-contamination of production culture and quality control to meet the international standards.
• Udyog Aadhar or MSME registration
• SSI registration
• NOC from State Pollution Control Board (PCB)
• Trade license
• GST registration
• EIC registration which is required for exporting your product.

Raw materials required for seaweed fertilizer making business

As discussed already seaweed fertilizer is a kind of bio-fertilizer that is produced by using Marine brown algae and mixed with a certain amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace elements to allow fermentation. You can make the seaweed fertilizer in various forms such as liquid, powder form, and a few of them are also available in the granular form to release in the market. So you need to get the marine brown algae as it contains many of the active substances. The main bio-active substances found in the seaweed required for the plant growth modifier are listed: auxins, cytokinin, ablative acid, gibberellin, ethylene, betaine, and polyamine.

Machinery for seaweed fertilizer business

Seaweed fertilizer making machine is used in the production of the seaweed fertilizer either in liquid or powder form. The cost of the machine depends upon the capacity 2 ton per hour to 8 ton per hour capacity.

Liquid seaweed fertilizer method of preparation 

The process of seaweed liquid fertilizer preparation includes the following steps-

• First and foremost, you must carefully clean the seaweed since there are several foreign matters and impurities present in the seaweed. You can even use a hosepipe to wash the seaweed or soak in proper fresh water before using it as organic fertilizer.
• Then the seaweed must be added with a certain amount of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and trace elements for fermentation.
• Making seaweed fertilizer requires specific equipment. The fertilizer machinery has the machine that you want. That is a fertilizer fermentation tank.

With the help of fermentation vessels, you can obtain high-quality seaweed fertilizer within a short period.

The seaweed fertilizer fermentation tank 

The fermentation vessel decomposes the content with the help of microorganisms. By using aerobic microorganism activity the aerobic fermentation continuous and this is carried out in a closed fermenter. This decomposes the organic matter and also decomposes the material at high temperature, properly deodorizing and eliminating parasites, germs, and various harmful substances. By using this seaweed fertilizer fermentation tank, the moisture content of the fermented seaweed fertilizer decreases, even the volume decreases and lastly provides a large amount of seaweed organic fertilizer.

The seaweed fermentation tank is a type of biological fermentation system which feeds from the top and unloads the cooked material from the bottom. The seaweed is loaded from the top of the tank, and by proper stirring for maintaining the inner stirring blade, the stirred blade with high-pressure fan forces the ventilation to supply the oxygen. Additionally, you should wait for 7-10 days, and then you will have the seaweed fertilizer.

Investment for starting seaweed fertilizer business in India

You need to arrange an amount of Rs. 8 lakhs to Rs. 10 lakhs to set up the unit.

Cost of land and arranging the setup in the land = Rs. 1,00,000

Cost for seaweed fertilizer machine = Rs. 2,50,000 to Rs. 5,00,000 based on the capacity.

Cost of raw materials = Rs. 1,50,000

Labour charges = Rs. 1,00,000 per year

Cost of weighing machine = Rs. 5,000

The packaging cost of the extracted seaweed fertilizer either in liquid form, powder, or granular form = Rs. 10,000

Miscellaneous costs = Rs. 15,000.

The total investment required to start a seaweed fertilizer making business is Rs. 6,30,000.

You can sell your product either of the forms seaweed powder fertilizer or seaweed liquid fertilizer.

Deciding the price of seaweed fertilizer

After completing the whole process now you need to release your product into the market so first, you need to start researching the liquid seaweed fertilizer suppliers. So, you will get a complete idea to decide the seaweed fertilizer price.

Advantages of seaweed fertilizer

If you utilize cattle manure as your crop fertilizer, there could be leftover weed seeds in cow dung. If you keep cattle dung in the farmland in which there are weed seeds. It is also a fact that more weed seeds will grow in your farmland. You must be aware that seaweed fertilizer should not contain any weed seeds, to make sure you can use seaweed fertilizer safely as your crop fertilizer.

Traditional chemical fertilizers are known for their single efficiency and they pose pollution. The prolonged usage of these fertilizers will cause the destruction of soil structure and even pollute the environment. Seaweed fertilizers have unparalleled benefits as compared to chemical fertilizers. In addition to that, seaweed fertilizer is included as a special fertilizer in organic food farming in many nations.

How often to use liquid seaweed fertilizer?

Seaweed can be used to enhance herbs and salad crops that will aid in grow-your-own homes to enjoy tastier yields. It is essential to administer a foliar spray of diluted seaweed for every 10 days uniformly across the plants for a better yield. You should add the product at a rate of 1:500 with cold water.

How to sell seaweed fertilizer

You can sell the seaweed fertilizers to the nearby nurseries, organic stores, organic farming units, fertilizer stores, and you can also register online on B2B and B2C websites to market your product.

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