Flower Msuya

Flower Ezekiel Msuya (born 1959) is a Tanzanian phycologist. She specialises in algaculture (seaweed farming) and integrated aquaculture.

Early life and education Flower Ezekiel Msuya was born in 1959 in Kifula She earned her BSc in botany and statistics from the University of Dar es Salaam.

Career From 1993 to 1996, Msuya researched the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of seaweed farming. She pioneered the start of seaweed farming in southern Tanzania in 1995 and 1996.

Msuya has worked as a research officer at the Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute (TAFIRI) in Kigoma, Tanzania. She is a former Chief Laboratory Scientist and Senior Researcher in Marine Biology at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam based in Zanzibar. The need for the Tanzanian industry to develop resilience towards environmental impacts has been a key focus area for her.

Msuya is one of five international trainers in Innovation and Cluster Facilitation. She trains on seaweed farming technologies, value addition and integrating seaweed with other marine products such as sea cucumbers, shellfish and finfish.

Msuya has worked with FAO, WIEGO, UNIDO and WWF. She has contributed to the start of seaweed farming in Mauritius, Rodrigues and Mayotte.

She is a member of the Tropical Agriculture Association (TAA), the Royal Society of Biology (RSB), the International Seaweed Association (ISA), Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) and the Pan African Competitiveness Forum (PACF). including powder, cosmetics and foods. ZaSCI is also assisting Zanzibar to scale-up seaweed processing through implementing seaweed processing plants for semi-refined carrageenan (the gel that determines the quality of the red seaweeds farmed in the island).

Selected publications