Now, this... This might just seem like an ordinary view of the
ocean. But actually, this is a farm.
An ocean farm.
Just below the water, thousands of shellfish and acres upon acres
of seaweed are growing.
Of course, people are eating oysters or clams or mussels.
But what about all that green, slimy stuff?
Seaweed is used in more than just sushi.
In fact, in America, using seaweed as food dates back to before
the beginning of the nation, when pilgrims met with Native
Americans. And, for example, we're taught about their cuisine
like clam bakes.
Yes, a traditional clambake included cooking up kelp, aside all
that shellfish. But since then, seaweed has transformed over and
over again. You can find seaweed in more than just your dinner
plate at your favorite Asian restaurant.
You know, they think, oh, it's not really food.
It's kind of that slimy stuff on the beach.
And, you know, people were really, really, really clear about
this. Well, I wouldn't eat that.
What? Put that in my mouth?
So, imagine their surprise when I said, but would you already do
every day.
Seaweed could be in your toothpaste, in your almond milk, in your
pricey moisturizer or baby food, ice cream and even your beer.
Seaweed is used in medicines and it can be used for fuel.
I think an algae-based fuel should be able to power all planes in
the world. All of this to say, the global demand for seaweed is
expanding. The commercial seaweed market could surpass $85
billion before 2026.
As for what it takes to farm seaweed, all you need is $20,000,
20 acres of water and about a single seaweed farm can net up to
90,000 to $120,000 a year.
No fresh water, no fertilizer, no feed make it the most
sustainable food on the planet.
But at the same time, our crops soak up carbon, nitrogen,
rebuild reef systems.
So, they really become engines of restoration as we're farming
and try to make a living.
Here's what makes up the seaweed industry.
Algae, kelp, seaweed.
There's an estimated 10,000 different kinds of it.
It's kind of a plant, but it's not a land plant.
It's kind of of the sea, but it's not a fish.
If you think about it, you think, well, then if it's neither one
nor the other, it's probably not edible.
And that's what a lot of people that I would interview kind of
said to me, you know, they said, well, it's not really anything,
is it? But of course, it turns out seaweed is certainly
something. In fact, seaweed is pretty essential to the life of
the planet. Marine algae produces anywhere from 50% to 80% of
the planet's oxygen supply.
Not to mention seaweed absorbs a huge amount of carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere. It's known that seaweed has been
historically popular in eastern
diets.
Nowadays, millions of sea vegetables are farmed in Asia every
year. In 2019, the Asian Pacific held over 55% share in the
commercial seaweed market because of the food industry.
But going back in American history, seaweed was a big part of
the Native American diet, too, before Western colonization.
But, somewhere along the line, Americans started to shun seaweed
as part of their diets.
But it's just been pushed out of the economy and off the plate.
Seaweed is a green vegetable that comes with its own salty
seasoning. Algae found other uses in American history.
Seaweeds were used as gunpowder in the Revolutionary War and
chemical weapons in World War One.
But, when it comes to modern aquaculture, the industry is based
on existing market demand, and that traditionally is in seaweed.
Americans want to eat fish.
Fish farm production topped beef production in 2013 and
Americans are eating more farmed fish than wild caught globally.
Aquaculture's total farm gate sale value.
That's the value of the product itself without accounting for
selling costs like transportation or marketing, reached over
$263.6 billion that number accounts for products like fish,
crustaceans, marine algae and even pearls and seashells.
But, most of those billions are in fishing, and seaweed farmer
Bren Smith would know.
He was a fisherman for most of his life.
You know, I never expected to grow vegetables underwater.
Beautiful, huh? You know, I'm a fisherman with the high seas.
And I, you know, I'm not an environmentalist in a traditional
way. I'm a fisherman.
I hunt and kill things.
But, my goal is to make a living on a living planet.
I mean, there's no way I can run my farm, run my small business
unless I become a steward of the oceans and grow crops that are
breathing life back into it.
Smith started out in seaweed farming after years of fishing on
the high seas and bearing witness to the degradation of the
world's oceans due to overfishing and climate change, he turned
to what he calls restorative ocean farming.
Restorative or regenerative ocean farming is growing crops that
breathe life back into the ocean.
The sort of chocolate color, that's all nitrogen.
So, our seaweeds and shellfish require zero inputs, no fresh
water, no fertilizer, no feed.
You know, like, I'm actually proud of it.
This is what one of those farms looks like.
Ropes of kelp seeds are strung through the ocean surface like
garland, and hanging besides kelp seeds are netting baskets of
scallops and socks of mussels to grow in.
At the bottom of the structure are crates, growing oysters and
clams. Smith went on to found GreenWave, a nonprofit
organization training people to be ocean farmers.
And our goal is 10,000 farmers in ten years to train, and so far
we've trained about 160 farmers.
We have a waiting list of 6,000 just in the U.S.
and requests in 102 countries, so the demand is huge.
In comparison to likely a lot of upstarts, starting a seaweed
farm could be relatively low cost.
There's a low barrier to entry because we grow things that don't
swim away and you don't have to feed, the overhead is extremely
low. It takes basically twenty to fifty thousand dollars
depending on the area, to start a farm, you need a boat and 20
acres to be up and running.
And Smith points to a profit to be made.
We see the future of farms as being sort of four quadrants of
income. One, we're harvesting food.
Two, harvesting by product like bioplastics, things like that.
Third, we're harvesting data.
So, we have sensors on farms throughout the country, which are
pulling data. We package that.
What we hope to do is sell that to insurance companies,
government, things like that, and that's an income stream for
every farmer. And then the fourth quadrant is ecosystem
services. So, farmers should be paid for the carbon they soak up
the nitrogen. And so we're developing a blue carbon program.
And I think that's what climate resiliency looks like in the
future. Dr.
Charles Yarish of the University of Connecticut has helped tons
of ocean farms get started.
We're making up what people have done on land with their crops.
We're doing it in a matter of maybe less than a decade.
And then with the COVID virus, we had to really work hard about
getting each of the farms harvested in a COVID safe way.
Infrastructure remains the biggest challenge to scaling these
farms. For example, a processing plant costs about 1.3 million
dollars. That plant would allow a farmer to process two million
pounds of seaweed a year.
It's that infrastructure in the middle to stabilize and process
the kelp. The good thing about our model is that it's cheap to
do in water. It's just ropes and buoys.
The challenge is when you hit land, you face all the challenges
land-based farmers face, so we need to powder, dry, flake, and
that infrastructure just doesn't exist.
And, it's really capital intensive.
Market demand is not a challenge for the seaweed industry right
now. Besides being used for food, another big use of seaweed is
colloids, specifically phycocolloids, like alginate, agar and
carrageenan. If those sound like strange words you might find in
a nutrition label, you're right.
These are seaweed-based food additives that can produce a
certain consistency or texture.
Seaweed is also increasing in popularity as a meat substitute.
It enhances the meatiness.
It's full of natural umami, which people use a lot now to convey
the idea of meat, but without the meat.
So, one of the challenges of the plant based foods is that it's
soy-based and soy is extremely destructive.
So, we want to replace those harmful inputs with things like,
seaweed. It was actually McDonald's that first pioneered a
burger using seaweed back in 1991.
The McLean Deluxe
A
ninety one percent fat free beef patty.
And it was advertised as the NBA's official sandwich.
The new McLean Deluxe will blow you away.
It was on the menu for five years.
Colloids are not just a food additive.
They're also present in medicine.
For example, alginates are used in dental molds production and
in wound dressings and even diet pills.
Seaweed is also found in the personal care sector.
Alginates are used as dispersing and thickening agents and
lotions, creams and soaps.
For example, the first ingredient in this moisturizer from La
Mer is algae extract.
Two ounces of this lotion retails for $345.
Colloids are also found in fabrics.
Today, fireman's clothes is still treated with alginate for
fireproofing. Another reason boosting the industry's valuation
is demand for eco-friendly fertilizers.
Because many seaweeds also produce growth-regulating compounds.
And these growth-regulating compounds are all part of the
biostimulants that are using our land-based agriculture.
Hand in hand with fertilizers is animal feed.
Many animal feeds, whether they be cattle feeds, chicken feeds,
hog feeds actually have seaweed ingredients in them.
But also some studies show it could be a way to fight climate
change. So, cows produce a lot of methane gas and methane is a
major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.
In 2016, Australia's James Cook University found that adding a
small amount of a particular algae produced methane production
by 99%.
Smith says a new climate economy is starting, and this can be
seen in another use for seaweed.
Biofuel. That's where the Department of Energy's Mariner program
comes in. The program aims to make better use of the United
States underwater territory because the U.S.
actually has more water than land, known as the exclusive
economic zone, and it's larger than the total land area of the
U.S., including Alaska.
If you're producing it sustainably as a biofuel, you can replace
fossil fuels because it's all photosynthetic.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that seaweed biofuel can
yield more energy per acre than land crops, like corn.
Really, what's exciting about it is that you look at biomass as
really a resource for a lot of energy solutions, not just for
fuels, but also for power, and so there's a lot of ways to use
biomass, and especially in a low carbon world.
Since the Mariner program began in 2-15, it has put more than $50
million into at least 18 different farming projects.
But right now, if seaweed were to be used for biofuel, it would
be really expensive.
The goal of our funding is really to drive the cost down far
enough so that you can even consider it for energy.
And that's due to basic supply and demand.
It's a pricey fuel source because of the market demand for
seaweed in food, fertilizer and animal feed and farms are
supplying for those markets, then whatever is extra or leftover
is priced for fuel or energy.
There's really the opportunity to utilize that resource and
strengthen a lot of coastal communities, basically adding
opportunities for what is called working waterfronts.
So, how big it can really get?
I don't really want to put a number to that because that's
speculation. But, I think we have a big resource and we have a
lot of people that are are interested in this space.
I can tell you right now, whatever your preconceived notion about
the industry is, probably in the next two or three years, the
U.S. will be going from a minor player in global production to a
major player. Seaweed use in bioplastics, and in Western cooking
could be part of the industry's bigger picture in coming years.
Besides the economic opportunity, seaweed can be part of the
solution in fighting global warming, which ultimately creates
what Smith calls the blue-green economy.
And, GreenWave's programing is really targeted at two
constituencies. One is fishermen directly affected by climate
change, and the other is indigenous communities.
Indigenous communities have rights to the ocean, and it's
important that they're in the front of the line of this revival
of ocean agriculture.
According to the World Bank, a network of farms equivalent to
five percent of U.S.
territorial waters can create 50 million direct jobs.
This diverse group of people that are basically taking a chance
on a topic that they don't know is how big it's really growing.
It's not a very established career path at this point, seeing
the enthusiasm of these people and has been, I think, very
rewarding. Smith also says seaweed can be a part of the way
growing populations are fed in years to come.
One study found a network of farms totaling the size of
Washington State could supply enough protein for every person
living today. But getting all of this farming of seaweed done is
part of the bigger picture, too.
It's got to be responsibly farmed because we're in danger of
doing to the sea what we've done to the land.
So if any of us are waving a flag, it's that seaweed is great,
but use it responsibly.
Smith started on his journey as a seaweed farmer, touting the
many food possibilities before he realized seaweed could be
something much bigger than a piece of the dinner plate.
The message was kelp is the new kale, right?
I coined the term kelp is the new kale, and I think I was wrong.
I think it's something else.
We don't totally know what it is, but the key is opening these
various markets.