Kelp farming catches on in Maine

In the past, fishers would catch lobster from June through October. They would fish for cod in the winter, and in March, they’d start shrimping. Around May, the season for pogies and menhaden would begin. If times got really bad, they could clam. “But now there’s no cod, the shrimp disappeared 10 years ago, the green crabs decimated the clams, and lobsters are moving north due to warming waters,” Dobbins says. “So I was trying to think, what could communities do to help keep them going? We looked into a number of different things. It all went to seaweed and shellfish aquaculture.”

The oldest seaweed farm—in Tokyo Bay, Japan—is 354 years old. But in 2008, there were none in the US. When the opportunity to experiment with seaweed arose, Dobbins jumped. He and his partners seeded kelp on one of their mussel rafts, seeing if they could get it to grow. They converted a two-room farmhouse into a processing facility, harvested wild seaweed to determine which species worked best for different products, and learned to farm. Three years later, they had the basics down.

“The goal was that we would learn how to farm, and then we’d step back and have the fishers do it,” Dobbins says. So he and the Island Institute, a nonprofit supporting Maine’s coastal communities, approached fishers with an unusual proposition—they would get a contract for all the kelp they could grow, giving them stability in a new market. They’d also receive free seed each fall, and support throughout the process.

“One of the first guys we gave a check to was Keith Miller. I was standing down at the dock with a check for $483 for a winter’s worth of work,” Dobbins recalls. “I thought he was going to be very disappointed. Keith looked at it, didn’t say anything, and walked up the dock to where the old timers were hanging out. He said, ‘boys, this is the future.’” Twelve years later, those checks are substantially larger, helping Keith’s family and dozens of others make it through the winter. The company Dobbins started is now known as Atlantic Sea Farms.

Nappi agrees, though the process of starting a farm has been challenging. Seaweed farming happens in “the commons”—the ocean, that is—which is not owned by any individual. In Maine, if a farm is within 1000 feet of private property, the property's owners get input. Many people don’t know what a seaweed farm looks like. As a result, they sometimes oppose new farms, unsure of what the change will mean. That’s often made the process of getting new farm leases drag on for years. Nappi says that many aspiring kelp farmers give up. “People say, ‘holy shit this is taking forever, there’s no guarantee I’m gonna get it, how long do I spend my time and money?’”

In reality, the only visible part of a kelp farm is the buoys bobbing on the water's surface, and the farms actually help to clean up the bay, absorbing nutrient runoff from fertilizer. WWF is working to educate the general public about seaweed. Metrics for success include the number of comments at public hearings supporting seaweed farms and the number of farm applications. Much of this is done by funding local organizations already engaged in the work. “One of our biggest opportunities is the number of people unfamiliar with sea farming,” says Emily Whitmore of the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, which has received WWF funding.

The goal? Make kelp buoys just as iconic to Maine's brand as lobster buoys. “It’s ok for people to see the lobstering industry because it’s become part of what they expect the ocean to look like. I think when you understand all the magic that kelp has, people will bend more toward that,” says Nappi.

One thing is for sure—Nappi loves working on the water, and he wants to keep doing it. “You’re not in an office, so that’s good. The good days are better and the bad days are worse. Bad days are when someone gets hurt, a boat catches on fire, or something like that. And good days are just nice days, like today,” he says, steering the Linda Kate through the mist, as the sun starts to peak through.

Twine is only the beginning. Her next goal is to weave the twine into bait bags for the lobster and crab industries. Seaweed-based food wrap, zip ties, and fishing line are also in the works. These uses for seaweed are not new. Until the 1930s, most of the cling wrap used to package food in Britain was actually made from seaweed. After World War 2, cheap oil led people to turn to oil-based plastic. But now, the tide is starting to shift back.

She’s received an enthusiastic response from seaweed farmers. Fishers are also interested, though some worry about the cost. To Weiler, success means making her products cost-competitive so they can be used widely. “We’re really passionate about the reduction of petroleum-based plastics in our food system. The more plastics we can stop from going into our oceans, the more microplastics we can take out of our food system,” she says. “And that is important for public health."

Kelp is not a silver bullet. But it’s one impactful piece of the puzzle in how to create a food production system that has less impact on the earth and can feed the world’s growing population.

Plenty of challenges remain. As the climate changes, warming waters have impacted kelp, and research is still emerging. Rising temperatures could also mean new pests, such as small snails, that eat kelp. And coastal infrastructure—essential to farming and harvesting kelp—is at risk across Maine’s coast due to stronger storms and sea level rise. When supporting new farmers, Robidoux says, she encourages people to think about climate trends.

If seaweed production continues to grow at the rate it’s been growing over the past four years, it will surpass potatoes as the world’s fourth-largest cultivated crop by 2051. “Five years down the line, I want a robust, thriving industry that is a very present part of our working waterfronts,” Robidoux says.

As for her favorite food? “I love kelp salad on a hot dog. It’s the essence of summer.”