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.
