Page 5 - Bren Smith News Today

The half dozen or so people cultivating kelp in Connecticut are a hearty lot, determined to grow the state’s seaweed crop to a respectful place alongside farmed clams, mussels and oysters.

The half dozen or so people cultivating kelp in Connecticut are a hearty lot, determined to grow the state’s seaweed crop to a respectful place alongside farmed clams, mussels and oysters in Connecticut’s $30 million aquaculture industry, according to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture reports.

On a gray morning in late April, Suzie Flores, 40, the owner of Stonington Kelp Co., hustled out of her hybrid Highlander in a Westport parking lot. She grabbed a couple of coolers of freshly harvested Connecticut sugar kelp from her SUV, then dashed to the rear entrance of a posh restaurant to deposit 60 […]

New ocean farming hub from GreenWave hopes to spread best practices across the fast-emerging kelp sector

Bren Smith: Sea Farming, Sustainability and the Future of Food, Tig Notaro, Utah Poetry Festival, and more.

While some farms plan to grow massive quantities of kelp, Atlantic Sea Farms is counting on Maine's small-scale fishermen to expand the industry and distribute ownership.

Are sea vegetables the future of farming? Seaweed salad has never appealed to me. I was incredibly skeptical when I first read that kelp is the new kale. How could a slimy saltwater plant replace the curly crowd-pleaser that foodies take home from farmers markets in bagfuls?

The ocean we want is one that plays a key role in solving humanity’s three main global issues: protecting biodiversity, creating a sustainable economy and regulating climate. The ocean today moderates climate change, absorbs a significant fraction of our CO 2 emissions, hosts valuable biodiversity and provides food to millions. But all of these services are threatened by pollution and human activities. If we continue business as usual, the natural capital represented by the ocean is set to de...

Back in March, the documentary Seaspiracy premiered and quickly trended up the list of Netflix’s most streamed films. Personally, I was excited to watch it even though I knew the content would be heavy. But why excited? Like many of us, I’ve known things are bad out at sea. From raw sewage spilling into the ocean to floating garbage patches, nuclear disasters to oil spills, overfishing to mass death events of whales and dolphins, you don’t need an advanced degree to realize mankind ofte...

An Atlantic salmon cage site. Photo by Shutterstock/Leo W. Kowal This article originally appeared in the State of Green Business 2021. You can download the entire report here. The practice of farming finfish, shellfish and aquatic plants — by land and by sea — dates back 3,000 years as first the Chinese and then the Romans sought ways to supplement their food supplies with species such as carp and oysters. In more modern times, support for aquaculture has ebbed and flowed along with concern...