Published Apr 26, 2023 by Wrangell Sentinel To optimists, the plants that grow in the sea promise to diversify Alaska’s economy, revitalize small coastal towns struggling with undependable fisheries and help communities adapt to climate change — and even mitigate it by absorbing atmospheric carbon.
Cultivation of seaweed, largely varieties of kelp, promises to buffer against ocean acidification and coastal pollution, promoters say. Seaweed farms can produce ultra-nutritious crops to boost food security in Alaska and combat hunger everywhere, and not just for human beings.
“Kelp is good for everybody. It’s good for people. It’s good for animals,” Kirk Sparks, with Pacific Northwest Organics, a California company that sells agricultural products, said in a panel discussion at a mariculture conference held in February in Juneau, sponsored by the Alaska Sea Grant program.
But before it achieves these broad benefits, Alaska’s mariculture industry must first address significant practical issues, including an American consumer market that has yet to broadly embrace seaweed.
............ Other investments range from $500,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a mariculture incubator and processing facility to several million dollars appropriated by the state Legislature to the University of Alaska for mariculture research and training.
Alaska is currently a long way from being the world’s seaweed-producing capital. The global commercial industry, with an estimated value of $14 billion in 2020, is heavily dominated by Asian countries. Harvested seaweed from Asia goes into a variety of products — for industrial and agricultural use as well as well as for food.
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