Challenges to farmers
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Hello all,
I was asked to do a short presentation at this years Alaska Mariculture Conference. I chose the subject of "Challenges to farmers" because I know how much Ive had to work through to get where I am in this industry. Im interested to hear from all of you what you think the biggest challenges are in your regions, as well as steps to ease the pressure of them. Id just like to take some of these responses and include them into my presentation as a way to share what we farmers as a whole see as hurdles to our future in the industry. thanks!
@nicholas_mangini
"the biggest challenges are in your regions," That's an easy one because it is the same as in every other industry. "Government". Regulation, mostly ones that they understand the least about, taxes, paying the piper, aka graft. Slow to change with improved technology and methods. Government is the one evil in every industry. You want to raise investment money? How about selling stock? Oh No way, the government won't let you unless you have enough of your own money to buy them off.
I hope this helps....
@nicholas_mangini One of the biggest challenges that farmers face is the timing of seed availability. With warming temperatures from Climate Change we see the sorus tissue form later in wild populations. This means that spools will be available later in the season (November-December). The earlier the seed is outplanted onto the farm the more nutrients they are able to collect for the cold months of winter. We find that kelp grows better and the yields are higher when the kelp is planted earlier (October). Hopefully this can be solved in the future with gametophyte culturing.