Ocean Farming Challenges

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You know, every form has

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fundamental problems to figure out.

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You have to figure out how to maintain the integrity, uh,

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of your farm in all its connections, uh,

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to the bottom bags connected to lines.

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And so it requires an enormous amount of research in terms

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of materials, design, process, methodology.

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And it took us a good, you know, three years, uh,

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before we really, really had a handle on things.

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Um, and in those three years, uh, we made sure

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that we didn't grow.

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Uh, we didn't really, you know,

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we didn't double our crop or anything like that.

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Um, it struck me as something that, you know,

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you really have to figure out these things

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before you can, you know, hit the gas pedal.

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Um, and, you know, along that journey we realized, um, some

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of our critical questions changed.

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So, where we used to ask ourselves,

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how are we gonna prevent Shafing completely?

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Um, now we know that that's not a possibility.

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So the fundamental question for us is, um,

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how do we service gear when there is shafing in real time,

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uh, where we don't lose any time?

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And so that's been our focus

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and we've sort of mastered that as well.

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The first year we put out, uh,

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which I tried a crowd like 10,000 feet of line into,

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into my space, and, um, it was a lot of, it was a nightmare.

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So, um, so yeah, I, that was a lesson right there. It's

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Like the, the first year we, we had, um, no support.

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The idea was, is that we could have run the whole system

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off tension alone.

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So we had a 400 foot section with

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no support in the middle, no flotation.

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Um, it, it didn't work.

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And so the second year we, we tried spreader bar units

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that were free floating.

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Uh, that didn't work.

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And so now we've ended up with a system that now is,

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is everything's supported along these,

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we call 'em set lines or, or whatever.

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And so that, that was a big lesson.

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Once you get the seed out,

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there's not really much you could do

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for it other than check on it all the time, hope

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that you don't get driftwood or a boat driving through it,

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or people messing with, you know, anchor lines

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or, I don't know.

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There's been all sorts of things.

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I've found braided line from someone's halibut reel holding

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five lines together.

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Uh, we believe we had someone pull our anchor thinking it

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was a crab pot.

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We had huge piece of driftwood come in, uh,

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in the summertime after we harvested.

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We had a guy drive right over the top

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of the one framing line that wasn't quite deep enough.

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And, you know, so just all of trying

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to balance all those things and watch and monitor the kelp,

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It took me two years before I was able to secure a permit.

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Uh, the initial reaction was just plain negative

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because people didn't understand

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what we were doing or, or why.

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Uh, but I, I believe in this, this type of farming

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and I stuck with it, and I'm gonna continue.

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Uh, we still are facing

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regulatory hurdles, but it's getting better.

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I think figuring out a market for the sugar kelp has been

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the absolute biggest challenge,

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but it's one that's really fun to think about

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and try to figure out.

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One of the ways that we approach this sort of unique market

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situation that we're in, in Connecticut since we lack the

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processing infrastructure, was

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by creating a New England Sugar Kelp Harvest celebration,

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where we encourage local restaurants to put a seaweed,

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a locally cultivated seaweed item on the menu.

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And it needs to be, uh, starting with a fresh product.

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So, you know, we would give them fresh seaweed

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and they would go ahead and create

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whatever they wanted with it.

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And it turned into an amazing, um, sort of competition

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among a, a lot of local chefs.

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We think that economic injustice has been a major

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challenge for us, just over to our left as an area known

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as Billionaires Row.

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And it's the wealthiest people in America

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who have homes there

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and all of their waste from these just huge estates

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with 27 bathrooms goes into our water.

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And COVID-19 presented a huge crisis to us

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with a mass exodus of people fleeing from New York City

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into, uh, this area known as Shinnecock Hills, which, uh,

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surrounds the Shinnecock Bay, the body of water

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that we're attempting to clean up

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and all of their waste is going directly into the water.

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And so for us, a huge purpose of cultivating kelp is

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to extract nitrogen and carbon from the water.

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And so we are just

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fighting this overdevelopment at such a rapid pace.

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So being able to get our kelp seeds out into the water

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as soon as possible has been a challenge.

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I guess the biggest threat, or the biggest concern is ice.

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So if you're in a system

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that's gonna get a thick ice, this might not work.

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If it's a thin ice and you can keep the lines submerged,

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at least a, a couple people below the bottom,

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it should be fine.