Did you guys know that over 50% of the seafood we eat– from fish and shellfish to seaweed and algae– isn’t caught in the wild? It’s grown through aquaculture or aquatic farming. The most common method is farming fish in huge nets and floating cages, where like many industrially farmed animals, the fish occupy stressful, overcrowded pens. They produce massive amounts of waste, polluting the surrounding areas and potentially spreading diseases to wild species. With the industry growing yearly by 5.8% – how do we make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes we’ve made on land in our oceans?
The answer is Restorative Ocean Farming! Instead of cramming large, carnivorous fish into pens, we should work with natural ocean systems to produce huge amounts of shellfish and seaweeds. Underwater Kelp forests minimize the impacts of climate change by pulling out 5 x more carbon from the atmosphere than trees. By not needing anything from land area to freshwater to pesticides or antibiotics to grow, it is the single most sustainable thing to farm in our oceans. Kelp is also extremely high in nutrients and can be an alternative to plastic. 🤓👏 Amidst all the bad news headlines and doomsday forecasts this is a bang of hope for our planet!
What is Regenerative Farming?
Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on top soil regeneration, increasing biodiversity, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil.
Recently we’ve come across some companies with the same approach to ocean farming, calling this regenerative ocean farming.
What is Ocean Farming?
For billions of people, seafood provides a significant source of protein and nutrition,but the farming methods echo the problems we’ve seen in industrial agriculture. Is there a way to sustainably farm the ocean? Watch the below video for an excellent explanation of what’s going on:
What’s 3D Ocean Farming?
Another great video explaining this better than I ever could in writing:
Why Kelp?
Kelp can grow in underwater forests and are these forests can be true carbon capturing powerhouses, capturing 5 x more carbon than any plant on land.
Seasweeds can be used as fertlizier, animal feed, an alternativce to plastic and a source of biofuel next to being extremely nutritunos ingredient in our diet. Production is carbon neutral, with zero input – and with a seemingly endless list of benefits it’s not surprising losts of farms are poppoing up around the world. We visited one in Sweden called Nordic Seafarm who showed us around their test farm site in Hunnebostrand.
I’m very excited about all of this and I think we’ll start noticing more of this soon!
Additional Sources:
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi97si_Wueg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYnGAAU-05Y
https://www.ted.com/talks/ayana_elizabeth_johnson_and_jennifer_jacquet_will_the_ocean_ever_run_out_of_fish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYi6JyXDo5o
Podcasts:
Ologies Podcast w/ Ayana Elizabeth Johnson https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/ologies-with-alie-ward/id1278815517?i=1000419059647
VOX conversations w/ Ayana Elizabeth Johnson https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/vox-conversations/id1081584611?i=1000455872500
TED Radio Hour w/ Ayana Elizabeth Johnson https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/ted-radio-hour/id523121474?i=1000546390580
Tim Ferries Show w/ Ayana Elizabeth Johnson https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?i=1000550614505
Links:
https://thechalkboardmag.com/superfood-spotlight
https://www.wellandgood.com/fitness-wellness-trends/food/sea-greens/
https://seaveg.com/blogs/articles/7-potential-benefits-of-eating-sea-lettuce-seaweed
https://www.verywellfit.com/kelp-nutrition-facts-4179038
https://www.agriorganics.com/kelp-meal-animal-feed-supplement/
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/notpla-seaweed-single-use-plastics/index.html
https://swaythefuture.com
https://www.notpla.com/
https://seaforester.org