Alaska plans to grow its mariculture industry with a focus on oysters and seaweed, but there are obstacles to overcome. While oyster farming is responsible for $1.6 million of mariculture revenue in Alaska, more than three-quarters of the $2 million total, the focus of a Pacific Marine Expo mariculture panel hosted by Dan Lesh, deputy director of the Southeast Conference (SEC), was solidly on seaweed. “We want to go from $2 million to $200 million in mariculture sales,” says Lesh.
The SEC is managing a $49 million grant from the Build Back Better initiative launched be the Biden administration in 2022, and has spent $15 million so far on helping seaweed and oyster farmers in Alaska grow their products, and develop markets and products.“We want to help the industry become profitable and then step back and let it go,” says Lesh.
While the first kelp farms looked at selling kelp as food, the economics haven’t worked. The industry, if it wants to see growth, will need to tap other markets. “Food is a small part of it,” says Kodiak-based kelp farmer, Nick Mangini. “The majority of kelp grown in Alaska is being sold as biostimulants for agriculture.”
According to Mangini, the industry needs to lower production costs and find markets ready to buy. “I come at it like a fisherman,” he says. “I really just want to sell wet seaweed to somebody who wants to process it, create products, and sell it.”
Panelist Matt Obee, of the Canadian firm Cascadia, noted that the company had arrived at the point where it was selling kelp for more than it cost them to grow it. “Now we need to expand that margin,” he says. “Our focus is on biostimants. What we need is a kickass product that farmers want, and that will increase demand.”
About 10 years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy was pouring millions into kelp farming for chemical and biofuel production. But the panelists put a damper on that idea. “My farms was the experimental farm for that,” says Mangini. “It took us about three years to realize we could not produce the amount they needed at anywhere near a competitive price.”
Obee agrees. “They need us to produce feedstock for less than a penny a dry kilo (2.2 pounds),” he says. “That’s just impossible right now. Maybe in 20 years.”
Besides trying to grow Cascadia’s markets, Obee notes that the company is also working to reduce costs. “We look at the work and say, 'How can we eliminate this job or that job?' We talk to our fishermen friends, the guys who are used to getting things in and out of the water, and get ideas from them, then we take that to our fabrication shop, build it, refine it, and then look for where else we can automate.”
That said, all the panelists touted jobs as a big benefit of developing the mariculture industry, presumably by expanding the industry while automating. “In Alaska, there is plenty of room for growth,” says panelist Joseph Hok, owner of Nautical Marine Alaska.
