Generally, seaweed farms have the capacity to grow ample amounts of nutrient-rich food. This initiative, putting up seaweed forests, lays an eco-foundation for all plans and efforts to reverse global warming as well as ocean acidification while providing food, energy, and jobs.
For many decades, environmental advocacies have been launched to help to save the seas from the perils of overfishing, climate change, and pollution. Having this collaborative effort from environmentalists, scientists, and even ocean farmers around the globe, is indeed a good sign that mankind is actually working their way to save the Earth.
Previous studies show that seaweed is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. For one, kelp grows up to 9-12 feet long in a span of only three months.
Governed by an ethic of sustainability, experts are beginning to re-imagine the oceans with the hope of taking a hold of the ever-escalating climate, energy, and food crises - wanting to put all these adverse effects "under control."
Likewise, they see the blue waters as the home of small-scale farms where complementary species are cultivated to provide food and fuel as well as to clean up the environment and fight climate change.
According to Chef Dan Barber, one of the world's most influential people as hailed by Time and a hero of the organic food movement, emphasized that the bottomline is to create a world where "farms restore instead of deplete" and allow "every community to feed itself."
Scientific American analysis on Thimble Island Ocean Farm as shown in a video, where former commercial fisherman Bren Smith is busy making up for his previous actions by cultivating a polyculture of kelp, oysters, scallops and mussels in what he claims is a low carbon, regenerative model that could help heal the seas.
As of this writing, it is believed that these ocean farms pledge to be more sustainable than even the most environmentally-sensitive traditional farms as they do "require no fresh water, no deforestation, and no fertilizer - all significant downsides to land-based farming."
