Boston Public Radio Podcast

The seaweed and kelp farm industry could become one of the largest sustainable maritime food industries — provided that enough people buy in. Award-winning food writer Corby Kummer joined Boston Public Radio on Monday to weigh in on the future of seaweed and kelp farms. “There are so many advocates for it who say you do don't need any additional resources that don’t cause pollution, like fish farms in the open water due from excrement from fish that are all penned up,” Kummer said. “You can farm seaweed [and] kelp.” Kummer noted that Alaska already has “a strong cultural tradition of eating” seaweed and kelp. The Alaska Sea Grant, a federal-state program that funds marine and coastal research at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, has recipes for bull kelp salsa and kelp seasoning. But it might be harder to convince the rest of the nation to make seaweed and kelp a regular part of their diet, Kummer notes. “The question is getting people to buy it and need it,” he said. “It's going to take a lot longer f