Article on growing popularity of seaweed features UNE’s Adam St. Gelais
A reporter for Global Aquaculture Advocate recently interviewed Adam St. Gelais, M.S., UNE assistant research scientist and UNE NORTH assistant director for science, for his expertise on seaweed.
The publication features news and technical articles about the evolution of seaweed aquaculture, which it calls one of the world’s fastest growing industries.
The article is focused on Maine’s burgeoning market for farmed seaweeds, in particular sugar kelp.
The acceptance of fresh seaweed is on the rise as a local, sustainable and nutritious super-food. It is even popular with celebrity chefs.
“It’s an incredibly fast-growing organism, and it does this at a time of year when everything else in the ocean is not doing much or growing very little,” St. Gelais told Global Aquaculture Advocate.
In 2015 St. Gelais spearheaded the building of a new nursery in UNE’s Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center. It’s one of a handful of nurseries and labs conducting applied seaweed aquaculture research in the state.
The global seaweed aquaculture industry was worth $6.4 billion in 2014, according to the United Nations. One estimate indicates that 38 of the 54 U.S. commercial seaweed farms are located in Maine.
“There’s been a reasonable expansion of people who are really interested in being growers and a lot of entities in the state that have jumped into the fray and are trying to move the industry forward in a meaningful way,” St. Gelais said.
UNE Marine Sciences and UNE NORTH continue to pursue applied seaweed farming research as a priority. St. Gelais is part of a UNE based team of interdisciplinary researchers recently awarded $1.3 million by the U.S. Department of Energy to assess the feasibility of farming kelp in exposed ocean conditions.
St. Gelais and UNE NORTH Executive Director Barry Costa-Pierce, Ph.D., recently attended an international seaweed symposium in Sweden. Costa-Pierce gave the key-note address. St. Gelais presented a poster. Both of them also moderated workshops on seaweed farming.
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To learn more about the University of New England’s Department of Marine Sciences visit www.une.edu/cas/marine
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