# The diplomat who bet Maine's future on kelp > Briana Warner left the Foreign Service to hand lobstermen a second crop before warming water takes their first one. - Title: The diplomat who bet Maine's future on kelp | Shortify - Summary: Briana Warner left the Foreign Service to hand lobstermen a second crop before warming water takes their first one. Give people a paying alternative before… - Keywords: kelp, maine, aquaculture, climate, food, diplomat, bet, Maine's, future, Naturallydannyseo - Source: Naturallydannyseo — https://naturallydannyseo.com/2025/06/what-a-catch - Published: 2025-06-26T14:11:28+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: kelp, maine, aquaculture, climate, food ## From Sudan to seaweed Briana Warner served as a U.S. diplomat in Sudan and Yemen. Now she works on a problem closer to home in Portland, Maine: water that is getting too warm for lobster. ## A one-crop coast North of Portland, lobster is the only employer. Maine has 4,000-plus license holders working small owner-operator boats, with no other fishery of any scale to fall back on. > We're completely dependent on a lobster monoculture. ## The Gulf is warming fast No amount of conservation changes the water temperature. Warner expects the lobster fishery to get more volatile, and she would rather act while the industry is still doing well. > We always seem to wait for looming disaster before we do something. ## The answer was already there Kelp grows in the same coastal nooks lobsters like. Most people know it as the slimy stuff that wraps around your legs. Warner saw a crop. ## It fits the off-season Kelp is harvested when lobstering slows, in the same waters, with the same boats and gear. No new equipment, no new territory to learn. > It's just a perfectly complementary product to their lobster income. ## First of its kind Atlantic Sea Farms, founded in 2009, is the first commercially viable seaweed farm in the United States, built as an alternative to imported seaweed that arrives dried, dyed and stripped of nutrients. ## 30,000 pounds to a million When Warner took over in 2017 the company harvested 30,000 pounds of kelp. This season it will bring a million pounds of line-grown kelp ashore. ## Three things at once Recruit fishermen into farming, train and support them through the setup, then build products Americans will actually buy. Each piece fails without the other two. ## A genuinely crazy ask Apply for a lease, invest in a farm, take seed that looks like mold, grow it underwater for six months, and trust a promise that someone will pick it up. They said yes anyway. > It was crazy to trust us with that before it was proven out. But they did. ## Nobody had tasted it Essentially none of the fishermen had ever eaten kelp. One farmer four years into growing it admitted to Warner on the boat that he had never tried a piece. > He's like, I've never tried it. And I said, Keith, you've been farming this for four years. ## She never said climate change Warner talked about carbon and nitrogen pulled from the water, no arable land, no fresh water, no pesticides, and less acidic ocean for shellfish. She just never used the phrase. > But I never once said the phrase climate change to any of our partner farmers. ## Why the lecture backfires Her partner farmers are people trying to keep their kids working on the water. Leading with a problem they cannot solve only makes it feel hopeless. > We often want to beat people over the head with a bat and then we wonder why no one does anything. ## They get there themselves After a year or two of farming, every partner farmer has told her they are fighting the effects of climate change. Their politics vary widely. Wanting a healthier ocean does not. ## Build the market yourself Nobody was going to create demand for them, so the company makes fermented Seaweed Salad and Sea-Chi, frozen Kelp Cubes for smoothies, and fresh-frozen strips for salads. > Right away, mostly because who else is going to do it for us, right? ## Traceable to the seed Give them the lot number and they can name the farm, the farmer, the tank the seed grew in, and the wild bed it came from, on what day and at what time. > Nobody else can tell you where their seed comes from or what line of crop it comes from. ## They own every step Seed, farming, trucks to the docks, harvest bags, manufacturing. The vertical integration started as necessity and stayed as a choice. > We manufacture every pound of kelp that we sell. ## Ten times the minerals Kelp carries ten times the minerals of soil-grown plants, including iodine and magnesium your body cannot make, plus vitamins A through K, omega-3s, fiber and protein. ## Blanched, not dyed Straight from the ocean it tastes briny and umami-heavy. Blanching knocks back the ocean flavor and turns it bright green, no yellow number 5 or blue number 1 required. ## Better ocean on the way out Kelp forests pull 20 times more carbon than land forests and lower pH as they grow. Harvesting the crop leaves the water less acidic than it was. > It's good for the ocean, it's good for our coastal communities, and it's good for the consumer. ## Doers beat talkers People discussed U.S. kelp farming for 15 years. It only happened at scale once fishermen got involved, and Warner feeds the result to her sons in pesto. > These guys aren't talking about it, but they sure as hell are doing it. ## Key takeaway Give people a paying alternative before the crisis hits, and never make them swallow the lecture that comes with it.