Good For Maine
Positive Social Impact for Local Jobs and the Maine Community
Maine’s iconic lobster industry is a staple of the state’s economy. But warming ocean waters are causing lobsters and many other fish stocks to migrate to new breeding grounds, jeopardizing the livelihoods of coastal and island communities up and down the coast. Seaweed farming is a sustainable way to mitigate that risk. We partner with fisherwomen and lobstermen to help them start kelp farms - which grow countercyclically to the fishing season - as a means of diversifying their income. They use seaweed from our nursery and all of the equipment they already have. Best of all, seaweed farming allows them to stay on the water doing what they love, and for Maine’s coastal communities to thrive.
Seaweed’s social impact doesn’t stop on the water either. Ocean’s Balance has employed dozens of full-time, part-time, and contractual employees in and around the state of Maine as we expand our cultivation, farming, processing and distribution. Our industrial dehydrator – which can dry up to 30,000 lbs of seaweed per day - will enable the state’s seaweed industry to triple its output resulting in the creation of more jobs on and off the water. Read more about how we process seaweed here.