Ever wondered what’s happening beneath the surface of an ocean farm? GreenWave just launched a new interactive kelp farm visualization on the Ocean Farming Hub—our free online platform connecting ocean farmers with the tools, training, and community they need to build their farms. A desktop companion to the pilot VR version of this experience, the new visualization offers a simple, up-close look at a single-line array underwater.
Created in partnership with Designori, this experience lets users move above and below the surface and click through key components like anchors, line, knots, and buoys to understand how the system is laid out. It’s designed to help orient new farmers and give a clearer picture of how a farm comes together before taking the next step with the Hub’s Farm Design Tool, where farmers can plan layouts and generate gear lists and budgets based on their site conditions. Check out the Hub and the new farm visualization tool at the link in our bio.
GreenWave is offering free, one-on-one cost-of-production consultations for active kelp farmers and processors in Alaska, made possible by the Alaska Mariculture Cluster.
In partnership with small business coach and financial analyst Chris Janke of Small Business Butter, these sessions help clarify your cost structure, identify savings opportunities, and provide a customized, editable cost-of-production model.
Sign up and learn more at the link in our bio.
This Earth Day, we’re spotlighting our friends at GreenWave and their work supporting kelp and shellfish farms across the country. Bren Smith founded the GreenWave non-profit in 2013 with the mission to scale regenerative seaweeds and build a market for these vital environmental crops.
Last week, Donna and Danny visited Sue Wicks at her farm, Violet Cove Oysters, in Mastic Beach, NY. GreenWave subsidizes the production of her indigenous sugar kelp, which plays a critical role in restoring coastal ecosystems. As it grows, it absorbs excess nitrogen from the water, helping to reduce pollution, improve water quality, and rebalance marine environments. It also acts as a powerful carbon sink and supports biodiversity by creating habitat for marine life.
To help raise awareness this week, we’re featuring Sue’s sugar kelp across our menus.
Featured:
Tuna crudo, sugar kelp, strawberry, yuzu koshu
Cockles, sugar kelp, preserved lemon
“If you're getting paid as a service to offset nutrients, that subsidizes your farm. Then you're more competitive. It’s a service and a product.” — Michael Teasdale, owner of @holdfastnl_seaweed
As momentum around seaweed carbon credits has slowed, a new model is emerging—one grounded in water quality regulations and real-world infrastructure challenges. In Newfoundland, farmers are piloting whether kelp can act as living water infrastructure, creating new revenue streams and a lower-cost pathway for coastal communities facing expensive water treatment upgrades.
Read more about bioremediation and HoldFastNL’s work at the link in bio.
The future of regenerative agriculture may extend beyond the farm.
Rodale Institute is working with @greenwaveorg to explore how regenerative aquaculture can produce nutrient-rich foods while supporting soil health for land farmers.
Kelp and shellfish can improve water quality, absorb carbon, and provide natural inputs that help crops grow stronger - without synthetic fertilizers.
By connecting land and ocean farmers, this research partnership is helping shape a more resilient food system for people and the planet.
🌍 Read the full story on our blog at the link in our bio!
GreenWave is proud to be an environmental partner of the @1percentftp network of organizations committed to a thriving future for our planet. Thanks to a grant from 1% for the Planet partner @OXO , we have expanded access to our online Ocean Farming Hub and are investing in leading farmers to ensure they have the knowledge, infrastructure, and market opportunities needed to grow their farms and the regenerative ocean farming industry. Thank you, OXO!
10 years in, and the kelp industry is at an inflection point.
🌊 Scattered pilots → emerging regional value chains
🧵 Seed supply has strengthened
🚜 Farms can now produce at meaningful volumes
📦 Markets are taking shape
If we act strategically now, we can move beyond fragmented, one-off projects and build a coherent supply chain that operates at true scale.
Our new report, State of the Kelp Industry: A Decade in Review and the Road Ahead, takes stock of where progress has been made, where bottlenecks remain, and what it will take to translate capacity into a durable industry.
📘 Read the report (link in bio)
We’re excited to announce the 2026 Kelp CoLab cohort!
Nine personal care and beauty brands are kicking off this year’s program, collaborating with formulation experts and our partners at @macro_oceans and Unilever Foundry through GreenWave’s R&D program designed to make kelp innovation scalable and shelf-ready.
This year, brands in the cohort are harnessing kelp-derived ingredients to develop the next wave of high-performance, sustainable products.
Our 2026 Kelp CoLab cohort includes:
@credobeauty@kravebeauty@truebotanicals@sonsieskin@elatecosmetics@sea.el@thebarbshop@soapply@projectreefsuncare
This work is now underway, and we’ll be sharing insights as the year unfolds.
Let others build in the cloud
→ Swipe to read Bren's full letter
. . .
With 10 years under our belt, GreenWave has been taking stock of the kelp industry—where we’ve been, and where to head next.
Three big themes stand out.
First, we’ve come far together. North America now has 249 permitted kelp farms covering 6,280 acres—enough to produce tens of millions of pounds of kelp. In 2025, more than 50 nurseries delivered 1.2 million feet of seedstring. Breakthroughs in seed production, farmer-focused subsidies, and a growing network of producer cooperatives are strengthening the foundation for scaled production.
Second, don’t let the speculators take the helm. In 2015, as kelp farming gained national attention, the U.S. Department of Energy poured $22 million into seaweed biofuels and offshore automation. Ventures like Running Tide pre-sold nearly $10 million in blue carbon credits on the promise that millions of “seaweed pucks” could be sunk to the seafloor.
These were bad bets from the start. They treated kelp like a technology problem instead of an agricultural system, ignoring the basic realities of farming and supply chains. Fast forward to 2025: the speculative ventures collapsed, infrastructure remained an afterthought, and millions of dollars that could have supported real seaweed markets evaporated.
Third, markets don’t build themselves. The moonshots promised demand, then vanished when it came time to deliver. By skipping the hard work of aggregation, infrastructure, logistics, and actionable markets, they left behind paper supply chains and pushed risk onto farmers.
GreenWave is stepping into the gap. For the last decade, we focused on scaling supply. Now we’re hell-bent on picking up speculators’ unfinished business and expanding GreenWave’s scope—building durable markets, strengthening midstream infrastructure, developing higher-value products, and turning production into farmer income.
Let others build in the cloud. We’ll be down here building real things for real people.
— Bren
Learn more about supporting our work at greenwave.org/donate.
GreenWave is grateful to the community of people who make our work possible. Thanks to supporters like you, ocean farmers are gaining the tools and partnerships they need to scale production, expand market opportunities, and grow a resilient, regenerative future.
With your help, we’ve been able to:
🌊 Distribute over $2.74 million in grants and subsidies directly to coastal communities across North America since 2021, helping farmers scale their businesses and strengthen regional production capacity.
🧵 Increase access to high-quality seed through nursery cohorts and deploy our first nursery-in-a-box to Kodiak, Alaska.
🛍️ Launch Kelp Innovation CoLab—kicking off in January 2026 with nine brands in the beauty and wellness space—to accelerate the development of kelp-based ingredients for everyday consumer goods.
🌱 Lay the foundation for a thriving domestic kelp biostimulant market to drive economic opportunities for ocean farmers and support soil health and climate resilience on land.
Because of you, regenerative ocean farmers have the resources and partnerships they need to grow, innovate, and build a more resilient future—above and below the surface.
Help ocean farmers chart the next horizon. Learn more at greenwave.org/donate.
Building Real Things for Real People
• • •
This Giving Tuesday, we’re celebrating the community that makes our work possible. Together with farmers, partners, and supporters like you, we’re growing a blue economy built and led by regenerative ocean farmers—one where we can all make a living on a living planet. Thank you for your support.
When the cod fishery collapsed in Newfoundland, 30,000 people lost their livelihoods overnight. Generations of identity, pride, and purpose disappeared in a moment.
When Wall Street hedge funds began owning the ocean, Bren Smith knew something deeper was broken. This wasn’t just about food anymore , it was about belonging. 🌊💔
In this powerful moment, Bren shares how regenerative ocean farming is bringing life back to the sea and to the coastal communities that depend on it. This is more than sustainability. This is healing.
💬 If this resonates, drop PODCAST in the comment.
#EverydayAncestral #EatPluck #OceanFarming #RegenerativeFarming #KelpFarming #ClimateSolutions #SustainableFood #GreenWave #BrenSmith #AncestralLiving #PodcastClip #EcoWisdom
