BCBusiness

22 BCBUSINESS JULY/AUGUST 2017 YOU'RE building THE FUTURE. We're here to help. Oyen Wiggs Green & Mutala LLP INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWYERS patentable.com rmif.ca Our fund's performance speaks for itself... Terms and conditions apply 10 year average yield: 9.41%* Lowest yield since inception (1984): 7.00%* 1 year yield: 9.28%* 1.800.587.2161 Ext.115 they want this stu, and it goes for a good price," says Druehl, who still runs his one-acre farm but mostly harvests wild kelp to meet demand. "We can't pretend to keep up." Despite rising interest, Druehl's operation remains the only such commercial venture in B.C. The vast majority of kelp is still produced in Asia, where demand is highest. But that may not be the case for long. Stephen Cross, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada industrial research chair for colleges in sustain- able aquaculture at North Island College in Courtenay, sees kelp farming as a potential new industry for the province —one that could yield economic and environmental bene†ts. "We've got a huge opportunity here," Cross says. "We've got thousands of kilometres of coastline, and we're already one of the richest areas, in terms of seaweed diversity, in all of the temperate regions of the world." Cross is leading a $1-million pilot study, now in its third year, exploring the viability of growing kelp alongside †sh farms. The idea behind the study, which is being done with the BC Salmon Farmers Association: excess nutrients from a †sh farm could act as a fertil- izer for kelp, supercharging the plant's growth. In turn, kelp can absorb much of a farm's waste, not to mention sucking up planet-warming carbon dioxide. In 2015, Cross's team hung ropes seeded with baby kelp from buoys at a †sh farm near To†no and measured the L ouis Druehl started farming kelp back in 1982, in the aptly named Kelp Bay, just west of Port Alberni. His was the †rst and, at the time, only commercial seaweed opera- tion in North America. Druehl farmed a one-acre patch of ocean, using ropes seeded with kelp, and sold his produce to a handful of health food stores keen on the plant's nutritional bene†ts. "It's thought to be a powerful antioxidant, and some people back then thought it caused weight loss, but I don't know about that," says the 80-year-old, who taught marine botany at SFU and now lives in Bam†eld on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. Much has changed since the early '80s. Kelp, which is part of the seaweed family, is now considered a superfood— rich in iodine and several vitamins— and demand is soaring. ("Kelp is the new kale" is a popular slogan among seaweed farmers.) As of 2014, the global seaweed harvest had an estimated value of US$6.4 billion a year, and commercial production had more than doubled over the previous decade. Today seaweed is used in everything from ice cream to cosmetics to animal feed. Druehl now sells to some of the top restaurants in the province, including Tojo's and Fairmont Hotel Vancou- ver's Notch8 Restaurant & Bar, partly spurred on by the locavore movement. He also supplies To†no Brewing Co. for its kelp stout and retails packaged kelp products on his Canadian Kelp website. "The chefs are calling up, and Kelp Wanted B.C. could help meet growing global demand for the seaweed strain—while helping salmon farms clean up their act by Brad Badelt AQUACULTURE EMERALD FOREST Wild kelp off the Pacific coast US$22.13 BILLION Projected value of commercial seaweed market by 2024 27 MILLION Tonnes of sea- weed farmed annually in 2013 99% Asia's share of farmed seaweed production OCTOPUS'S GARDEN SOURCES: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYCOLOGY; FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS;

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