Kelp help? How Scotland’s seaweed farmers are aiming to revolutionize what we buy

Indeed, a few minutes ago, as we sped across the Inner Sound between Skye’s second largest settlement, Broadford, apparently the birthplace of Drambuie, and the tiny island of Pabay, it was difficult to make out the farm’s location of seaweed. Eventually, the boat slows as we approach some floats swirling in the water. They are the only visible sign that something is going on here, but below the surface is an underwater network that stretches 500 meters by 200 meters, growing about 8 km of kelp lines. The annual yield of seaweed, Glasgow explains, is now about seven tonnes. “It’s probably the fastest-growing biomass on the planet,” he says. “At this time of year, the peak growing season, it can double its size in a fortnight – so five tonnes of seaweed today will be 10 in a fortnight.”

Photographer Christian Sinibaldi and I are here as part of a trip organized by WWF to focus attention on Scotland’s growing seaweed industry – what it is now and what could be done. This extraordinary piece of water is the starting point: Glasgow and his partners, Martin Welch and Kyla Orr, set up this seaweed farm, KelpCrofters, four years ago. Like many we will meet in the seaweed business, they immigrated here from other industries: Glasgow worked in forestry, Welch in fisheries, Orr in fisheries management. Like others in the business, they say they came to work in seaweed because they want to feel optimistic about the future of the environment – ​​and with seaweed, there’s a lot to be optimistic about.

Most of the past four years, Glasgow says, have been spent adapting machinery and creating mechanisms to allow the seaweed to not only grow, but to be efficiently harvested and transported to shore. Glasgow is a shy 54-year-old with an air of schoolboy adventure about him: there’s a frontier feel to this industry. He spends his days trying to find solutions to problems that arise that no one has ever had to think about before – not in this part of the world anyway.

Seaweed is not a new product in the west of Scotland: in the Hebrides it has been collected on beaches for centuries and is used in everything from soil fertilizers, artisan soaps to glassmaking. In the 19th century it was used for iodine, making the city of Glasgow the world center of its production.

But the difference then was that the seaweed had grown naturally and harvesting was essentially foraging, sometimes up to your chest in water at high tide. KelpCrofters is different: this is seaweed farming, with the potential for industrial-sized yields. The kelp seed lines are “planted” in the fall, allowed to germinate over the winter, and harvested, as we are seeing today, after the peak growing season in May and June. Between planting and harvesting, little input is required.

“Seaweed has everything it needs – no fertilizers, pesticides or soil required. We just let it grow, and as it grows, it also provides a habitat for fish – and it’s cleaning the water of harmful heavy metals,” says Orr.

But here’s the rub with seaweed: no one knows what’s going to happen next. “There’s a catch—we’ve got a lot of it ashore,” says Orr. “We’re focusing now on what happens when we take it out of the water.”

There are all kinds of possible uses for seaweed, from plastic substitutes to beauty products to nutritional supplements and much more besides. The problem is that it’s not clear which way will start in time – and this has all sorts of implications for its development as an industry, starting with: when should seaweed be harvested?

“You bring in the crop earlier if it’s for food use, later if it’s going to be used for fertilizer or packaging,” says Glasgow.

A few miles away in Kyle of Lochalsh, Alison Baker and Jemima Cooper from Eco Cascade are waiting to receive KelpCrofters’ harvest. Baker, who previously ran a plastic-free fashion label, founded Eco Cascade in 2022 to explore ways to take seaweed to its next stage. Initially, she says, the idea was to dry it.