Farmer Cohorts Drive Regional Collaboration and Growth
This season, GreenWave launched new programming to address persistent industry bottlenecks that challenge seasoned farmers in three regions poised for scale: the Kodiak and Cordova regions of Alaska and Casco Bay, Maine. The program aims to develop targeted interventions that empower seed producers, farmers, and processors to coordinate, collaborate, and pool resources—enabling them to scale their operations while laying the foundation for resilient local ocean farming industries.
“We can’t help farmers in a vacuum,” says Lindsay Olsen, GreenWave’s Director of Training and Support. “We need to ensure that every element of the value chain is equitable and robust enough to meet farmers’ needs, allowing the industry to accelerate and thrive.”
GreenWave officially kicked off programming this September in Ketchikan, Alaska. Farmers, nursery operators, and processors participated in in-depth planning discussions, communication strategy exercises, and critical feedback sessions to drive program design for the upcoming season. “We closely evaluated the entire value chain alongside industry practitioners and pinpointed areas where GreenWave could step up its involvement at every stage,” says Lindsay.
Last month, GreenWave was also on-site in Cordova, Alaska to help Noble Ocean Farms prepare and assemble their farm array. A crucial facet of the cohort work, this on-the-ground technical assistance ensures each farm has the support they needed thrive during key periods like outplanting, harvest, and stabilization. GreenWave is also supporting cohorts by sharing learnings from our own seed production and processing work to promote best practices and facilitate replication in these regions.
The cohort model is designed to drive collaboration and resource sharing, with the goal of building the collective strength and resilience of farmers within a specific region. Farmers can join forces and aggregate their kelp supply across multiple farms, helping meet production targets that attract large-scale buyers. Cohort members can also pool resources to drive down costs on everything from farm gear to major investments in seed or processing infrastructure.
In addition to fostering peer-to-peer connectivity, GreenWave’s Market Development team is expanding its role in developing end-to-end supply chains, establishing buyer relationships, and landing sales. “The industry is at a critical inflection point where it needs to move more quickly, so we’re rolling up our sleeves and getting more involved every step of the way," says Sam Garwin, GreenWave’s Director of Market Development. "By working alongside farmers in this way, we hope to accelerate the development of profitable, resilient value chains.”
After the cohort kick-off meeting, farmer representatives from each cohort participated in an “Ask a Kelp Farmer” panel at the 2024 Seagriculture Conference, sharing their expertise and unique regional perspectives on the industry and answering questions from conference attendees. Throughout the season, advanced farmers also engage in GreenWave-hosted virtual workshops and webinars to present their insights and observations and teach beginning practitioners how to scale their own operations. Building on this work, cohort members also weigh in on programmatic design for future mentorship programming, distilling lessons from their cohort work to share it out broadly across our larger farmer network and look towards replicating this type of intensive, big-picture, regionalized support in new areas.
Following the September cohort workshop, farmers expressed renewed excitement in the industry and their work. “Everyone left that room with a clear sense of purpose and a defined path forward,” says Dave Bailey, GreenWave’s Director of Farmer Advancement. As GreenWave builds on this momentum, the organization remains committed to empowering farmers from seed to sale, investing in the long-term sustainability of the regenerative ocean farming industry.