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First Things First by The First Things First Alaska Foundation (FTFAF) is broadcast monthly on KINY on Saturday at 9 a.m. and on KJNO on Sunday at 9 a.m. Each episode explores the balance Alaskans face: protecting our state's rugged beauty and vast wilderness while advocating for sustainable economic growth through responsible natural resource management.
With thousands of jobs lost in the past decades due to restrictive regulations, First Things First raises vital questions about the future of Alaska’s economy. Can we preserve our cherished landscapes, waterways, and wildlife while fostering prosperity for generations to come?
Join FTFAF as we explore essential areas for Southeast Alaska’s growth—highlighting education, advocacy, and smart development.
It's time once again for another First Things First podcast. Dan O hanging out in the chair, but the more important people in front of the microphones in front of me, Don Habinger, he's your executive director of First Things First. And we are talking seafood, and we are talking Mariculture. Mariculture. There we go.
Speaker 1:I love this. Yeah. With the weather outside and everything. It's it's I think it's the perfect thing to talk about.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely. You can see the ocean. It's blue, and it's inviting for all, those that, earn a living from the marine environment.
Speaker 1:And spring's gonna be here eventually.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Across me, I wanna welcome Simon Marks from McKinley Research Group. Simon, welcome to the studio.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Then we got Charlie Harrington. He is part of Southeast Conference and the Alaska Mariculture Cluster.
Speaker 4:Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And then Johnny Antoni is a kelp farmer, which is really cool for Sequester Farms. And he's the president of the Mariculture Innovation Center, which I hope we can bring up at some point in this conversation today.
Speaker 2:That's why he's here. I'd love to talk about it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we'll talk plenty about it.
Speaker 1:So we were thinking, you know, the weather's getting nicer out there. It is time to get back on the ocean again. Let's talk about the seafood industry. Let's talk about miracles you're done. Let's start with the history of it.
Speaker 1:That's how you kind of want to open it today. So first things first, all about economic development, resource development. It all kind of just goes hand in hand.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Dano. Thank you again for opening up the mics for this conversation. I'm really excited about it from the standpoint that Southeast Alaska, in fact, Alaska as a whole has a rich heritage from our ocean environment. Going back to Alaskan natives who've been here forever, they're either using finfish as a resource or getting that kelp. And so we are carrying that tradition even through to today.
Speaker 2:And I've invited these guests here to just talk about their industries and talk, more importantly, about some of the things that are happening well within their industries and those things that might be a challenge. And in the end, we will just talk about things that we can do as a region and a community to support our industries. So with that, let's start with fisheries. So Simon, you are part of a group that just watches economically many
Speaker 5:of
Speaker 2:our industries. Historically, how important has fisheries been for Southeast Alaska from the numbers perspective?
Speaker 3:Historically, especially in Juneau, fisheries have been our second largest private employer for the majority of the time that people have lived here back in the day when it was primarily mining. Fisheries was obviously important, but not up to that same standard as the mines. And then going into today, we see it remains right in that second place spot behind tourism as the, second largest private employer in the state, but also specifically in Juneau.
Speaker 2:So Simon, one of the things we hear about often is that since fisheries have a lot of self employed individuals, it's more difficult to tease out those numbers. Is that an issue, or are we capturing the robustness of the industry?
Speaker 3:The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission does a really great job of keeping track of all permit holders in the state. So that would be those self employed individuals that you're mentioning, the people that own a small troller or own some black cod or halibut quota or a 50 pot Dungeness permit. So we do have really great data and information on historically how many people have participated in the fisheries. It's when you start getting into crew members that it gets a little fuzzier, but it's pretty easy to tell from if you know how many people operated boats, you can get a pretty good understanding of how many people they brought on with them.
Speaker 2:Excellent, so let's take a quick pivot. Mariculture. So I'll start with Charlie. Mariculture from my perspective is relatively new, but we still have a history. Can you just bring us up to date what we're doing here in Southeast with Mariculture?
Speaker 4:You're right. It's a long history of harvesting seaweed, food security, and starts sort of with clam gardens too. The history of our grant though, the Alaska Mariculture Cluster Grant Coalition, probably starts about ten years ago and it's transitioned from an initiative led by the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, AFDF, and that turned into a task force that was with Governor Walker and ultimately Governor Dunleavy. And the groundwork that both of those efforts laid has led to a really strong application for our Alaska Mariculture Cluster, I'll call it AMC grant work. We were awarded a $49,000,000 grant in September 2022 to catalyze viable and sustainable shellfish and seaweed farming industries here throughout Coastal Alaska.
Speaker 4:So not just Southeast, but all the way from Metlaketla to Kodiak along the coast. And Southeast Conference, the regional economic development organization for Southeast Conference is the lead entity for the AMC and we work with partners across the state, including Simon here and his colleagues at McKinley Research. They're our hired economists. So it was really nice to hear when you were advancing this show. Yeah, our friends at McKinley will be along too.
Speaker 2:Call it a brotherhood and sisterhood. As far as ocean resources, we'll say one hand washes the other. How's that? And both are equally important. Now, Johnny, you're a farmer.
Speaker 2:Just a quick overview of how you got into farming and what you're doing today.
Speaker 5:What initially got me into farming was looking at the coastline and seeing the abundance and knowing that for since humans have been alive, we've been using that abundance to evolve. And the power in that is just so, like, enticing. And seeing that it's somewhat unutilized is is hard to see. And so when I found out about kelp farming, was like, that's gotta be the future. That just there's so many resources there that you've really it's hard to escape your eye once you see it.
Speaker 5:And the amount of different species that you can farm at a single time just increases that resource, increases that food security to the point in which you can make a business about it, and you can make you can increase the food security of your area.
Speaker 2:Is kelp good tasting? I have to ask that.
Speaker 5:It really kinda depends on how you cook it.
Speaker 2:Okay. How do you cook kelp?
Speaker 5:Yeah. Well, we I like to cut some of my salmon burger with kelp to increase the nutrient profile as well as it acts as a natural binder, and so I don't even need to add an egg to it, and I can just make a kelp and salmon burger. That's pretty delicious. As well as kelp by itself, if you, go ahead and blanch the kelp and then quench it, you gotta cool it down, And then you can make seaweed salads out of it, as well as add it to any sort of chili. That's probably one of my other favorite ways to use it.
Speaker 5:It adds an umami flavor that is really you can't find anywhere else. And Barnacle Foods is doing great
Speaker 3:work Yeah.
Speaker 5:They are. Make sure that that's apparent.
Speaker 2:Well, the only thing I really know about kelp before this show, because I did do some studying of it, is I was looking for a thickening agent for a secret formula that I do for fishing. In other words, my fish attractant for salmon here. And I know that some products use petroleum jelly and I wasn't going to use petroleum jelly and I did enough research to know that Johnny, you can provide me with a thickener for that secret formula because brown algae or kelp has a thickening agent apparently within the structure.
Speaker 5:There's an incredible amount of uses for kelp, and one of them is definitely the thickening agent, as well as, I mean, it's nutrient profile, carbohydrates, it's pigments, iodine. An And interesting fact about kelp is that people are working on ways to bio mine with kelp because it uptakes the nutrients in the surrounding area. And so if it's an area has a high concentration of a certain metal, the kelp will take it up, and then they can actually, they're working on it. I don't know if it's actual industry yet, we'll say that, but it's feasible in that context, and I'm working on developing it.
Speaker 2:I wanna take a pivot and kinda talk about more recent times. And Simon, I'm gonna direct this question to you. But if you look at some of our current data, whether it's employment, whether it's catch, total catch, it seems like we're off the bubble, and we might even be in stress for the fisheries. Are those impressions correct? Or what can you add to our current data?
Speaker 3:One thing, especially when it comes to employment, is we have seen a downturn in total participation in the fisheries across the board, especially over the past ten to fifteen years. It becomes very apparent that there are more people exiting the fisheries than there are entering, which today is being compounded by increased barrier to entries, increased price of operations, and fewer and fewer younger people entering the fisheries with the goal of making that a career. So it is safe to say that, especially on the employment front, we have seen a downturn there. When it comes to overall harvest, it really is a species by species matter. Halibut is a pretty clear example of one where it has been in decline for ten to fifteen year period, and that is regulated by the International Pacific Halibut Committee, and allocations are split between all the Western states, British Columbia, and other regions.
Speaker 3:And that has made it harder for that fishery to continue in the way that it did, say, twenty years ago. Sablefish is another example where we've seen pretty stable total harvests in terms of volume, but consumer preferences lean towards larger fish. And in the past few years, we've seen a really large age class of smaller fish. So while fishermen are still able to harvest their quota, the market isn't necessarily reflective of what they would like to be getting paid for that product.
Speaker 2:So Simon, another question for you. Some of the things you said prompted this. In getting ready for the program, I noticed that in 2020 or COVID, it seemed like we had price drops and other issues due to supply, oversupply I should say. Anything you can add about that time period and what that means to our Southeast fisheries.
Speaker 3:As we all know, COVID really shook up everything, especially if you were working in a commodity market where shipping was required. We did see some pretty drastic price changes during that period. I think at this point in time, we're far enough out from that event that most things have returned back to relative normalcy. We still see higher operational costs than we did pre COVID. Fuel prices right now are up once again.
Speaker 3:Insurance costs went up. We saw a lot of processors increase their overhead during that time to deal with safety screenings for employees to make sure that proper protocols were being followed within the processors. So things did change quite a bit at that point, but we have returned back to a time of relative normalcy, especially when it comes to that shipment of Alaska product.
Speaker 2:That's good news. And Charlie, I'm gonna give this one to you. It seems like just food processes out of mariculture isn't always the case. It has more applicability than that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, bio mining's one example of a very exploratory market that could develop at some point, but our grant isn't focused on that. We're focused on a lot of investment in agricultural markets, food markets, human health and cosmetic markets. Some examples of that would be a biostimulant product. It's much like a fertilizer. NPK fertilizers, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium fertilizer, very expensive.
Speaker 4:We have a lot of studies funded that are showing that if you spray a seaweed extract product onto your farm fields and crops, you don't have to spend as much on NPK fertilizers. That is becoming a desirable product that helps save people real money. So there's some companies out there. There's one company in Ketchikan called Pacific Help Company we're working with on some research and development projects. There's a large company in British Columbia, Canada, Cascadia seaweed, those are large purchasers of seaweed in more bulk formats.
Speaker 4:And the cosmetics is also a very interesting one. You mentioned binding qualities and I'm sure Johnny could get into it a little bit more than me on the science there, but there's a lot of great applications for seaweed.
Speaker 2:Are we at the forefront here in Southeast in the marketplace? And are we able to meet demand or is there a lot of opportunity for growth here? Maybe you, Johnny.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll start real quick and pass it over to Johnny. We're We at the forefront for North American, I'd say. I think Maine sort of has a head start in in some some ways. But Alaska, this grant has really put us in a position of to compete. But we're so small in the global perspective.
Speaker 4:We're like less than 1% of global seaweed harvest. East Asian countries, Korea, China, Japan, they're producing vast amounts of seaweed for food and for cosmetic markets like makeup and sunscreen and things you have at home in your bathroom mirror. Those have seaweed in it. And it's hard for Alaska to compete at those volume price points because they're just growing so much of it. So our grant's focused on more premium and higher unit price applications and things, you know.
Speaker 4:They're not shipping a liquid seaweed across the Pacific Ocean to us. We can use that here and have better margins. So that's where our focus is, at least on seaweed. And half our grand is about shellfish too, so oyster farming as well, which is a really popular one.
Speaker 2:So I guess that does lead over to Johnny. Who are customers for the Alaska Mariculture or seaweed products?
Speaker 5:So currently, for our farm, we have two main customers, food and the other biostimulant. And yeah, we'd love to open that up to more customers, but currently the price point is best in those two areas.
Speaker 2:So now another question. I know from growing up in the Midwest, if you wanna grow a crop, you till your land. How do you till ocean bed to grow more crop?
Speaker 5:Yeah, this is a fun one. So, the big difference between terrestrial farming and ocean farming is the dirt is the water when you're ocean farming. And so, the tides do all the tilling for you.
Speaker 1:Fascinating. Did not know that. Okay,
Speaker 2:so your labor costs are down, is that what I'm hearing?
Speaker 5:Well, not quite. I mean, lot of terrestrial farmers don't really have to deal with the wind, the waves and the short weather windows and short days and huge tides and currents and all the fun stuff Alaska likes to do to gear in the water.
Speaker 1:So, what goes into picking out a good spot to do that then? Because I imagine those weather factors all have to kind of play into that, right?
Speaker 5:Definitely. You don't wanna pick up a spot that's too far away from where your base is. Because if you, you know, weather can change pretty quickly here and if you're not on it, you might get stuck in a spot you don't wanna be stuck at. That's one concern. Another is like, is seaweed gonna grow in your area?
Speaker 5:And there's a lot of different types of seaweed that grow in different types of areas. And so generally, you go to an area where your type of seaweed grows, or the multitude of species that you wanna grow grows, and you find a spot in that area.
Speaker 2:So, Charlie, thinking more about the future, what is the growth in your industry and maybe broadly, how is your grant helping Southeast Alaska?
Speaker 4:We're seeing growth in both sectors in seaweed and shellfish. And we're seeing a lot of new permit applications particularly here in Southeast. Metlaketla, I think has like nine or 10 seaweed farm permits in the pipeline with Alaska Fish and Game, which is really exciting to see. And from a number standpoint, the most seaweed that was ever harvested in a year, I believe was 2022 and it was around 850,000 pounds, which is a blip in the global scheme of seaweed harvest. And at the time, there weren't very many buyers slated to purchase that.
Speaker 4:It was grown for research research purposes and a lot of it was just sunk. But then we went into a dip where I think last year we grew around less than 200,000 pounds because farmers were waiting for markets to development. Well, this year we're expecting to grow right near that 800,000 pounds mark again. And and this is all numbers we validated through our work with McKinley Research and and Simon's colleague, Sam Friedman. So we're excited to see that buyers are coming to the table.
Speaker 4:Things are still fluid, obviously, in this nascent industry. And from the oyster side of things, we are seeing some new permits come on. In Southeast, there is a large large oyster farm growing or selling I believe a million oysters a year. They're well on pace that they didn't exist three years ago. It's a huge investment outside of Craig.
Speaker 4:That's a Sea Grove oysters. And there's also great mom and pop family oyster farms. A lot of them in Prince Of Wales in Southern Southeast and in Juneau, we have an oyster farm, Salty Lady Seafood. And some new oyster farms that are coming up in in Sitka, I believe two more. So there's a big growth trajectory, particularly in the shellfish side of things with oysters and new people coming online.
Speaker 4:And a lot of them have past experience in commercial fishing. So it just shows that Alaskans have maritime knowledge, maritime infrastructure. We know how to work boats. We know what the ocean's like. We know how to do it safe.
Speaker 4:And oysters in particular, there's a developed market there. People wanna buy a dozen Alaskan oysters when they're at an oyster bar in Phoenix, Arizona, Washington, wherever you are. We stand out in the marketplace.
Speaker 2:So that kinda leads me over back to Simon. And we just began the part of the conversation that talks about our future. You mentioned earlier that we are returning, we're getting past COVID and returning sort of to our traditional fisheries marketplace employment, those can well, maybe not employment. But what can you say about our our one, two, three, four year future? Anything from the numbers that you're seeing?
Speaker 3:It's hard to make predictions that far out, especially looking at international markets, which is where the majority of Alaska seafood ends up. But piggybacking on something Charlie just said, if you put that word Alaska in front of a seafood product, you gain a lot of market recognition right off the bat. There's something that just having that word in our back pockets to use on menus or in grocery stores is something that no other producer in North America or worldwide really has when it comes to their seafood product. Oysters, kelp, salmon, halibut. If you can put that Alaska marketing label right in front there, that will always be a benefit to the seafood products coming out of our state.
Speaker 3:Like I said, it's hard to predict exactly where markets are gonna go over the next three to five years. We do feel relatively strongly about the majority of our fisheries. We've obviously, it's a wild resource, so year to year things can change. We saw that massive Bering Sea Tanner crab or snow crab collapse a number of years ago. We only started reharvesting Red King crab statewide a couple years ago.
Speaker 3:So things are fluid across the fisheries, but we have, I think, largely recovered from that hit that we took during COVID, and are back on steadier track than we were for a couple years there.
Speaker 2:This might be a question for both Mariculture and the fisheries. But one of the things that I had a discussion with a colleague getting ready for the program is that they would love to sell their operation to a young spry and get them involved in taking over their business. We see the aging of Southeast Alaska. Is either industry working on any kind of program to help the young spry get involved in our businesses?
Speaker 5:At Sequester Farms, we have a number of interns every year that we're really excited about, and they're actually developing an apprentice program to grow more farmers. And we'll have hopefully a candidate for next year, who is actually an indigenous young man and woman that are local to Juneau. We're kind of excited to have him on.
Speaker 2:That is exciting. If others listening to the program want to find out more about becoming a kelp farmer, for example, how do they go about doing that, Johnny?
Speaker 5:They can reach out to us directly, but I would say the best resources that they could find would be from Sea Grant, Alaska Sea Grant, or Green Wave. Actually, that's how I got involved in kelp farming. I joined a Green Wave workshop, and learned a lot and was able to develop the confidence to get into it.
Speaker 2:So let me ask, it sounds like it's relative, well, Charlie says it's a relative new industry for Alaska. There are always growing pains when you're starting something new, Johnny. What are some of those growing pains and how have you overcome them? Or maybe you haven't yet, that could be a problem. How are you going to approach those issues?
Speaker 5:Great question. Definitely still figuring that one out. I think that farming is inherently tough because you're cyclical. You put all your eggs in the basket and you hope they all hatch. And so the lessons you learn come once a year, and they come pretty heavy.
Speaker 5:And, we've learned a lot of lessons that we learn less over time because not every time we do it perfectly. But in addition to that, the hardest thing to do, as a kelp farmer at this point is to get to sustainability. And to do that, not only do you have to have consistent growth, but consistent markets. You have to be able to meet those markets. And we're we're doing that now, and it does take a lot of extra effort make sure that we're reaching it.
Speaker 5:There's a there's a a hasteness, that, you embody when your out planting doesn't go perfectly, and that then throughout the winter, you're going whenever you can in these short weather windows to make sure that you have enough kelp for to meet your markets with a large amount of, we'll say, spec kelp or spec products when actually it's just a insurance that everything will grow and that everything can be harvested. And then when it comes down to harvesting, we're still learning how to harvest quick enough for markets and how to package everything. And so at this point in time, there's loss at every angle of it, but we're overcompensating as much as we possibly can. And we've been doing a great job at that. It's just an incredible amount of work.
Speaker 1:Growing pains for many young business that's up and coming, you know?
Speaker 2:Well, absolutely. Now I have another question. How long does it take from seed to harvest for a kelp plant? Maybe they're not seeds, I don't know.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, it's funny because we I wouldn't say that we Yeah, they're considered algae. But but we'll we'll call them sea vegetables because I think that's the terminology everyone wants to use. It's not set in stone as far as when you plant to when you should harvest. We have planted as late as February and had a large harvest in the spring. And so, generally, you harvest in the spring beginning in May, May, early June to late June sometimes depending on the the temperature cycle.
Speaker 5:This current temperature cycle leads me to believe that we'll probably harvesting until late June just because it's been so cold in Juneau for so long. We have outplanted as early as November, and, you get better growth if you outplant earlier, although, you're exposed to a lot more weather. And so seed can fall off the line if, you know, 14 footers roll through your farm. And so there's, you know, it's still up for debate. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Got it. Going back to Charlie. Charlie, certainly your grant, 49,000,000, you mentioned is an excellent infusion of capital into kind of this new business. So looking at the near future, those kinds of things, What can communities do or region, Southeast Alaska, do to support your efforts, Southeast Conference efforts and help this industry grow?
Speaker 4:Think we should all buy more oysters.
Speaker 2:I'm down. Whether
Speaker 4:or not at a restaurant, a lot of our oyster farmers in Southeast, you can buy it right from their website, you can give them a call, you can have a bunch of friends over your house and buy 10 dozen oysters. They'll ship it to you via Alaska seaplanes or you can get them right here in Juneau at Jerry's from Salty Lady, I think, stocks over at Jerry's. So first and foremost, buy more oysters and tell all your friends about them. And then I think just, you know, be aware that this is a tremendous opportunity for families in Juneau to supplement their income if they're Johnny's a commercial fisherman. I think Simon's been a commercial fisherman at times.
Speaker 4:The scheduling of this sort of lines up. So you, Johnny, you're probably gonna go salmon fishing later in the summer right after you harvest your farm. So it's a complementary industry that people can get involved in. A part of the gig economy. So if people are looking for extra money, I'm sure Johnny would like to pay you to come out and help haul some seaweed.
Speaker 4:He's always asking me.
Speaker 2:Way to go, Charlie. You do it.
Speaker 4:And yeah, I think we're gonna have some sort of presence at the Juno Maritime Festival. So if you wanna come and learn more, we'll be there. It's an exciting time. There's a lot of room out there on the coastline and we have lots of room for everyone to share.
Speaker 2:Well, have the biggest coastline of all the all 50 states, so we got that. Last to you, Simon, sort of the same question from a numbers perspective. And I realize that's your view playing here. What can we do as communities to support our fisheries?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like Charlie said, fisheries and mariculture are really complementary industries. One of the biggest things that we just need to continue doing is encouraging young people in Alaska to participate and get into these industries. I had the privilege of joining for the Sea Grant Alaska Young Fisherman Summit a few months ago, and it's this great organization that brings in young people from around the state who want to enter into the fisheries, but don't necessarily have the tools to do so. And more and more often, we need to be promoting entering into the fisheries as a viable career path versus a financial burden.
Speaker 2:Are there any programs out there that would help a young individual buy into a business? Charlie?
Speaker 4:Well, before I put my hand up, you know, I didn't know about buying into the business, but
Speaker 2:Well, there you go. Answer it as best you can.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's different entry points. And we have a revolving loan fund component to our grant designed to help capitalize new farms and expand existing farms because traditional financing is largely hard to attain for mariculture businesses because the industry is so nascent. It's more clear cut with shellfish farming, but Johnny, for instance, this is a good thing for him. And then, yeah, have a lot of Grant has a big workforce development component. So if you're interested in learning just a little bit more about what it is, there's workshops, like three credit courses provided through the University of Alaska Southeast, the Sitka campus, it's virtual.
Speaker 4:One of my coworkers is taking it. It's like a couple hours a week and she's learning all sorts of things. And Simon's also mentioned Sea Grant, There's the Alaska Mariculture Alliance, the Alaska Mariculture Research and Training Center. Lots of great YouTube videos out there to to learn more about it. And our grant is also partnered with Spruce Root, and we have a ton of business development resources through them.
Speaker 5:If you haven't had an Alaskan oyster, I encourage you to try one just because Alaska's waters are really cold and so the oysters don't reproduce. They put all that energy into developing a larger oyster meat. And it's thicker, it's better, it's amazing. I didn't really like oysters until I had an Alaskan oyster.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that, Charlie. Simon, thank you for that. And Johnny, thank you for informing Juneau in Southeast Alaska about our ocean resource industry.
Speaker 1:Well Don, we always have to do the recap before we go. If people want to stay informed, get involved, really focus on what First Things First is all about when it comes to economic development and resource development, we reflected a lot on that today when it comes to the mariculture industry here in Juneau and the seafood industry. Don, where do people go to get involved with First Things First?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, the best place is our website. So it's FTF AK Foundation, spelledout,foundationspelledout,.org. And by the way, you can always listen to our podcasts on our website. So any of them that we've had for the last two years, Dano, is on there.
Speaker 1:And remember, you can always download any episode you've ever heard of First Things First on their website or over at kinyradio.com.