Kelson Marine and collaborators sample kelp grown on an open-ocean seaweed farm. Credit: Toby Dewhurst
A new modeling tool helps kelp farmers uncover major cost-saving strategies by analyzing real-world conditions and farm designs.
Farming kelp for use in foods, beauty items, fertilizer additives and other products is becoming an increasingly important industry in Maine, but it remains expensive to run. New growers often struggle because they lack cost-analysis tools that can guide them in lowering expenses and building stable, long-term business plans.
To address this challenge, researchers at Kelson Marine in Portland, Maine and the University of Maine created a tool that gives kelp farmers detailed economic evaluations while highlighting ways to make seaweed production more affordable. The tool factors in variations in site location, weather conditions, crop size and many other situation-specific elements. It is designed for both nearshore and offshore operations, including large farms in the Gulf of Maine that operate in areas fully exposed to nor-easter driven waves.
“By using this tool to investigate the comprehensive implications of any given farm design or operational decision, we can help kelp farmers meaningfully reduce production costs and achieve economic sustainability,” said project lead Zach Moscicki, ocean engineer with Kelson Marine. “The tool allows us to carefully navigate the multitude of tradeoffs associated with any such decision and avoid leaning into overly narrow-scoped improvements that may reduce costs in one way, but increase costs or reduce production via some other indirect but connected pathway.”
Comprehensive Modeling for Real-World Decisions
The tool brings together a wide range of details from a kelp farming operation, such as local ocean and weather conditions, crop traits and growth patterns for different species, the types and sizes of workboats involved, labor arrangements, operational technologies, available shore-side facilities, maintenance timelines, and other key elements.
By capturing how all of these factors influence overall costs and the tradeoffs linked to particular design or operational choices, the tool offers a clearer understanding of potential cost-saving options. These may involve processing or storing kelp directly on the vessel, or adopting equipment that can speed up different stages of the farming process.
To test the tool, researchers used it to analyze the production costs of a hypothetical sugar kelp farming operation occupying 1000 acres, located about 12 miles from shore at a site with a water depth of 330 feet. Several scenarios, including multiple farm designs and operational models, were evaluated to understand the inherent impacts on farming at such a site.
The tool predicted that operating a kelp farm that is simply designed for low structural costs and high production volume would cost $2618 per tonne of fresh kelp. However, by testing design and operational decisions via the tool, the team was able to identify significant improvements that, when combined, reduced the cost of production by 85% to $383 per tonne of fresh kelp. These improvements included deeper cultivation lines, mechanized harvest and seeding operations, processing the kelp on-site into a slurry, optimizing vessel sizes, and selecting different vessels.
Advancing Maine’s Blue Economy
This tool is the latest example of how UMaine students and faculty are preserving and propelling the state’s blue economy, industries that use ocean resources for economic growth without jeopardizing the environment.
Through innovation and workforce development, the university broadens insight into ecological and socioeconomic changes that affect the state’s coastal communities and businesses. Its faculty and students are also exploring opportunities for new sectors and markets.
“What is exciting about this new model is that it is the most comprehensive and detailed cost analysis of offshore kelp growth in the U.S. to date,” said Damian Brady, professor of marine sciences at UMaine. “And this type of analysis helps us find pain points where investments in technology can rapidly change the cost-benefit analysis.”
Reference: “Comprehensive quantification of production costs for large-scale kelp aquaculture and cost reduction opportunities” by Zachary Moscicki, Adam T. St. Gelais, Struan Coleman, Alexander Kinley, Tobias Dewhurst, Scott Lindell, David W. Fredriksson and Damian C. Brady, 20 October 2025, Algal Research.
DOI: 10.1016/j.algal.2025.104383
Kelp farmers in Maine and beyond who are interested in receiving analyses from this tool can contact Moscicki at z.moscicki@kelsonmarine.com.
The team from Kelson Marine and UMaine was supported by scientists from the University of New Hampshire, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Vertical Bay Maine.
This work was supported with funding from Conscience Bay Research, The Builders Initiative and Fiscal Year 2024 Congressionally Directed Spending secured by U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Angus King through the U.S. Small Business Administration. Structural analysis tools developed and validated under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources (ARPA-e MARINER) program were applied in this study.
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