About us
Seaweed Commons seeks to form ecological seaweed coalitions, support and inform public discourse, increase algal literacy, and advocate for an appropriately scaled, just seaweed economy. By providing the public with nuanced and accessible information on the politics, ecology, governance, and economy of marine algae, we aim to promote an open and informed public discourse essential to responsible decision-making and resource management.
Severine Fleming is a farmer, activist, and organizer based in Downeast Maine. She runs Smithereen Farm, a MOFGA certified organic wild blueberry, seaweed, and orchard operation which hosts summer camps, camping, and educational workshops. She is a founder and board member of Agrarian Trust and current director of the Greenhorns, a 15 year old grassroots organization whose mission is to recruit, promote, and support the incoming generation of famers in America. Severine brings her wide circle of allies and learnings from the young farmer's movement.
Lydia Lapporte works with small institutions in the fields of regional publishing, environmental education, Indigenous studies, arts, and commons-based resource use. She studied environmental humanities and studio art in school. Lydia is the administrative and archival force behind Seaweed Commons and runs the Smithereen Farm office.
Smithereen Farm
Following cultural and culinary traditions that stretch back millennia all around the world, we continue to harvest edible algae by hand and bring beach wrack up to fertilize our home gardens. We run a small scale wild-harvest seaweed business together at Smithereen Farm, gently harvesting alaria, sugar kelp, digitata, nori, and sea lettuce and from the wild ocean commons.
We are always seeking others to learn from and with. If you have a lead you think we should be tracking or an article you want us to post, please send it to [email protected]
A project of the Greehorns
For fifteen years, The Greenhorns have focused on cultural infrastructure for the incoming generation of organic farmers and ranchers. Our work has been to support young people entering the sector with education, training, networking, and acculturation into the life-world of the young farmers' movement.
We engage with agroecology, food sovereignty, regional food-system, ecological restoration, traditional and adaptive management practices, cooperative legal structures, open-source farm tool innovations, and more. We produce books, films, media, and projects spanning these topics. www.greenhorns.org
Just as The Greenhorns is concerned with the traditions, health, and future resilience of our agricultural landscapes and the peasants and family farmers who tend these places, so too are we concerned with the communities of the inter-tide and coastal ecology.