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.
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.
Amanda Swinimer is a seaweed harvester, author, business owner, and educator who lives and works on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. She began her own business, Dakini Tidal Wilds, in 2003, hand-harvesting wild edible seaweed from the beaches and kelp forests surrounding her home. Swinimer’s unique expertise makes her a sought-after speaker at international conferences, speaking about the ecological importance of seaweeds and the extraordinary health benefits. She has been conducting seaweed workshops and tours as well as teaching young people in the British Columbia school system for years, passing on her rare knowledge and sharing her intensely joyful connection to the ocean with diverse audiences. She holds a BSc in marine biology and is the author of The Science and Spirit of Seaweed: Discovering Food, Medicine and Purpose in the Kelp Forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Avery Resor is the Co-Founder/operator of Daybreak Seaweed Co. where she works with regenerative ocean farmers to bring seaweed into the everyday kitchen. For over 15 years, Avery has worked with farmers from the US to East Africa to bolster productivity, resilience, and food sovereignty. Avery studied marine biology at Duke University Marine Lab and earned a Master of Development Practice from UC Berkeley.
Photo credit: Lucianna McIntosh
Elena Bird is the Program Coordinator for Seaweed Commons and a project manager for Greenhorns. After three years of organic veggie farming, Elena started at the University of Wisconsin in January 2022 as a research assistant in Community and Environmental Sociology and an M.S. candidate in Agroecology. Their research focuses on alternative economies of knowledge and resource sharing in food, land, and, most recently, intertidal systems.
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.