CAR-Y-MOR

Werecently met up with Meg from Câr-Y-Môr, Wales’ first commercial seaweed and shellfish farm. The Welsh name translates to ‘For the Love of the Sea’, and that’s exactly the impression we got from their dedicated team.

During a walk along the stunning Pembrokeshire coastal path with views of Ramsey Island accompanied by Meg's dog Mali, we learned about everything that makes Câr-Y-Môr a successful and growing ocean farm.

They started in 2019 with an idea that sparked from a conversation. Meg had moved down to Pembrokeshire from Abergavenny after she was done with city life from living in London as a dancer. The conversation drew light on the fact that there were no seaweed farms in Wales. The Welsh coastline covers 1,680 miles so there was plenty of opportunity. Driven by this and the current climate crisis, Câr-Y-Môr was born.

Meg shifted her skills and experience into a new area with the help of her dad who’s a shellfish farmer and her mum who has years of experience being an agricultural accountant. Just from our single visit to the farms, we realised that the more you learn about seaweed farming the more potential you can see. It can help with challenges of food systems, health and declining coastal industries.

They started with two 100m test farms off the St Davids peninsula growing different native seaweed and shellfish species. This allowed them to not only learn the technologies involved in the operation of a successful ocean farm but also allowed them to install a much larger farm to begin operating at a commercial scale. This farm is 3 hectares, the equivalent of 2 football fields!

The farms don’t require a huge amount of maintenance to effectively function. The seaweed itself grows off ropes and requires no fertiliser or food to thrive. A fun fact we learned on our visit was that seaweed is the second fastest-growing plant after bamboo!

They are a community benefit society operating a regenerative ocean farm. Their aim is not only to improve the coastal environment but also to improve the well-being of the local community of Pembrokeshire with food security and sustainable job creation.

Their sites have been largely run by volunteers. They currently have over 200 members and 12 paid members of staff who run the day-to-day. By joining the 200 members that are already on board, you would have equal ownership of the business. How it works is that the members each have 1 vote to support the aims and decisions of the business, and the 12 employees are the core team. Interestingly they work with no hierarchy, so everyone's equal and key decisions are made in their weekly team meetings.

Whilst on our visit, we asked Meg about the challenges they face and whether the local community and fishermen have been for or against their new takeover of seafood farming in Pembrokeshire. But with seaweed being an important ecosystem builder, the local fishermen have been completely on board. The new ocean farms have created underwater gardens where plant life thrives which in turn attracts sea life such as crabs and lobsters. A lot of fishermen have actually started fishing close to the location of the farms as they’re catching a lot in those areas.

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