Press
We’re proud of our work, and we’re honored when the public takes notice. Here are a few things people are saying about Smithereen Farm.
with Mike of Dickinson Reach Yurts, September 2023
“What I’m here for is to encourage people to use their hands and to make things. We’ve created this yurt sauna that is going to be here after we’re gone, but we came together and we made it. We had this shared experience of being here together for this week. It’s a whole gamut of experience levels, but we all come together as people.”
Farmerama Podcast #81, September 2023
“There’s a lot of demand for algae in the world markets. As a community we have a lot that we learn from each other, and to encourage each other to participate in the rule making has become a big driving force. So why does the seaweed commons continue to exist? Well, it’s to help facilitate greater stakeholder involvement in the administration of the public trust.”
One Fish Foundation, September 2023
“I live in Maine, which produces about 85% of the country’s seaweed. We have a vibrant kelp and bivalve aquaculture community here largely populated by small-scale producers that work directly with customers or local distributors, bolstering the local economy. Their small sea farms generally have an ecologically positive or net-neutral impact on surrounding marine ecosystems because what they grow already lives in harmony with those ecosystems.”
Food and Environment Reporting Network and National Geographic, June 2023
“Seaweed farming is being hyped as a major weapon in the fight against climate change. But skeptics say the rush to build industrial-scale operations risks unintended consequences…
[Severine] Welcome got her start building a movement of young farmers before becoming enraptured by seaweed, “beings that haven’t been corralled, that haven’t been weeded or bred or contained or plowed up,” she said.”
Downeast Magazine, May 2023
Mainers have increasingly come to appreciate humble alewives as wildlife, as a charismatic species worthy of observing and photographing and celebrating. They’re all over our Instagram feeds in May, schooled up in surreal shimmering masses or clutched in the talons of ospreys. They’re on T-shirts commemorating a growing number of community jubilees, including […] Pembroke’s Pennamaquan Alewife Festival, which had its inaugural outing last summer.
Portland Press Herald, December 2022
Seaweed farmer and activist Severine Fleming of Smithereen Farm in Pembroke, one of five principal authors of the paper, said Seaweed Commons fears that major seaweed aquaculture corporations, lured by the promise of big profits in the years to come, will swoop in to commandeer large swaths of Maine’s coastline.
Commentary: Aquaculture is fine, but corporate interests are pushing too far
Severine von Tscharner Fleming, Portland Press Herald, February 2022
“Yes, Maine’s cold water, abundant forests of rockweed and talented workforce make it a great place for seaweed aquaculture, but that does not mean that a “corporate roadmap” of headlong aquaculture intensification is in the best interest of the state or our marine ecology. […]
We must urgently act to protect the livelihoods and regulatory frameworks that support sustainable stewardship of our coastline, our shared waters, local businesses and our seaweed commons. If that means taking the reins back from corporate lobbying efforts – so be it.”
Edible Maine, December 1, 2021
“Since it is counterproductive to scare the hell out of students without giving them a glimmer of hope on how we might remedy the situation, I also mention Maine’s bans on plastic grocery bags, polystyrene foam food packaging, and mass balloon releases. And I tell them inspiring stories about innovative Mainers devising other ways to stem the flow of plastics into the Gulf of Maine.
Take Abby Barrows and Severine von Tscharner Fleming, for example. These two Downeast aquaculturists are testing plastic-free materials for use in their oyster and kelp operations.”
National Fisherman, November 10, 2021
“Professor Carol Dickson, in collaboration with Smithereen Farm in Pembroke, Maine, brought 10 students to the Cobscook Bay region, where they visited a lobster pound in Lubec, went mackerel fishing with me, and met young fishermen Elijah Brice and Asher Molyneaux for an in-depth discussion of what promise the fishing industry holds for future generations.”
Bangor Daily News, October 21, 2020
“This time of year, migrating shorebirds eating arthropods from the seaweed have flown off to their wintering grounds, so from a sharing-the-habitat perspective, this is a good time [to collect seaweed for the garden],” said Severine von Tscharner Fleming, an organic farmer.
DownEast Magazine, September, 2021
“Stonington’s Abby Barrows dialed back a globetrotting research career to take over an oyster farm in her hometown. Now, she’s out to refashion the equipment of her new profession, to keep Maine’s booming aquaculture sector from fouling the waters it relies upon.”
With help from Greenhorns and Smithereen Farm.
Business Insider, December 3, 2020
“I think when you visit sites like Smithereen Farm and you see, wow, they’re able to grow food, they’re able to support these jobs, and support their local town’s economy, and they’re creating a habitat for pollinators — to me, that’s kind of the magic. That’s where we start to show people what the future can look like.”
Post Carbon Institute, October 2020
What Could Possibly Go Right? Conversations with Cultural Scouts, Hosted by Vicki Robin
Business Insider, December 3, 2020
“In the fight to reduce ocean plastics, an unlikely new combatant has been enlisted: fungi.”
Downeast Magazine, 2020
“She named it Smithereen Farm, planted 125 apple, pear, plum, and nut trees, and, last summer, began holding Greenhorns workshops there. This year’s topics: seaweed, cider, yurt building, and more. She also bought the abandoned Odd Fellows Hall in town and fixed it up enough to host concerts and show films (a tech-savvy local pastor wired surround sound for her).