Loop Farm - wheat cultivation

We are working on developing a "Loop Farm", a new concept that will be an important step towards industrializing kelp farming in Norway, Europe and the world. "Loop Farm" is a collaborative project in aquaculture between EnergyX, Smart Seaweed Solutions and Lofoten Blue Harvest. No one is currently involved in industrial-scale kelp farming, but several players are working to find solutions. There is hope that this will become a major new industry, and so there is a race to find the best solutions first.

We are confident that we are on the right path to set the standard for kelp cultivation for the future. Today, kelp farming involves a lot of manual labor, which is not economically sustainable. Sugar kelp and butare grow on ropes, and to grow 250 tons of kelp requires almost 50,000 meters of rope, which is laid out in the autumn and brought in manually in the spring.

Our "Loop Farm" will industrialize and streamline the cultivation process by automating the sowing and cutting of the kelp without taking the cultivation rope in at harvest. Our solution will not require follow-up or maintenance during growth; it is a passive process. In addition, you will be able to make use of so-called regrowth after harvesting the main crop, because the cultivation rope remains in the sea and allows the kelp to continue growing after the first harvest.

We are now launching the first "Loop Farm" pilot project in Lofoten in the summer of 2023. When harvesting the kelp, a raft is placed next to the facility and the rope is pulled over the raft where the kelp is cut. Development of modules for sowing kelp spores on the rope, pulling the rope and cutting the kelp is ongoing. The system is scalable so that it is possible to have several plants in one field and thus achieve economies of scale. The goal is to have all modules fully developed by the 2024 harvest season.