Chopin Coastal Health Solutions Inc.

Seaweeds (macroalgae) form an important marine resource used as food and for a myriad of applications ranging from pharmaceuticals to cosmetic industries. India’s potential in seaweed business is estimated to be over one million tons (dry weight) annually that could employ up to 0.2 million fishers, while this potential has yet to be fully explored. The Government of India has earmarked over 90 million USD for promoting seaweed cultivation under the PMMSY Project, the flagsh...ip fisheries and aquaculture project conceptualized and implemented in the next five years. To further promote seaweed farming, the Department of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying; LINAC-National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) from India, and the Network for the Development of Agricultural Cooperatives in Asia and The Pacific (NEDAC) in Bangkok (Thailand), are jointly organizing an international webinar entitled Entrepreneurship Development on Seaweed Business by Cooperatives on Thursday, January 28, 2021, at 10:30 (Indian standard time) through the Zoom platform. I will be one of the invited speakers and give a presentation entitled Seaweeds: a key component of Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) providing important ecosystem services, which should be valued at 1:23 am (Canadian Atlantic time) aah, these virtual conferences and their crazy schedules! I already made the Daily Pioneer from New Dehli! Registration is free at: https://webinar.ncdc.in. The meeting link will be sent to the registered participants. See more

Wearing one of my marine-theme masks while teaching to the students of the New Brunswick Community College Culinary Program in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, on January 15. Always in fashion! Thanks Kathy! (Thanks Andrew Sutton, from CHCO-TV, for these wonderful pictures)

Pleased to have been invited to talk today about the challenges and opportunities of moving Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) offshore at the Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Workshop organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire.

Yesterday was the initial phase of a project between Magellan Aqua Farms Inc., Chopin Coastal Health Solutions Inc., and the New Brunswick Community College Cul...inary Program in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. We are working with the twelve 2nd year students, and the two instructors and Chefs of the program, Darren Dorcas and Dave Irvin, to create recipes and develop products with our locally produced kelps (just 9.2 km away). Steve Backman gave a presentation on The culinary mysteries of seaweeds and I gave one on Seaweeds: an underappreciated group of marine organisms despite being the most cultivated in the sea and having amazingly diverse properties useful for many applications. Renowned Chef Chris Aerni (Chef and Owner of the Rossmount Inn Hotel Restaurant & Bar, also just a few kilometers away) will be on hand during the term. Vicki Hogarth, and her crew from CHCO-TV, will document the evolution of the project, culminating in a few months with a Young Chef Kelp Superfood Competition and, hopefully, the next phase of product development. We have already tasted some kelp bread and an amazing blueberry kelp jam, that makes you want to hang out on the beach near the blueberry fields forever! The project is supported by NRC-IRAP (thanks Tim Jackson for your assistance in this innovative initiative). See more

Georges Pernoud, the person at the helm of "Thalassa, le magazine de la mer" left us for other horizons yesterday... His wonderful TV show, for more than 40 years, was dedicated to the sea and the people of the sea. I very much enjoyed all the trips we took with him and his talented crew, what he made us discover, always in a manner very accessible to the general public, and his pioneered ecological/sustainable approach way before many jumped on the bandschooner (the bandwago...n!). Certainly, un grand Monsieur. My condolences to his family and his Thalassa family. Georges Pernoud, la personne à la tête de "Thalassa, le magazine de la mer" nous a quittés hier pour d'autres horizons ... Sa merveilleuse émission télévisée, pendant plus de 40 ans, était consacrée à la mer et aux gens de mer. J'ai beaucoup apprécié tous les voyages que nous avons faits avec lui et son équipe talentueuse, ce qu'il nous a fait découvrir, toujours de manière très accessible au grand public, et son approche pionnière écologique/durable avant que beaucoup ne montent dans le train. Certainement, un grand Monsieur. Mes condoléances à sa famille et à sa famille Thalassa.