Progress 09/01/20 to 05/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:MAIC and Atlantic disseminated the findings of the market research survey to a broad audience and raised awareness of the data dashboard as a resource for informing aquaculture business marketing strategies and business plans. The findings have reached over 5,000 people across the key seaweed producing regions of the U.S., including sea vegetable farmers, extension agents, small business development professionals, academics, and aquaculture educators. In addition, through the outreach and extension included in this project, MAIC and Atlantic have sharedthe data dashboard to a large audience through multiple channels and have reached an estimated 4,000 unique individuals so far. MAIC will continue to track the reach and impact of this research as they continue their mission to support aquaculture businesses in Maine. The data dashboard, in conjunction with the findings report, are available for free on MAIC's website. Additional target audiences engaged during this project include: 5,400 people nationwide who completed a consumer survey and 1 statistics undergraduate at Colby College, Maine Changes/Problems:A nine month no-cost extension on the projectfrom the original end date of August 31, 2022 to May 31, 2023. We requestedadditional time so that we could extend the outreach and extension activities to take advantage of some industry training programs that took place over the late fall/winter of 2022-23, and presentation offindings at Aquaculture America in February, 2023. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?MAIC engaged a statistics major undergraduate to support data analysis during the summer of 2021. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?MAIC and Atlantic disseminated the findings of the market research survey to a broad audience and raised awareness of the data dashboard as a resource for informing aquaculture business marketing strategies and business plans. The findings have reached over 5,000 people across the key seaweed producing regions of the U.S., including sea vegetable farmers, extension agents, small business development professionals, academics, and aquaculture educators. We expect the findings to reach additional stakeholders once the submissions to Aquaculture in America and Agribusiness are cited and used by researchers to support future studies. The dashboard will also remain open and shared with our findings report informally at each of MAIC's annual events and conferences. The cumulative forecasted reach of the project is expected to be 7,500 (2024), 9,000 (2025), and 10,000 (2026). These numbers surpass the Outcome 4 goal of 1,000 stakeholders identified in our application. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In this USDA SRGP project, MAIC conducted a comprehensive nationwide consumer insights survey on fresh and valueadded seaweed products to develop an easy-to-use market assessment and business planning data dashboard for use by seaweed farmers, distributors, researchers, and Extension professionals. The primary objective of this project was to measure U.S. consumer attitudes and preferences for farmed seaweed and value-added products by region to identify and estimate the size of seaweed market opportunities for new and established aquaculture operators. The specific tasks in this project were completed by MAIC with assistance from Atlantic Corporation and an extended network of industry experts. The MAIC team designed the survey, which gathered data related to consumer consumption habits, knowledge and awareness of edible seaweed, perceived importance of various attributes (i.e., origin, source, value-added products), perceived accessibility and availability, willingness-to-pay premiums, and social and demographic characteristics. MAIC engaged Dynata to host and implement the survey to a total sample size of 5,400 respondents through their online U.S. consumer panel between December 15 and December 28, 2020. After the successful implementation of the survey, Dr. Zheng conducted descriptive statistics, economic modeling, and inferential statistics to analyze the survey data thoroughly and determine the main variables effecting consumer habits, perceptions, and attitudes including their willingness to pay premiums on various seaweeds and value-added products. The resulting descriptive statistics were included in a findings report by Atlantic for circulation and use in the seaweed industry. Our insights will help seaweed farmers and producers with potential business strategies for producing and promoting seaweed products to meet U.S. consumers' needs, expanding the seaweed consumer pool, and penetrating the seaweed market. Notably, the survey determined that seaweed consumers live near or closer to the coast, are younger, have more education and household income, and have larger household sizes and more children in the household. We also gathered seaweed consumers' knowledge of seaweeds and perceptions of its quality, price, and availability. Our results suggest that expanding seaweed product availability, providing information to consumers to help them learn seaweed products, and educating consumers about how to prepare seaweeds at home may be effective marketing strategies. We also gathered insights on specific seaweed attributes and product certifications. The most important seaweed attribute to consumers is whether the products are safe for consumption. Most consumers also desire to know the origin of a seaweed product at the country level. Consumers believe seaweed products from the U.S. have the highest quality and indicated in our survey that a U.S.-sourced certification is most important to increase their willingness to purchase while an internationally sourced certification is least important. These results indicate the potential for expanding domestic seaweed aquaculture production and U.S. seaweed market. Seaweed consumers also believe farmed seaweeds are safer and more sustainable than wild-harvested seaweeds, but wild-harvested seaweeds are higher quality. These results further emphasize the importance of educating consumers and improving their knowledge about the differences between farmed and wild-harvested seaweeds in relation to safety, sustainability, and quality in order to promote seaweed aquaculture and farmed seaweed products. Finally, our survey also provides valuable insights into non-seaweed consumers. Consumers do not eat seaweeds primarily because of a lack of awareness, uncertainty on how to prepare them, and their taste. Our results indicate that seaweed products are relatively new to some markets and that there is a necessity to expand marketing efforts to educate consumers. Seaweed farmers and producers may consider attractive names/brands for their products and avoid using the term "weeds". After thorough analysis of the survey results and the creation of the findings report, MAIC engaged Atlantic to create a series of online interactive data dashboards that allow users to explore all aspects of the data generated through this project. This tool displays visualizations by product and by region that can be filtered by key demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income level, education status, and household size and was the major deliverable of this project. The data dashboard, in conjunction with the findings report, are available for free on MAIC's website. Through the outreach and extension included in this project, MAIC and Atlantic have shared the findings of the survey and the launch of the data dashboard to a large audience through multiple channels. Through the final task of the outreach and extension impact assessment, the findings of this project have reached an estimated 4,000 unique aquaculture businesses so far. MAIC will continue to track the reach and impact of this research as they continue their mission to support aquaculture businesses in Maine.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Qiujie Zheng, Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2023 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. Maine Aquaculture R&D&E Summit, 27 January 2023. Belfast, Maine.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Qiujie Zheng, Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2023 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. Aquaculture America, 23-26 February 2023. New Orleans, LA.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Qiujie Zheng, Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2023 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. National Seaweed Symposium, 25-27 April 2023. Portland, ME.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2023 A free market research tool to determine consumer demand for domestic farm-raised seaweed products. National Seaweed Symposium, 25-27 April 2023. Portland, ME.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Qiujie Zheng, Christopher V. Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2023 pending
U.S. consumer preferences and attitudes towards seaweed and value-added products
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Christopher Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Randy Labbe, Raymond Bernier,
Matthew George, James Lucht, Karina Gallardo. 2023
USDA SRGP FINAL REPORT: Assessment of regional U.S. consumer attitudes and preferences about domestic farm-raised seaweed
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Tricia Labbe, Raymond Bernier, Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Randy Labbe. 2023 A Demonstration of free market research tools to determine consumer demand for farm-raised finfish, shellfish, and seaweed. MAIC Webinar Series, 17 February 2023. ME.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Tricia Labbe, Raymond Bernier, Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Randy Labbe. 2023 A Demonstration of free market research tools to determine consumer demand for farm-raised finfish, shellfish, and seaweed. Webinar Recording published on YouTube, 17 February 2023. ME.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_zJKexZ1h8
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences in the reporting period include: 500+ attendees of the 2022 Northeast Aquaculture Conference & Exposition & Milford Aquaculture Seminar (NACE/MAS 2022), held in Portland, Maine, April 27-29, 2022.https://www.northeastaquaculture.org/ NACE/MAS brings together aquaculture producers, service providers, vendors, researchers, students, managers, policy makers, and others. Whilst NACE/MAS is traditionally focussed on aquaculture in the Northeast U.S., in 2022 over 500 people attended representing 20 U.S. states and 6 countries. In total 132 growers attended. NACE/MAS 2022 was held concurrently with Maine Seaweed Week, and immediately after a World Wildlife Fund international meeting on seaweed farming. This enhanced the number of seaweed growers and researchers at NACE/MAS 2022. Our team presented a poster on our assessment of regional U.S. consumer attitudes and preference about domestic farm-raised seaweed, including a summary of our results. 279 attendees from 157 companies/organizations and 12 countries worldwide, who attended Seagriculture, September 7-8, 2022 in Portland, Maine. Seagriculture was the 1st International Seaweed Conference in the U.S.https://seagriculture-usa.com/.Our team presented a poster on our assessment of regional U.S. consumer attitudes and preference about domestic farm-raised seaweed, including a summary of our results. In addition, we had a table in the tradeshow at which we provided iPads to demonstrate the interactive dashboard we have developed. Changes/Problems:A nine month no-cost extension has been approved, and changes the end date fromAugust 31, 2022 to May 31, 2023. The project has completed most of its objectives. We are requesting additional time so that we can extend the outreach and extension activities to take advantage of some industry training programs scheduled to run over the late fall/winter of 2022-23. Furthermore, we plan to present our findings at Aquaculture America in February, 2023. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In this project period, results have been disseminated at the following events: 1. 500+ attendees of the 2022 Northeast Aquaculture Conference & Exposition & Milford Aquaculture Seminar (NACE/MAS 2022), held in Portland, Maine, April 27-29, 2022.https://www.northeastaquaculture.org/ NACE/MAS brings together aquaculture producers, service providers, vendors, researchers, students, managers, policy makers, and others. Whilst NACE/MAS is traditionally focussed on aquaculture in the Northeast U.S., in 2022 over 500 people attended representing 20 U.S. states and 6 countries. In total 132 growers attended. NACE/MAS 2022 was held concurrently with Maine Seaweed Week, and immediately after a World Wildlife Fund international meeting on seaweed farming. This enhanced the number of seaweed growers and researchers at NACE/MAS 2022. Our team presented a poster on our assessment of regional U.S. consumer attitudes and preference about domestic farm-raised seaweed, including a summary of our results. Citation: Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2022 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. Northeast Aquaculture Conference & Exposition, & 41st Milford Aquaculture Seminar, April 27-29, 2022. Portland, Maine. 2. 279 attendees from 157 companies/organizations and 12 countries worldwide, who attended Seagriculture, September 7-8, 2022 in Portland, Maine. Seagriculture was the 1st International Seaweed Conference in the U.S.https://seagriculture-usa.com/.Our team presented a poster on our assessment of regional U.S. consumer attitudes and preference about domestic farm-raised seaweed, including a summary of our results. In addition, we had a table in the tradeshow at which we provided iPads to demonstrate the interactive dashboard we have developed. Citation: Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2022 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. Seagriculture, 7-8 September 2022. Portland, Maine. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Outreach and dissemination activities will continue through to May 31, 2023 (the revised project end date). Planned activities include: - Presentation of the data dashboard to new farmers at the Aquaculture in Shared Waters training program. - An industry-orientated seminar aimed at seaweed producers (farmers and wild harvesters), processors, supply chain businesses, and any other interested parties. - Targeted outreach to industry stakeholders in Maine. - Social media outreach. - Presentation at the Maine Aquaculture Research, Development, & Education Summit on January 27th, 2023. This event is attended by approximately 200 Mainegrowers, processors, regulators, managers, researchers, K-12 teachers, informal educators, NGOs, service providers, investors, small business development support providers and the interested public. - Oral presentation at Aquaculture America, New Orleans, 2023.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Develop and implement a robust, consumer preferences survey on domestic farmed seaweed and value-added products across a nationally-representative sample from the nine U.S. census regions further balanced by age and gender. The Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center (MAIC) and Atlantic Corporation conducted a comprehensive nationwide consumer insights survey on seaweed and value-added products. The protocolwas reviewed by Solutions IRB, an independent ethical review board (protocol 2020/11/27) and has been verified asExemptaccording to 45CFR46.104(d)(2): (2) Tests, Surveys, Interviews on 12/08/2020. The survey was designed by MAIC and Atlantic and fielded by Dynata through their online U.S. survey panels between December 15th and December 28th, 2020. 2. Analyze data to determine consumption habits, awareness of edible seaweed and its various species, purchasing behavior, preferences, perceived benefits, perceived quality, and willingness to pay for seaweed stratified by region and by product. The survey results were analyzed by Dr Qiujie "Angie" Zheng, Maine Business School, University of Maine.Descriptive statistics and data visualization were used to explore consumers' knowledge of seaweed aquaculture and products, seaweed consumption habits, and perceptions and preferences for seaweed attributes. Our analysis for non-seaweed consumers focused on their reasons for not consuming the products and possible motivating factors for encouraging them to try. Lastly, we built several econometric models to investigate the relationship between consumers' intentions to try new products flavored with and/or containing seaweeds and the factors that influence their intentions, and the relationship between consumers' preferences for farm-raised seaweeds and the factors that influence their preferences. 3. Complete a findings report detailing all methodologies and findings of the study. A full Findings Report was prepared by Dr Qiujie "Angie" Zheng. A 2-page summary report, and a printable poster have also been prepared by Dr Anne Langston Noll, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center. All documents are available on the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center website. www.maineaquaculture.org 4. Create an interactive data dashboard displaying findings by product and by region that can be filtered by key demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income level, education status, and household size. An interactive data dashboard has been developed, and is available via the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center website. www.maineaquaculture.org 5. Engage in extensive outreach efforts to disseminate study results and tools to seaweed farmers and other aquaculture operators, seaweed and aquaculture associations and organizations, local food organizations, extension offices, and other key stakeholders. Outreach and dissemination activities are underway and will continue through to May 31, 2023 (the revised project end date). SUMMARY OF PROJECT FINDINGS The Influence of Knowledge: Seaweed consumers' knowledge of seaweeds and perceptions of seaweed quality, price, and availability positively affect their intentions to try a new product flavored with seaweeds. Knowledge also influences whether non-seaweed consumers try a new product flavored with seaweeds. Consumers who do not consume seaweeds due to availability, are also unaware of seaweed products, and are not sure how to prepare them, and have higher purchase intentions to try a new product flavored with seaweeds. Our results suggest that providing information to consumers to help them learn about seaweed products, and educating consumers about how to prepare seaweeds at home, may be effective marketing strategies. Having more knowledge of seaweed products help consumers build their preference for farmed seaweeds. Seaweed consumers and non-seaweed consumers have different socio-demographic characteristics. Seaweed consumers: live near or closer to the coast, are younger, have more education have more household income, have larger household sizes have more children in the household Non-seaweed Consumer Insights: Consumers do not eat seaweeds because: lack of awareness, uncertainty on how to prepare them, taste Some consumers find the term "seaweed" unappealing, which is the reason that they do not want to try them. This supports the trend to use the term "sea vegetables". Consumers believe that recipes, easy-to-use products, and fresh products easily available from grocery stores will motivate them to try seaweeds. This supports the effort farmers put into recipe development and sharing. Our results indicate that seaweed products are relatively new to some markets and there is a need to educate consumers. Seaweed Consumer Insights: Seaweed farmers and producers that can find channels to help consumers improve their seaweed-related knowledge and build positive perceptions of seaweed products may expand their customer base. Specific seaweed attributes and product certifications are important for their purchase decisions. The most important seaweed attribute to consumers is whether the products are safe for consumption. Most consumers desire to know the origin of a seaweed product at the country level. Consumers believe seaweed products from the U.S. have the highest quality and indicated in our survey that a U.S.-sourced certification is most important to increase their willingness to purchase while an internationally sourced certification is least important. Seaweed consumers believe farmed seaweeds are safer and more sustainable than wild-harvested seaweeds, but wild-harvested seaweeds are higher quality. Consumers indicated that products directly marketed from the farm/harvester is an important factor to increase their willingness to purchase, which suggests an possible effective marketing channel. Consumers do not perceive the price of farmed and wild-harvested seaweeds to be significantly different. Most seaweed consumers stated they had no preference between farm-raised and wild-harvested seaweeds. More seaweed consumers stated they prefer wild-harvested seaweeds than consumers that prefer farmed seaweeds. Consumers are more likely to prefer farmed seaweeds if they believe wild-harvested seaweeds are comparatively less safe, less sustainable, and have a lower quality.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2022 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. Northeast Aquaculture Conference & Exposition, & 41st Milford Aquaculture Seminar, April 27-29, 2022. Portland, Maine.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Christopher V Davis, Anne Langston Noll, Qiujie Zheng, Raymond Bernier, Randy Labbe. 2022 Consumer Perceptions, preferences, & attitudes about domestic farm-raised seaweed products. Seagriculture, 7-8 September 2022. Portland, Maine.
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences in this reporting period include: 5,400 people nationwide who completed a consumer survey 1 statistics undergraduate at Colby College, Maine Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?MAIC engaged astatistics majorundergraduate to support data analysis during the summer of 2021. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next reporting period we will accomplish the following: Task 4: Economic Modeling and Inferential Statistics. This task is ongoing. Task 5: Findings Report. The Findings Report is currently being written. Task 6: Interactive Data Dashboard Development. This task is ongoing. Task 7: Launch, Outreach, and Extension. This task will get underway in 2022. Task 8: Outreach and Extension Impact Assessment. This task will get underway in 2022.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Develop and implement a robust, consumer preferences survey on domestic farmed seaweed and value-added products across a nationally-representative sample from the nine U.S. census regions further balanced by age and gender. MAIC designed an online survey with significant input from stakeholders within Maine's seaweed industry. The survey was further assessed and reviewed by Atlantic Corporation and agricultural economist, Dr. Karina Gallardo of Washington State University. The survey (Appendix A) included the following themes related to preferences for seaweed and value-added products: Consumer knowledge and awareness of edible seaweed. Consumption & shopping habits. Purchasing motivations. Consumers' perception of the importance of various attributes of seaweed including origin (domestic vs. imported), source (farmed vs. wild), and local, niche, and value-added products. Consumers' perception on their accessibility to seaweed products. Willingness to pay premiums: consumers' likelihood to pay more for seaweed and value-added products. Social demographics: Consumers' social and demographic characteristics including age, marital status, income level, education, race, ethnicity, number of household members, number of children, location type (urban, suburban, rural, coastal), and region and state. The survey and study protocol were reviewed by Solutions IRB, LLC, a fully accredited Institutional Review Board (IRB). The protocol was verified as Exempt from the need for IRB review according to the federal regulation for human subject research 45CFR46.104(d)(2): (2) Tests, Surveys, Interviews on December 8th, 2020. MAIC engaged Dynata to program, host, execute, and provide data tabulation. We targeted 600 respondents from each of the nine U.S. census regions (Table 1) for a total sample size of 5,400, and balanced the sample for age group and gender. Table 1. U.S. Census Regions Region States New England CT; MA; ME; NH; RI; VT Mid-Atlantic DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA; VA; WV South Atlantic FL; GA; NC; SC East North Central IL; IN; MI; OH; WI East South Central AL; KY; MS; TN; West North Central IA; KS; MN; MO; ND; NE; SD West South Central AR; LA; OK; TX Mountain AZ; CO; ID; MT; NM; NV; UT; WY Pacific AK; CA; HI; OR; WA The survey dataset was received from Dynata on January 1st, 2021. 2. Analyze data to determine consumption habits, awareness of edible seaweed and its various species, purchasing behavior, preferences, perceived benefits, perceived quality, and willingness to pay for seaweed stratified by region and by product. The MAIC team has been analyzing the collected survey data with support from MAIC Intern Nelson Wu, a statistics major at Colby College, Waterville, Maine. We are preparing a report (the Findings Report) to present descriptive statistics summarizing consumers' consumption habits, perceived benefits, accessibility and availability of seaweed, consumers' characteristics, and segmentation. Descriptive statistics such as means, medians, and standard deviations have been calculated for continuous variables. Cross tabulations have been used for dichotomous variables to explore correlations. We are creating easy to interpret tables, charts, and graphics to describe findings and interpret them in an informative way to highlight key findings. These figures will be used in various reports and presentations to communicate results. Once the report is drafted, we will seek input from stakeholders within Maine's seaweed industry to determine whether there are additional analyses that would be helpful to them. FINDINGS TO DATE: People who do not purchase and/or consume seaweed: Pearson's Chi-square test (performed by using SPSS (IBM)) was applied to demographic variables, that were categorical variables, to explore potential associations with whether or not respondents purchase or consume seaweed. When a Chi-square test indicated a potential association, a Goodman and Kruskal's Tau test (using the GoodmanKruskal package in R) was performed. Goodman and Kruskal's Tau test is an upgraded version of the Chi-square, into which normalization and asymmetry is taken into account, to quantify the strength of association between two categorical variables. For respondents who reported that they do NOT purchase or consume seaweeds, the top three reasons were: Unaware of them (33%), Not sure how to prepare them (21%), and Taste (17%). Chi-square tests indicated potential correlation between the responses to Question 16 (purchase and/or consume seaweed Yes or No) and the following demographic variables: Whether or not respondents live in a coastal state (p=0.000); Respondents living on the Pacific coast are most likely to purchase/consume seaweed. Respondents living on any ocean coast (Pacific, Atlantic or Gulf coasts) are more likely to purchase/consume seaweeds than respondents who live on the Great Lakes or inland. Gender (p=0.000); Males are more likely to indicate that they purchase/consume seaweeds Education Status (p=0.004); Increased education status was associated with greater likelihood of purchasing/consuming seaweed. Awareness of Seaweed Aquaculture (p=0.001); Respondents who report that they are aware of seaweed aquaculture are also more likely to report that they purchase/consume seaweed. This is highest for those who report that they are aware of seaweed aquaculture IN MAINE; this is not correlated with which state the respondent lives in. Knowledge of Seaweed Aquaculture (p=0.000); respondents with more knowledge of seaweed aquaculture or wild harvesting operations tend to answer "yes" they do purchase/consume seaweed. Goodman and Kruskal's Tau tests indicate that of these variables two are the strongest predictors of whether a respondent is likely to purchase/consume seaweed: Awareness of seaweed aquaculture (no matter whether in Maine, U.S. or internationally) and knowledge about seaweed aquaculture. 3. Complete a findings report detailing all methodologies and findings of the study. The Findings Report is currently being written. 4. Create an interactive data dashboard displaying findings by product and by region that can be filtered by key demographic characteristics such as age, gender, income level, education status, and household size. This task is ongoing. 5. Engage in extensive outreach efforts to disseminate study results and tools to seaweed farmers and other aquaculture operators, seaweed and aquaculture associations and organizations, local food organizations, extension offices, and other key stakeholders. The MAIC team has engaged stakeholders in survey design. We will begin stakeholder engagement to review draft findings in the final quarter of 2021. Outreach to disseminate the interactive dashboard will get underway in 2022.
Publications
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