Climate
JAM | Mar 20, 2023

Kee Farms nominated for Earthshot prize for work in reviving the ocean

Candice Stewart

Candice Stewart / Our Today

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Kee Farms, a local ocean farm, is among nominees for the 2023 Earthshot Prize in the category, ‘Revive Our Oceans’.

They are focused on carbon removal through growing seaweed, oyster cultivation, and ocean habitat restoration. The team considers their work to be regenerative where they invest in crops and sea stock such as seaweed and mollusks. They also aim to tackle climate change by exploring the Blue-Green economy.

Nicholas Kee, chief executive officer (CEO) and his co-founder, Dean Morris, cofounder, started the ocean farm in 2020 because of fish kills and the subsequent depleted fish stock in Jamaican waters.

Shauna-Gaye Pusey, Kee Farms chief of staff.

“Seaweed is one of the main attractions for all the fauna and because the waters are overfished. Cultivating it encourages the fauna to come back and that’s part of the reason we do what we do. Jamaican fisher folk have been struggling to continue to make ends meet and he said, ‘why not create a network?’ Let’s show them how to farm seaweed, let’s show them how to harvest other sea creatures like sea cucumbers and oysters. Let’s give them a more sustainable means of earning an income and encourage the fish to come back,” said Shauna-Gaye Pusey, Kee Farms chief of party in an interview with Our Today.

She shared: “We focus on bringing back life into the ocean, be it the plants, which are the flora or the animals, which are the fauna,” confirming the category the organisation was nominated for.

Based in Portland through their main sponsors, Alligator Head Foundation (AHF), Pusey stated that the work being done is “tested and true”.

“Our biggest issue has been herbivores where the fish are eating our stock. Though our stock gets depleted, it is a good thing for the local fisherfolk. It means that what we are doing encourages the fish to come back. So, right now, we are in the process of perfecting the model and then we will start to reach out to the network and we have a few community members working with us,” she said.

REVIVE OUR OCEANS

The Earthshot Prize website says that the category award will be given to most outstanding efforts in reviving oceans. So, it is “for innovators who revolutionise the understanding of underwater life.” It also states that the category resonates more with “leaders who end criminal and unsustainable fishing practices, and to the technologists who repair coral reefs and show how to remove pollution from the ocean on a global scale”.

Pusey highlighted that being nominated for an Earthshot Prize is valuable to the Kee Farms team because “it gives us social currency in the climate action space as much as it helps us with regenerating the underwater flora and fauna”. She shared that their work is not solely on helping fisher folk. They also work to take climate action with their initiative.

“This nomination, and potential win, is going to give us more recognition for our projects. It will also give us better chances with fundraising to support the work that we do.”

Shauna-Gaye Pusey, chief of party at Kee Farms

“The bulk of our funding normally comes from climate action for that particular reason,” she explained. “This nomination, and potential win, is going to give us more recognition for our projects. It will also give us better chances with fundraising to support the work that we do,” she continued.

Kee Farms also engages in biochar production, and agar production.

JOURNEY TO THE EARTHSHOT PRIZE

The Earthshot Prize, founded by Prince William and the Royal Foundation in 2020, is a global prize based on five ambitious goals to achieve for 2030. It aims to spotlight, support, and scale groundbreaking solutions to the Earth’s most pressing environmental challenges.

Other Earthshot categories are Protect and Restore Nature, Build a Waste-Free World, Fix Our Climate, and Clean Our Air. Each year, one winner is announced for each of the five categories and Kee Farms hopes to be among those selected.

Before winners are selected and announced, a multistep process takes place after nomination.

Members of the Kee Farms team. From left: Aprille Ferguson, head of oyster research, Nicholas Kee, chief executive officer and co-founder, Dean Morris, co-founder and head of operations, Geasean Johnson, chief scientist, and Shauna-Gaye Pusey, chief of staff. (Contributed photo)

“We won’t know if we’ve won until we pass through another round and the selection committee does deliberations. This process might not be complete until the end of the year which is usually when the winners will be announced,” said Pusey.  

There is normally a due diligence stage where the project will continuously be vetted. During this time “we will present to them to explain why Kee Farms in great under the category of Reviving the Ocean. They [the selection committee] deliberates from there. It’s almost like continuous pitches, she explains.

Pusey pointed out that the co-founders, Nichloas Kee and Dean Morris regularly deliver pitches for the ocean farm. “They are more than ready and prepared for all the steps and stages to come. Additionally, the two decided to develop people in the community as well as some young marine biologists by also giving them the opportunity to pitch for fundraising opportunities too. This process and others like it can be exhausting, but it is rewarding because of the developmental advantages, she said.

The Kee Farms team. From top left: Nicholas Kee, CEO and cofounder, Dean Morris, chief operating manager and co-founder, Chelsi-Rae Buckley, head of seaweed research, Geasean Johnson, chief scientist, Aprille Ferguson, head of oyster research, Shauna-Gaye Pusey, chief of party, Matthew-Pierre Rogers, marine biologist, and Floyd Thompson, community member who works with the Alligator Head Foundation as a warden.

Until 2030, five initiatives (within the Earthshot categories) will each be awarded £1million.

Being a winner affords successful projects access to a global platform and profile with their stories being showcased worldwide.

Based on their website, The Earthshot Prize team promises to support winners “to ensure that their moment doesn’t end with winning The Earthshot Prize, but takes them on a journey that will see their solutions be adopted and scaled to drive the impact we know they can have on our planet”.

FUTURE OF KEE FARMS

Pusey stated that the future for Kee Farms includes scaling the project and improving the network the team is trying to build. Their hope is that they can branch off into producing bi-products of what they currently cultivate. They also want to secure a model that helps to measure how they capture carbon.

You may get in touch with Kee Farms on Instagram @keefarmshq.

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