Irish moss harvest crash divides opinion

P.E.I.'s Irish moss industry is facing a dismal harvest this year, and industry leaders are divided as to the cause.

The harvest of moss this year is at about five per cent of what it was 10 years ago. Junior Shea, part owner of Shea Seaweed and chair of the P.E.I. Sea Plant Harvesters Industry Association, blames a practice called raking.

Traditionally, harvesters waited for Irish moss to be washed up on the beaches and gathered it there. More recently, harvesters have travelled out to the sea beds where it grows and raked it off the bottom.

"They won't let it grow and it's depleting the crop and it's right down to nothing."

Ronnie Costain, owner of the processor Oceanside Seaweed, acknowledges that the harvest is declining, but he believes raking simply ensures the moss gets to shore.

"I don't feel that it's a raking issue," Costain says of the poor harvests.

"If you don't get a storm to bring it in it's just going to break off and drift with the tide and God knows where it'll go."

Costain blames the low yields on limited sea ice, land erosion and the presence of an invasive seaweed, called fucellaria.

Irish moss is harvested for carrageenan, a thickening agent used in a variety of food products, from ice cream to salad dressing and even in toothpaste.

Shea wants the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to ban the raking of the sea floor for the moss. Harvesters should wait for it to be brought ashore by natural means, he said.

Shea sent Fisheries and Oceans Minister Keith Ashfield a letter and met with him, but he said he hasn't heard anything back since February.

"The Department of Fisheries' own laws and rules and regulations have resulted in the decimation of Irish moss and the loss of livelihood for hundreds of people," he said.

"I told him, I said, you're going to have to be held responsible for your neglect."

Shea said the industry is a shadow of what it once was in western P.E.I.