“From Maine’s warming waters, kelp emerges as a potentially lucrative cash crop.” By Janelle Nanos, Boston Globe. June 26, 2021

Colleen Francke cuts off fresh kelp from a rope as it is fed onto her boat from the sea farm below in Falmouth, Maine. Francke's husband, Brent Nappi, cleaned the rope as it works its way toward him. ERIN CLARK/GLOBE STAFF

FALMOUTH, MAINE — One bright, brisk morning last month, Colleen Francke steered her skiff a mile off the coast of Falmouth and cut the gas. A few white buoys bobbed in straight lines on the water. Francke reached down and hoisted a rope.

She has been lobstering for a decade and a half, she says, but as climate change warms local waters and forces lobsters northward, she’s been finding it harder to envision a future in that industry.

So, for the last two years, she’s been developing a new source of income. Heaving the rope aloft, she showed off her bounty: ribbons of brown, curly sugar kelp, raised on her 10-acre undersea farm.