The researchers examined historical fisheries and seafood farming, or mariculture, databases including data from UBC's Sea Around Us to find out quantities of key nutrients that were available through fisheries and seafood farming in the past, and used predictive climate models to project these into the future.

Breaking the blue horizon, two of Blue Ocean Mariculture’s 110-foot-tall netted pyramids protrude, swaying with the waves.

Interest in mariculture, the cultivation of marine organisms in their natural environments, in Alaska has historically been contingent on funding.

“For years, people have talked about mariculture and there’s been different kinds of task forces and things, and everything has come back to ‘Well, we need money to do things,’” Dillon said.

As the current commodity-based food system collapses, Lankard said, local agriculture and mariculture, artisanal products, and subsistence foods will become more valuable than ever.