Roped in Can mussel farming restore the coastline?

The water beneath our boat is teeming with life. It is a fine Sunday morning on Loch Slapin on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and Dr Judith Brown and Andrew Airnes point below the surface to where they hope to grow more than 100 tonnes of high-quality animal protein suspended from four ropes.

“You probably wouldn’t be able to grow one sheep on that land-wise,” says Airnes. Due in part to its tremendous efficiency, mussel farming is seen by a new generation of food producers as having exciting potential for feeding a growing population while restoring native biodiversity that has been damaged