Alaska's Food Security Problem

This entry has been a long time forming, and coming. Feel free to grab a libation, and (hopefully) learn a little something about agriculture and it's possible future in Alaska :)

Alaska is both blessed, and cursed. Situated so far from the rest of the union, we hold a unique place in future agricultural developments on several fronts. I'll list the curses first, of course, and they include a number of elements that combine to hamper our state's ability to feed its residents.....

Location, location, location. Yes, we have about 20 hours of sunlight during the growing season, but we also have 7 months of winter. This cannot be changed of course, but it could be lessened to a great degree.

State policy. The state has an absolutely dismal history of agriculture-aside from the original colonists in the 30s. The Delta barley and Pt MacKenzie projects were boondoggles that cost the state millions of dollars in the end-with little crop production to show for it. On paper, it looked pretty good: Grow the feed in Delta, ship down to the Valley where there would be dairy farms and so forth, sell the excess to Asia. Naturally none of this came to fruition because bureaucrats are NOT farmers or business people, and placed impossible terms and conditions on those courageous enough to try "farming in the last frontier". At this point, the state does not have a cohesive agricultural policy at all, and is awash in programs and agencies, partly federally funded and poorly managed or funded by the state itself.

High energy and production costs. While the state is required by its constitution to extract resources for the benefit of all the residents, it has never positively affected agriculture here to any lasting degree. In fact, current tax structure on the oil industry, combined with the looming Depression in the Lesser48, has caused fuel to sky rocket here. Because of declining supply in Cook Inlet, the Agrium plant on the Kenai Peninsula closed-it produced fertilizers for in state use, for example. Now, this must be barged up from the west coast.

Those are the three main contributors to the sorry state of Alaska ag in my opinion. There are many facets that effect the current conditions, and I will touch on them briefly later on.

The major blessings we have here are:

Location, location, location. Our lengthy summers allow local growers to produce an astonishing amount of food, compared to many places in the Lesser48 states. Years back, some farmers made a decent living providing produce to the military bases-until someone decided that there had to be x number of heads of lettuce in a case-never mind our Alaska giant vegetables. So pfft, no more selling to the bases. (No I am not kidding, this happened) Our location would also lend itself to entering the export market. Think of all the cargo containers that leave this state empty-and air cargo as well.

One of the most important things that Alaska could do, is to ban GMO seed stock. Thankfully, the current GMO commercially available seeds are corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and alfalfa. None of these crops do well here, but eventually the opportunity to let this monster loose within our state will occur-if the door is not shut right now. In other states, the modified plants have infected other farms, and this has caused much hardship (not to mention lawsuits the farmers face from the patent holders of those seeds) and it has been discovered that such seeds are a health risk.

Another important thing that Alaska could do, is take some of that hydrocarbon extraction for it's own use. Don't fall over in shock, it could actually be done if there were visionaries in Juneau. The state (us!) own a percentage of everything that comes up-and at this time we are tied into selling it at the market rate. As it stands now, all the revenue is stuffed into a nice fat purse that the legislature positively slobbers over to spend, spend, spend. I'd prefer they had a little less to get their mitts on, so that Alaska could feed Alaska. With a little creative accounting, a small portion (or maybe a lot, depending on what industries would provide the most jobs here) could literally be given to food producers. When you stop rolling your eyeballs at this idea, just think about how much food could be grown if energy costs were a fraction of what they are today.

Here are some ideas about growing more food:

We have millions of acres of unoccupied lands. I know most people think it is all muskeg and swamp and it's true there is a lot of that. But peaty soils can be worked successfully on a small scale (NOT monoculture farming, mind you) for example. Greenhouses using natural gas or even better-hydrothermal for heat and power generation, could be much more abundant.

We also have a growing population, many of which are adamant about eating locally, buying AlaskaGrown, and so forth. We have also seen an explosion in "alternate" growing methods over the past twenty years. Today, it is mainstream for aquaculture production to be employed. Older ideas of crop rotation, soil replenishment and augmentation without the use of chemicals is gaining acceptance rapidly...and there are a whole host of ways to enhance production, expand variety, and extend seasons. Some of these include simple solar greenhouses which tap the energy of the sun year round, all the way to the Chena Hot Springs Resort projects which include using the heat of the springs themselves to provide much of the produce the resort uses. There are growing numbers of cold frames and hoop houses all over-and many of them are used in CSA efforts. Someday, someone will design a vertical greenhouse that will be energy efficient here in Alaska....and new systems are tried, improved, and employed every couple of years.

In short, the future could be bright indeed. The question is, are there any visionaries that can help guide Alaska into an independent future?