Weeding in Alaska Ag

Like ripping a band aid off a festering wound, digging into the "real dirt" on Alaska Ag is unpleasant, but necessary. It may seem like the focus of this blog is solely MMM&S, but that is not the case.

The corruption within is widespread and long term. From the fiascoes of the spectacular dairy failures of the past, through to the present,  the Division of Agriculture is awash in poor management. The entire Division appears to be its own little fiefdom, and who is in charge is a fair question to ask. The new Director is not a leader, and it's rumored that two specific individuals are the backbone of operations....who, of course, do things the way they've always been done.

What sort of service you get from these well paid public servants depends on who you are. This is easily verified by the "service" they provide-or not-to their bosses (the public).  The Division is so tardy on some reports, that in other venues they'd be fired for lack of performance.  And it is not because they do not have the staff necessary to collate these reports-no, it is that those who actually perform the real, day to day work, are tasked (sometimes by default) to cover other Division employees' shortcomings. They aren't even cheerleaders for the Division itself, if the main five people have been conspiring to make Ag it's own Department in the Alaska state government. 

And because they are the bastard step child of Natural Resources, they are oft overlooked and ignored and thus, they are free to do as they please...or not, as the case may be.  They don't make waves (now that the pressing problem of MMM&S has been resolved) so what happens there on a daily basis is unknown to the Commissioner of DNR, with a complicit Deputy Director of DNR who tends to take the Divisions' word for it that all is good there.  And in the normal course of affairs this is how is should work, and does, quite successfully....but sometimes, sometimes, a little extra effort by the those further up the chain is warranted.

It is past time that the Division was properly and thoroughly audited....from the paper clips to the policy makers and everything they touch. For the steady drain on state resources over the past umpteen years, they have not managed to create a plan for Alaska agriculture. There is no goal, no 5, 10, or even 20 year plan....no benchmark to seek, no success with legislators in getting suitable lands into the hands of prospective farmers, no rallying phrase to unify the disparate and widely flung elements of growing food in Alaska. None.  So they just keep on....keeping on, with the projects and programs at hand, heads down to their grindstone, never looking up towards the future.

Yes, some weeding is warranted there, for sure.

Now, lest you think the MSBorough has a better record...think again. The Borough too, is replete with failed policies, and projects. In the heady days of high oil prices, the Boro threw money at projects that never came to fruition. Where is that "Agricultural Processing & Product Development Center, anyway? The one the Boro happily spent a half million dollars to design....but was never built. In today's economic reality, it's not likely to come up in the budget any time soon. How many people were paid to produce the snazzy brochure? Write the proposals? Speak before the Assembly?


When it comes to Ag and the MSB, the Borough is the poster child for schizophrenia.  On the one hand, they look back at the past projects (the Colony project of the 30s) with rose colored glasses. The farms, the farmers, the dairies, the big vegetables to astound the world!!  Woot woot, grow Mat Su!  And on the other hand, lust after the cleared farm lands to be turned into yet another subdivision which would go on the tax rolls.  Woot woot! Grow Mat Su (Government!!).  Oh sure, you will be taxed less on Ag lands.....but their whole approach is: How can we get the road paid for, and maintenance for same, in perpetuity? Why, by taxing the tiny fee simple parcels at "fair market value", of course. Never mind that these ag lands only provide for the use of the land. And do look at their requirements for Ag land....you'll be surprised at what it does not include. The Borough could definitely use a prolonged weeding, indeed it could.

There exist cures, or solutions~

There are many 100s of acres of fallow land within the MSB, and the State. It's just sitting there, in the asset column, to someday be of value to the government. Not the residents, mind you, the government.  The Borough (and the State too, for that matter)could resolve some of it's current fiscal issues with a modern day land rush. All it takes is the commitment to benefit the citizens of Alaska, over their desire to fill their own budgets.

Just imagine....releasing land with agriculture suitability, perhaps 10,000 acres. BOOM!  Roads built, utilities arranged, land cleared, homes built, and food grown within five to fifteen years. A reasonable time schedule, not an artificial one that doomed the other ag projects with ridiculous deadlines and parameters and conditions, all figured out by degree carrying idiots in suits-not hard working men and women in muck boots over generations of farm building as in L48.  Charge them a small flat fee a year (and I do mean *small*) and get the heck out of the way as a boom erupts in agriculture. Which will translate into jobs, increased economic activity, building, and so on.  Yes, it can be done, and should. The state and local governments should recognize that the ability to feed it's residents should not be quashed, period. It should get out of the way and let entrepreneurship and innovation and hard work remedy that dismal percentage of locally grown and consumed.  A little coordination between the state, the borough and the feds with their programs, and voila! A real, modern day land rush for farming.

The naysayers will snivel that it's already been done and was a disaster-and it was. The skeptical would say, who's going to benefit-all residents in due time. The .gov would say-we can't do that because that isn't how we do it-and all it takes is resolve and legislation and signing on to a long term goal.

You know, that plan that the Division of Ag does not have?

Yes, that one, or one created by an enterprising citizen who approached elected representatives and insisted: We should feed our own.