Educating Alaska Agriculture Professionals on Sustainable High Latitude Horticulture Production Practices

Almost 95% of food consumed in Alaska is imported and food prices are higher than any of the contiguous United States. Today the majority of Alaska communities, rural and urban, rely on the import of foods by land and sea to meet the bulk of their dietary needs. In general, production and procurement options for alternative, healthful foods are limited by the costs and challenges of transport from southern supply centers, and by lack of in-state agricultural and manufacturing infrastructure. Food destined for Alaska travels an estimated 1600-3000 miles from producer to the central distribution hubs of Anchorage and Fairbanks. From those hub points, the food may travel several hundred miles more to reach the remote communities throughout the State. The long food chain imposes an intimate link between the price of food and the price of fuel. As such, small village stores, mostly in Native communities, are stocked with foods that need a long shelf life and, hence, are generally of lesser nutritional quality.

Food security is a major concern for all Alaskans. At this outer limit of the food chain, extreme remoteness amplifies not just the costs, but also the vagaries and vulnerabilities of production. Potential disruption of the distribution systems are more exaggerated than the standard “food miles” concept implies. For the roughly 20 Alaska communities monitored by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service, food costs for a family of four can be as high as 250% that found in Portland, Oregon. By way of example, it is not unheard of to see a gallon of milk cost $15 in a village store.

A “perfect food system storm” occurred in many Yukon River communities in 2009. This was driven by the closure of the salmon fisheries followed by fuel prices that made it almost impossible for many to harvest local foods such as moose meat and drove food prices in community stores to unprecedented levels. It is essential to underscore the fact that the high price of food does not reflect quality.

More than 65% of Alaskans live in urban or suburban settings where they generally have access to the same stores and same items that are available to people living in the lower 48 states of the USA. Even these urban Alaska populations are subject to problems related to food security. During the summer 2013, a landslide destroyed a section of the Alaska Highway and resulted in the road being closed for six days. People in the urban centers experience empty shelves in the national chain grocery stores located in Alaska cities, after only six days of road closure.

Even before the occurrence of the naturally caused events described above, many people in Alaska where working to stimulate local food production and to stimulate interest by Alaskans to consuming locally grown and gathered foods. Many organizations and agencies have worked or are working on similar goals associated with food security and related to the local food movement. The Department of Agriculture and Horticulture in the School of Natural Resources and Extension (SNRE) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) has been a leader is this effort. The emphasis of this grant funded project has been to educate Alaska agricultural professionals about the opportunities for local food production in Alaska and to create synergism between individuals and agencies that address local food production opportunities in the state of Alaska.