Food security task force repeats proposal for creating a state ag department, boosting university research

It’s no surprise that the new report from the 36-member “Alaska Food Strategy Task Force” covers much of the same ground as the report released last spring from the now-defunct 22-member “Alaska Food Security and Independence Task Force.”

The new task force, headed by Sen. Shelley Hughes, threw this report together in a rush, but the most important lesson to be understood is that it will take work, money and leadership if Alaskans want to do more about food security than talk about it.

Hughes and the other 35 members of the unwieldy group should start by making their meetings, documents and proposals accessible to the public. All they have is this link on the legislative website, which only has 9 names, leaving 25 off the list.

The first report of the task force is hidden on the legislative website here, where some people might find it by accident. The second report is due next August.

Many specific steps mentioned in both reports this year make sense, such as creating a new Alaska Department of Agriculture to increase state support for the industry and reversing the long-term decline in state support for agriculture research at the University of Alaska.

Those actions alone would cost tens of millions. A stand-alone agriculture department would have more employees and a higher profile in state government. Beefing up the existing ag division is another alternative. Governors and legislators have not supported the agriculture division in the past or taken steps to make it more effective.

Budget cuts, both federal and state, have been so severe at the university that there are few experts in Alaska now doing agricultural research and they can’t do much to help the industry.

Some ideas in the new report wouldn’t cost anything, such as the proposal that the governor use the power of his office to plead with the corporations that control the grocery market in Alaska to do more to promote Alaska products.

But every idea will go nowhere as long as there is no leadership on agriculture from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who claimed he created the Alaska Office of Food Security last September, then appeared to forget about it after the campaign.

The stealth “office” consisted of adding “Policy Advisor-Food Security” to the job description of Dunleavy public relations man and campaign pitchman Andrew Jensen.

There is still no website, no phone number, no office, no contact information, no announcement that the office is open for business, no record of accomplishment. In short, no nothing.

The alleged Office of Food Security is mentioned just one time on one line in the 77-page task force report released Aug 1. The report lists the office as an entity that would help the governor and the Legislature lobby Fred Meyer, Safeway, the Alaska Commercial Co. and other stores to give increased shelf space to Alaska products.

Contrast the stealth state food office with the Dunleavy administrative order creating the office a year ago. There is no sign the administration has taken steps to carry out any of the ambitious talk.

A year ago, Dunleavy issued an administrative order, a press release, a campaign-like video and got himself a lot of press coverage about how he would make food security a priority.

“Today, to further advance this critical objective, I’ve signed an administrative order that creates the Office of Food Security within the governor’s office,” Dunleavy said in his video last September.

“Ensuring our food security will not only require a whole-of-government approach from multiple state agencies, it’ll involve our state corporations like AIDEA and the AEA. It will involve our university, it will involve our producers, our stakeholders, our nonprofits and our tribal organizations. The Office of Food Security will unify this effort in pursuit of short-term, mid-term and long-term goals that will build a resilent food supply system in Alaska once and for all.”

“The Office of Food Security is but one step, but an important one in putting the full resources of the State of Alaska behind this effort,” he said.

The Office of Food Security, launched with a blast of hot air, has done nothing to promote food security. And the full resources of the State of Alaska are not unified behind it.

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