Alaska Growing: State’s small, but steady agriculture market improving

There’s something happening in Alaska’s small agriculture industry. It’s little noticed by most, but there are signs. Farmers are selling all they produce. Many think they can sell more.

“If farmers sell out, they’ll grow more,” state agriculture director Arthur Keyes said. That trickles through the economy, creating jobs.

Several signs are positive: Grocery retailers like Safeway buy local produce during the summer and mount special promotions of Alaskan-grown vegetables, which prove popular.

The company is expanding its purchases of Alaskan-grown products, including new products made with Alaska barley flour now being featured in several stores in the state, according to Reino Bellio, Safeway’s general manager for Alaska.

New ways of marketing are developing, too. Farmer’s Markets that feature locally grown products are widely popular, and there are now about 40 statewide.

There’s also growth of niche food suppliers for local foods. Several small operators work out of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to supply customers in Anchorage with deliveries of fresh, local vegetables, poultry and eggs.

Michelle Church, of Moonstone Farms, is one. She goes out and picks fresh vegetables for customers when she gets an order, she says. The latest trend Church is exploring is internet-based marketing where farmers post what they have available, consumers place an order and a go-between, like Church, gets the delivery made. “Think of it like a local Amazon-for-food,” she says.

Vegetables have historically been grown seasonally for local Alaska markets and this continues, Keyes says, but the real potential is in growth of local protein like beef, pork and poultry. Meat produced in the state is several days fresher than that shipped in from the Lower 48 and tastes better, he says. Because the supply chain is shorter, it is also safer.

Fresh poultry demand in the state has exploded, with 126,000 live chickens imported to Alaska last year, Keyes said. That’s up from 30,000 imported the year before and 15,000 the year before that.

There’s good demand for Alaska-grown meat beef and pork, but local meat sold retail must come from a slaughterhouse certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For many years farmers were uncertain a certified facility would be available because Mt. McKinley Meat & Sausage, which is USDA-certified, was teetering financially and had been repossessed by the state. It is now back in private hands.Greg Giannulis, the new owner, says he is doing well since taking over the plant in May.

“I’m making money. I’m happy,” Giannulis said. His company has roughly tripled the number of animals slaughtered for meat in the facility, and the numbers are increasing. “We need more animals,” he said.

Giannulis said has capacity to double production if more animals were available, he said. When a buyer like Giannulis says he needs more the state’s farmers will supply more, Keyes said. When more cattle are raised, more barley, oats and other feed grains will be planted. More supplies will be needed, and more people will work.

What’s driving growth, Keyes said, is the increasing consumer awareness of the quality and the health advantages of local foods, which is a national trend also being felt in Alaska. “Everyone deserves access to safe, healthy food, and locally-produced foods provide that,” Keyes said.

The economic potential is important. Ninety-five percent of what Alaskans eat is imported, Keyes said. If locally-grown foods could substitute for imports and reduce this to even 90 percent it would have a strong effect on the state’s economy.

More farm supplies, more equipment purchased, more people working and, in the long run, more infrastructure would be needed.

What’s needed aren’t the big state-led agriculture projects that have been tried before, and failed, Keyes said. Prime examples are a state-led dairy project in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and a large barley project at Delta.

What is working instead is small-scale incremental growth, led by the private sector. “Farmers are entrepreneurs and small business operators. If they see the need, they’ll respond,” Keyes said.

One example is Meyers Farm in Bethel, in the Yukon Kuskokwim region west of Anchorage, where farmer Tim Meyers grows vegetables for local consumers and has even shipped them to Anchorage at times

Alaska’s niche cut-flower peony-growing industry offers another example. Although still small-scale and seasonal, Peony growers spotted a market niche with Alaska’s geographical and northern latitude advantage. Flowers bloom later in Alaska, and at a time when the peak growing season in competing Lower 48 regions is past. That means Alaska peonies can be available when other regions can no longer supply them.

On a larger scale, farmers in the Delta area are planting field peas as an alternative protein source for animal feed supplements, to replace imported soybean meal, said Bryce Wrigley, a local grower. “We started this three or four years ago, planting 50 acres the first year. We’re up to about 200 to 250 acres now,” he said.

Growing consumer demand for local foods is the key to real growth, Keyes said. This takes education, getting the word out that local foods are available and that they are fresher and taste better than imported foods that have spent days on a barge or truck.

Alaska’s long summer days and growing conditions make for vegetables that are sweeter, tastier and healthier than those shipped in, which get battered by the time they get to Alaska, Keyes said.

One educational effort the state agriculture division has underway this summer is a $5-a-week challenge. “We’re challenging consumers to buy an additional $5 a week of Alaska-grown products. If all Alaskans did that it would boost the local economy by $180 million,” he said. This is money that would go to Alaskan farmers and suppliers rather than out-of-state farmers and suppliers.

To promote local products the agriculture division, which is part of the state Department of Natural Resources, works with major grocery chains and other retailers to supply promotion materials. The retailers build the display booths using the promotion materIals. The special focus on ‘Alaska Grown’ catches customers’ attention, particularly during summer, and sales are doing well.

“We do see an increased demand when Alaska-grown products are in season,” said Bellio, of Safeway. He praised efforts by the state Division of Agriculture staff in educating Safeway’s store teams.

“It’s been particularly helpful to me in understanding the science behind the quality of the Alaska products,” Bellio said.

One constraint on growth, at least in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, is land available for crops. Population growth in recent years has resulted in more land for housing that was previously used for farming. But there is land available in other parts of the state like the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak, and in the Interior, Keyes said.

Kodiak has two cattle ranches and plenty of room for expansion, and a USDA-approved local slaughter plant that was built years ago by growers with a state loan that has been paid off, Keyes said. Grain production, and cattle-raising could also expand in existing farms around Delta.

There is also potential for new areas to be opened. The Nenana area, 60 miles southwest of Fairbanks, has long been known to have good soils suitable for agriculture, particularly in a large, undeveloped area of state-owned land west of the community.

Infrastructure to support development in that area is partly built, including a 10-miles road built west from Nenana to support oil and gas exploration by Doyon Ltd., the Fairbanks-based Alaska Native regional corporation.

However, a bridge across the Nenana River that is partly built and must be finished.

A lot of the buzz in agriculture is anecdotal because private growers are reluctant to share data for competitive reasons. The official U.S. Department of Agriculture farm statistical report shows a small industry that is stable, however. Barley production, for example, is projected at 5,000 acres harvested for 2017, up from 4,300 acres in 2016 and 5,100 acres in 2015, according to Sue Benz, of the USDA’s crop reporting service in Palmer.

The variation is usually because of weather or choices by few farmers to switch crops — for example, growing oats instead of barley. There’s a lag in reporting for most vegetables, but the USDA does have information on potatoes, which show 490 acres harvested in 2016, 540 acres in 2015 an 620 acres in 2014.

Weather affects the annual production, Keyes said. This summer has been rainy and cool, and not a great year for crops that need warm weather.

But it is good for cool-weather crops like cabbage, broccoli and carrots. Sometimes it’s better to have cooler, cloudy days because Alaska’s long summer days, if it’s clear, can actually stress out some plants, which impairs the taste, Keyes said.

“When it’s cool plants can grow at a slower pace, and it makes them a little sweeter to the taste,” he said.

It’s a great year for the grain crop in Interior Alaska, however. Temperatures have been warm and rain has come at just the right time, Bryce Wrigley said. The barley crop should be excellent.

“We’re just starting to harvest, and we’re about a week ahead of schedule,” he said.