Community supported agriculture in Alaska

Glacier Valley produce boxes are part of Alaska’s booming local-source food movement where customers prioritize produce, fish and meat from nearby suppliers to cut down on shipping, increase freshness and support local producers.

Glacier Valley’s weekly produce box business is part of what’s called a Community Supported Agriculture business. A true CSA involves customers who pay a set price for a season of farm-raised produce, then get whatever the farm produces that year. Glacier Valley’s CSA is a cross between a true CSA and a subscription service, because customers can pay one week at a time and because Glacier Valley adds Lower 48 produce to make up for stuff the Mat-Su farmers can’t supply all year.

The farm started selling the boxes in 2008 as a local alternative to a Washington state subscription company, Full Circle. Today, Full Circle serves about 5,000 customers in Alaska in more than 140 communities from Barrow to Unalaska, according to Gregg Makuch, the company’s vice president of marketing. The company’s standard $43 box contains about a dozen fruits and veggies, all certified organic.

Alaska makes up about a third of Full Circle’s member base; Makuch said he expects some of Glacier Valley’s customers will migrate over to Full Circle after next month.

Another Mat-Su farm, Arctic Organics in the Butte, has been offering a smaller CSA service since 1989, making it the state’s oldest.

But there are also many smaller CSAs offered throughout the state, according to a list compiled by Deirdre Helfferich of the University of Alaska’s School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences in Fairbanks. More than 20 farms offer some kind of CSA, including six in the Mat-Su.

For more information on CSA farms in Alaska, and Alaska community agriculture, visit alaskacommunityag.org.

—Zaz Hollander