Everyone shares responsibility for food production

This time of year, across the entire 12 time zones of the former Soviet Union, families are sprouting seeds and putting young tomato, pepper and cucumber plants in the windows to prepare for the coming summer growing season.

It has proven to be very essential for survival during the 70 years of Communist rule. During my various visits I have talked with elderly people who could remember the times when it is estimated that more than 40 million people starved through deliberate manipulation of government policy. The survivors learned to think seriously about the food they could produce independently and could all remember the winters when the food from their own gardens and preserved berries from local hills was the only food they had. Every family is entitled to a quarter-acre garden plot, or “dachas,” that they take very seriously — seriously enough that they take turns camping on those remote plots guarding the maturing harvest with their very lives.

The production from these dachas is serious enough that the government agents who took me over there in the 1990s on a diplomatic visa claimed that the cumulative production eclipsed the total production from the huge government-subsidized collective farms. Families I stayed with would proudly show me tons of potatoes and other produce that sometimes was hidden under the floorboards of their houses or garages. A new generation is slowly losing these survival tactics, but still today the migration to the countryside to plant gardens, pick berries and gather mushrooms is huge.

I say this to suggest that we don’t think enough about our food supplies. I hope that we don’t have to go through a disaster to learn the importance of local sources for our food. We know that less than 5 percent of our present food consumed comes from Alaska sources. We have been told that the retail supplies hold less than a week’s supply if the transportation links were cut off. Most of us have been here long enough to know that a single volcano in the Cook Inlet can shut down air traffic and barge traffic. We have seen a single bridge failure on the Alaska Highway shut down our only road link to the outside world. Add to that other complexities like labor relations and international politics and you should begin to appreciate how fragile our existence is.

It is for good reason that the governor has initiated food warehousing across the state.

Rep. Shelley Hughes is introducing legislation that could motivate more commercial food production. Living in the breadbasket of the state, it is one of my goals to offer incentives for food production in the Mat-Su Borough. I would encourage you individually to not sit back and think the government is going to figure this all out before a disaster strikes. You should take serious thought whether or not your family could survive on the current pantry stock of food. Think of entering next winter with enough food on hand to get yourself through the winter without a single product from outside the state.

That might involve building a larger pantry that can’t freeze up if the power or the heat goes out. It might involve growing a garden this summer. You may not need it for survival, but it would be better to have it than to wish you had it. I ask you to give it a lot of thought and if you have any suggestions on what the borough can do to help the situation, please feel free to let me know. I’m not suggesting doomsday, but I do see wisdom in being prepared for the worst-case scenario. God bless!

Larry DeVilbiss has been mayor of the Mat-Su Borough since January 2011.