New agriculture department could now include food security and mariculture

A bill to create a state Department of Agriculture is set to move in the state Senate, and changes are being made in the legislation.

Along with the traditional functions of a state agriculture department like assisting farmers and inspecting crops Senate Bill 128 is likely to be modified to include a two new divisions, one to encourage Mariculture, or ocean farming; and second to focus on food security in the state.

The bill was discussed. in a Senate Resources Committee meeting last Friday, April 11, along with the changes. SB 128 remains in the Senate committee, however, but will be brought up again next week and is likely to move out of committee then.

The legislation is modeled on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s original Executive Order done earlier this year creating a Department of Agriculture. The Legislature voted down the Executive Order, which it has powers to do, so that the new department could be created by legislation. That allows the proposal to be amended, or changed, which can’t be done for an Executive Order.

As was contemplated in the Executive Order most of the functions of the new department will be those of the present Division of Agriculture transferred to the new state department including the division’s Plant Materials Center located near Palmer.

The division is now part of the state Department on Natural Resources, or DNR. If the Legislature approves SB 128, and the governor signs it, state workers employed in the division will remain in Palmer along with the Plant Materials Center, the DNR has said.

A proposed new section of the bill contains mariculture, or farming of the seabed and in coastal areas. This involves products like oysters and mussels grown in enclosed cages as well as seaweed that is planted, and harvested, on the seabed. Mariculture is considered farming under federal regulations and so placing the responsibility for it in a new agriculture department would be consistent with that.

It will also allow for a greater focus by the state in developing mariculture products along with traditional farm products.

As for marketing, another bill in the Legislature dealing with the promotion of seafood by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, or ASMI, gives the Institute the authority to promote mariculture along with traditional seafood like salmon and halibut.

There were questions in the Senate Resources Committee over whether promotion of mariculture products like oysters should be done by the new agriculture department but the committee decided to this that with ASMI, which is funded largely by industry fees.

Another new responsibility that is pending for the agriculture department is for food security. Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Mat-Su, a member of the Senate Resources Committee, said food security occupied much of the discussion over a year in the Alaska Food Security Task Force, a 24-member panel which Hughes chaired.

Adding food security prompted discussion in the committee meeting last Friday, however, over how it would be defined. Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anch., said there is no legal definition of “food security,” and this could inject uncertainty as to how far the authority of the new department can reach in that area.

Sen. Robert Myers, R-North Pole, also a member of the committee, said food security could also include transportation of food by overland and marine shipping and its movement and storage at ports, areas now regulated by the State Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and other agencies.

Other committee members said it could also include food aid to lower income Alaskans now served by the state and federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. This is now supervised by the state Department of Health. The committee decided to leave food assistance with the state health department, where it is now located, so that a new agriculture department would focus on it only in general with its authority to be defined by a new Commissioner of Agriculture.

There was also a consensus that specific duties of the new commissioner would be spelled out in a new version of SB 128.