Valley spotlighted in annual ag tour

MAT-SU — Following the rush for gold then oil, agriculture’s place has been riding in the back seat of Alaska’s economic bus. Today, the industry is attempting to break into its own lane, and some state legislators are trying to help.

The annual agriculture industry tour, which recently came through the Mat-Su Valley, is one way state lawmakers educate themselves on the state’s ag producers. Reps. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, and Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, began the tours in 2003 and hosted this year’s event. The purpose is to educate lawmakers and “show we have a successful industry here,” Stoltze said. “And, get ride of sterotypes that ag is about dairy and big oat and barley production.”

Stoltze said he is concerned by rapid development of farm land. Homes are being built on irreplaceable topsoil.

“It is an industry that if we lose we will never get it back,” Stoltze said.

The family farmers of the Mat-Su Valley are an integral part of the local and state economy, and was featured for legislators and some staff; Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom, R-Eagle River, Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, Rep. Wes Keller, R-Wasilla, and Rep. Kevin Meyer R-Anchorage.

Also along for the tour were Doug Warner of the state Department of Agriculture and Franci Havemeister, director of the Department of Natural Resources Division of Agriculture.

The tour began at the organic Rempel Farm. Mark Rempel has farmed in the Mat-Su Valley, east of the Matanuska River, since he was a young man. Growing carrots put him through college.

An organic farmer, Rempel gave up conventional techniques almost two decades ago. He had become concerned about the chemicals he had to apply to his crops, some of which required special equipment to handle, he said.

Rempel said his soil, 14 feet deep in some areas, has been helped by the organic process.

Now, as legislators found out during their tour, humans can safely eat the produce — dirt and all — straight from the rich, brown soil of the Rempel farm.

Organic farming tries to avoid the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators and livestock feed additives.

During the tour of his farm, Rempel produced sweet, crisp slices of snow apples for the legislators. Others attending also found great pleasure in the snap peas and strawberries hanging plump off the plants at Rempel Farm.

Rempel, who hires several home-school students to help around the farm, said his farm is productive enough to financially support his family and another.

Rempel sells his produce at farmers markets on Wednesdays and Sundays in Anchorage.

The legislators also visited a produce packaging plant and the Division of Agriculture Plant Materials Center while in the Valley. The center was established in 1972 and is funded by the state’s general fund, the Department of Transportation, University of Alaska and the Forest Service. Stoney Wright runs the center.

Wright said the facility provides Alaska’s farmers with foundation class seed for native grass and grain and for seed potatoes planted around the Valley. The entire potato seed stock for Alaska is growing in a single greenhouse at the Plant Materials Center.

The center also practices ethnobiology, which is the sustained yield of wild harvest that takes place with native foods like blueberries and birch syrup.

The Plant Materials Center, Wright said, is already working with Alaska seed growers to prepare for the reclamation work associated with the proposed natural gas pipeline.

Mat-Su Borough Assembly Member Mary Kvalheim has expressed interest in developing a willow tree crop program to use for the burgeoning biofuels market.

In the Mat-Su Valley, the fastest-growing region in Alaska, agriculture land is disappearing quickly, said Valley farmer Larry DeVilbiss.

Large parcels of farmland are often subdivided by developers and sold piece by piece for new homes. The Mat-Su Borough Assembly recently allocated $300,000 in matching funds to help protect the dwindling acres of farmland in the Valley.

Arthur Keyes farms three acres of land in the Springer Loop area. He said the Valley’s ag lands are irreplaceable.

“There is a development frenzy,” he said. “It is easy to develop a 40-acre hay field with no trees to cut.”

Keyes said pristine farmland is important for the basic needs of Alaskans.