“Alaska is a huge state, but there’s very little land that is privately held. Most of the land is owned by the state and federal governments and Native corporations,” explains Amy Pettit, executive director, Alaska Farmland Trust (AFT). “There is also very little land that is ideal for farming. When you look at soil classifications—with Class 1 being the best in the country—we have no Class 1 due to soil temperature. We start with Class 2, and we have very little of that. And what we do have is being eaten by developers.”

As the Last Frontier attracts more people, more homes are being built, with developers seeking out all of the prime flat land that is available. “We’re losing farmland daily to construction and housing developments, but the average person looking around sees so much land,” says Pettit. “While most people see wide open space and thousands of acres, I’m watching real soil be destroyed.”

One of AFT’s goals is to establish conservation easements that protect at-risk soil. The organization also links landowners who own farmable soil with people who want to farm through its FarmLink program.

“To date, we have purchased development rights on six parcels, the majority of which are active farms,” says Pettit. “Usually the landowner is at a transition stage and wants to pass the farm on to the next generation or sell it to another farmer.”

While these farmers are being aggressively pursued by developers, AFT offers an alternative option.

“Most farmers’ assets are all tied to the land; they have no retirement if they aren’t bought out,” says Pettit. “We buy the development rights. We’re not asking them to give up the value of their land; we’re making a permanent investment in their property so that it will continue to be farmed.”

AFT’s FarmLink program, which is based on similar programs along the East Coast, can help connect those who own the land and those looking for farmable land. “We contacted 800 land owners to see if they were interested in leasing or renting property for farmland,” says Pettit. “We got a good response, so we took the first ten properties and began to reach out to next-generation farmers. Despite the fact that we did this on a shoestring budget, we’ve successfully had two links so far. We were super excited—it’s like Match.com, but for farmers.”

“We are definitely seeing increasing interest in folks getting into agriculture,” agrees Margaret Adsit, owner of Alaska Farm Tours. “A lot of folks on my tours are middle-aged Alaskans looking to transition into a second career in a small or big way. We have lots of conversations about what their options are, and what is being done. They are asking the right questions and doing a lot of information gathering.”

“In the 2012 agricultural census, Alaska had the largest growth in the number of farm markets per capita in the nation,” says Pettit. “In 2005, the state had thirteen farmers’ markets. This year, there are more than fifty. Consumers are looking for local products and growers are responding.

“More producers are getting their products into grocery stores as well, with five growers, including producers of vegetables and milk, now in retail stores like Fred Meyer, Carrs Safeway, and more,” she continues.

She adds that grain operations, like barley and small acreage wheat production, are also on the upswing, as is the growth of the livestock industry.

Two crops that are gaining in popularity are peonies, which bloom well in Alaska when they’re not blooming anywhere else, and rhodiola (also known as Arctic root or golden root), a perennial flowering plant whose root is used as medicine.

“The only products that I know are shipped out are rhodiola and peonies; all of our vegetables and grains stay in-state,” says Adsit. She adds that while hay production is a good crop to get into as it sells for $12/bale, it is very labor intensive and yields can vary from year to year.

“Our carrots are the sweetest you can grow, and our peonies—from what I’ve heard from farmers selling in the international market—are the most beautiful that they’ve ever seen,” she says. “Cold weather crops like kale, broccoli, and lettuce love light, so they grow huge. Crops here grow quickly and robustly, and they taste better and sweeter because of the soil temperatures.”

According to Adsit, taste comparisons held at the Alaska State Fair comparing in-state produce against out-of-state products show that without fail, Alaska food tastes fresher. “On taste alone, Alaskans prefer Alaska grown,” she says.

Michelle Church and her husband, David, of Moonstone Farms, own a colony farm between Palmer and Wasilla where they grow twelve acres of hay, about 350 peony plants on a small plot, and about two acres of chemical-free organic produce. They bought it in 1995 from her husband’s grandmother, who had a forty-acre homestead as one of the original colonists in the area.

Moonstone Farms sells through CSAs (community-supported agriculture) and to local restaurants, and people also buy directly from the farm.

“One of the biggest changes that we’ve seen over the years is the change in the length of time that you can grow things,” says Church. “In the past twenty years, we’ve been getting two more weeks of summer, and we’ve been planting two weeks earlier than we used to start; the soil is getting warmer.

“We’ve also seen more interest in local produce and in chemical-free food. People want to know where their food came from and have a connection to it,” she adds. “All of our CSA people come out the last week of the season for a U-pick event, and many visit in the summer as well. I think that’s part of the charm—farms are now a destination as well as a place to get produce.”

“The number one thing for beginning farmers to do is to find a mentor,” says Adsit. “Don’t be ‘Alaska stubborn’ and think you can do everything yourself. Work with a mentor for a couple of seasons to get a knowledge base in place, or pay farmers for information the same way you pay for a professional education.” She also suggests joining an association, such as the Alaska Peony Growers Association, for help.

“You’d also do yourself a huge benefit to take over an operation that’s already in existence,” she adds. “For farmers, the first five years are the highest level of risk. Farms require a huge capital investment if you’re purchasing property. If you are buying, look for owner financing or consider renting land and put in an option to buy over the long term—there are a lot of different mechanisms out there.”

Adsit also believes in spreading the word about how important farms are to the state. “When I used to work for the Alaska Farmland Trust, I realized that as an industry, we weren’t telling the story of farming; we weren’t being advocates of Arctic agriculture,” she says. “Farmers have no time [to advocate for themselves] with a roughly 110-day growing season, depending on where you are in the state, though some do offer U-pick events and tours.”

Adsit began Alaska Farm Tours as a way to introduce people to farming in Alaska. The tours, which visit farms in Anchorage, Talkeetna, and Palmer, showcase the diversity of the state’s agriculture and talk about the challenges and benefits of the industry.

“Alaska is very proud of its seafood story, and we share that,” she says. “We need to do the same with farming.”

One of the major hurdles limiting production at Alaska farms is the inability to preserve the product so that it can be shipped in-state and perhaps even further abroad. Value-added production facilities, such as flash freeze facilities, could open up huge new markets, as well as help local companies use more home-grown products.

“We have no flash freeze facilities for farm use, though we have them for seafood,” says Adsit. “Without permanent cold storage and distribution facilities, it is holding us back from moving beyond the farmers’ market model.

“With flash frozen peas, we would no longer need to import them. In rural Alaska, importing food is a huge issue—and it comes with a hefty price tag. I got a lemon last week that cost over $2. Now who is going to buy that? My answer is to create a frozen food market so that we could ship to anywhere in the state.”

“One of the biggest challenges in Alaska is the inability to extend beyond the fresh season,” agrees Church. “Facilities that could do flash freezing and enable processing directly from the field would be a huge boon to Alaska agriculture.”

Value-added infrastructure would also enable the creation of a secondary market for food not “pretty enough” for farmers’ markets. “If we could get this food to institutions, schools, and hospitals to use in other products, that would be a big benefit,” says Adsit. “Right now, this is a huge missed marketing opportunity for Alaska growers with only a few farmers playing in these markets.”

“It is a very exciting time to be in agriculture; never before has there been this level of customer demand and
support,” says Pettit. “People want to pay a good price for what is growing and invest in local food and infrastructure.

“The door is wide open,” she adds. “Whether you want to grow mushrooms or peonies, whatever your passion is, you can do it in Alaska. There is an outlet for your product.”