Alaska Food Policy Council meeting

The Alaska Food Policy Council met in Anchorage May 18 & 19 for the first time in a meeting organized by Diane Peck of the Obesity Prevention and Control Program of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and Danny Consenstein of the USDA Farm Service Agency of Alaska. The facilitator of the meeting was Mark Winne, of the Community Food Security Coalition. Some 80 people were in attendance.

The meeting began with an excellent lunch made with Alaska foods prepared by Robert Kinneen, executive chef of the restaurant Orso. The menu included shrimp, an elk and vegetable roll loaf, and cole slaw, with almost all the ingredients grown or harvested in Alaska. The meal made the point that Alaskans can eat and eat well with foods that originate in their own state. Introductory speeches were given by Alli Harvey, the Sustainable Communities Director of the Alaska Center for the Enviroment, and Bill Hogan, the Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner. Afterward, Winne gave a presentation, "What is a Food Policy Council?"

The meeting's objectives were to:

• Develop a clear understanding of the role and activities of a food policy council. This was not as easy as it might sound: Winne provided a thorough overview of what food policy councils do (there are 100 of them across North America) and how they operate, but questions were still surfacing about them on the second day of the meeting. Part of the reason for this is that the structure and activities of food policy councils depend on the individual council. The executive summary (PDF) of a report by the Community Food Security Coalition on food policy councils, Food Policy Councils: Lessons Learned, was included as part of the participant materials. (The full report is also available as a PDF at their website.) Winne described how effective food policy councils complement the work of the private and public sectors, working best with the three Ps: projects, partnerships, and policies. Winne pointed out that there are no departments of food in any state government, although many state departments have to do with food (agriculture, transportation, health & safety, commerce, etc.); a food policy council can act as a de facto Department of Food.

• Identify food system issues and priorities in Alaska. Most of the meeting was devoted to this topic. Winne led discussions over two days, during which the participants identified issues at play in Alaska concerning: values around food; food issues in Alaska (these ranged from nutrition, food safety, environmental contamination, food equity and justice concerns, food production, production support industry [compost, agricultural equipment manufacturers, seed growers & sellers, etc.], food education, game management, traditional use, food security in the event of a natural or man-made disaster, social and cultural importance of food and eating, and so forth); strengths and weaknesses of the food systems in Alaska, and so on. On the second day, six main areas were identified: council governance and structure; health, food security, hunger, social justice, and safety; rural and subsistence/traditional use; education and regulation; food production; and the food supply chain (processing, distribution, development, transportation, and infrastructure). The attendees broke up into groups along these lines and reviewed and prioritized issues in their respective groups, and considered two questions: what do we need to know, and who is missing?

• Evaluate different organizational structures of food policy councils around the country and decide what could work for Alaska. Food policy councils tend to be either independent of government, government-based entities, or a hybrid of the two. The meeting attendees seemed to lean toward either an independent group or a hybrid, the main concerns being that if there was not buy-in from the policy makers and agencies in government, that the council would not be taken seriously, or would have no impact; however, if a part of government, then the council might be too subject to political vagaries.

Seven speakers gave five-minute overviews of different aspects of food issues in Alaska:

• Economy: Danny Consenstein, Farm Service Agency. Approximately 100,000 Alaskans make their living in a food-related business, and Alaskans spend $2.5 billion per year on food.
• Rural issues: Craig Gerlach, professor of anthropology with the UAF Center for Cross-Cultural Studies. Gerlach discussed food systems and their vulnerabilities. He pointed out that "being self-reliant does not mean producing all food locally."
• Production: Milan Shipka, UAF professor of animal science and associate director of the Alaska Agricultural & Forestry Experiment Station. Alaska's food production is incredibly diverse. We may not be able to be completely self-sufficient in food production, but we can improve our food security and export markets, and we can produce food anywhere in the state including urban centers.
• Health: Ward Hurlburt, state of Alaska Chief Medical Officer and director of the Division of Public Health.
• Food Insecurity: Merri Mike Adams, managing director of the Food Bank of Alaska.
• Supply chain: Robin Richardson, member manager of the Global Food Collaborative.
• Safety: Kristin Ryan, director of the Alaska Division of Environmental Health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Community Food Security Coalition, the UAF Cooperative Extension Service, Alaska Root Sellers, the Alaska Farm Bureau, the Division of Agriculture, the Division of Public Health, the Alaska Center for the Environment, Orso Restaurant, the Farm Service Agency, and the Alaska Comprehensive Cancer Partnership contributed to and helped organize the event.