'Alaska Food Strategy Task Force' duplicates 'Alaska Food Security Task Force'
Created in 2022 with excessive hoo-ha by the Legislature and the governor, the 36-member Alaska Food Strategy Task Force is getting off to a slow start.
At a May 26th introductory meeting, which followed an April introductory meeting, task force leader Sen. Shelley Hughes looked for volunteers to chair three subcommittees to compile rushed reports by July 15 on three major issues—growing the agriculture industry, growing markets for local products and improving transportation and infrastructure.
The 36-member task force was supposed to have started strategizing last winter, with a report due by the end of this month on three of the major challenges facing agriculture in Alaska.
We should add task force redundancy to that list, as this effort is repeating work done last year by the Alaska Food Security Task Force.
Strategy has replaced security in the name. And the new group is bigger.
The law creating the new task force aimed at four ambitious goals, one of which is to improve food security for all Alaskans.
“Like the Alaska Food Security Task Force I created earlier this year, the Alaska Food Strategy Task Force will help to support our agriculture industry and growing markets for locally grown and processed foods. Further, the Task Force will help to ensure food security across Alaska – a need that was emphasized by the pandemic,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy proclaimed last Aug. 26 when he signed the bill at the Alaska State Fair.
There are four legislators on the task force, along with two people from the Alaska Food Policy Council, one from the Institute of Social and Economic Research, one from the Alaska Farm Bureau and six state commissioners, along with 21 other members with expertise in everything from mariculture to marketing.
Three weeks after signing the law setting up the task force, Dunleavy signed an executive order creating a separate “Office of Food Security” in the governor’s office.
Dunleavy announced the new office on social media with a YouTube video identical to a campaign ad, created and distributed by the State of Alaska.
The Alaska Office of Food Security, which Dunleavy claimed to have created last fall, led by a state PR employee who doubled as a campaign PR man, does not have a budget, a phone number, a real office or a website on which to post the findings of the 2022 food security task force.
The Alaska Food Security Task force, easily confused with the new Alaska Food Strategy Task Force, finished its work in early March. Here is the final report of the security task force.
There is no sign that the alleged Office of Food Security is doing anything to implement the work of the task force.
The new task force, like the old task force, promises to deliver a report that will not gather dust on a shelf—the dream of every task force in human history.
But the new food task force is not off to a promising start when it sets out on ground that has been plowed once or twice before.
Instead of writing a new report—under terms of the 2022 law—it should be focused on the work of the last task force, digesting its many recommendations and doing something about food security.
Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.