By PAUL A BAUER JR.
Alaska Rep. Kevin McCabe and several Republican gubernatorial candidates have floated the idea of creating a stand-alone Department of Agriculture. It’s an idea worth debating, because the issue isn’t just about farming. It’s about how Alaska defines its priorities and manages its resources.
Currently, agriculture sits inside the Alaska Department of Natural Resources as one of six divisions, alongside Forestry, Geological and Geophysical Surveys, Mining, Land and Water, Parks and Outdoor Recreation, and the most prominent: Oil and Gas. Most of these divisions focus on managing and regulating natural resources that exist without human intervention, including timber, minerals, water, land, and energy.
Agriculture, by contrast, is different. It is not simply “discovered” in nature. It’s created. It’s the product of human labor, planning, and investment. Alaska’s Division of Agriculture works to open land for farming, finance farmers and processors, develop plant materials, educate on conservation, assist with marketing, and certify farm products. This is more akin to an economic development and marketing agency than a traditional resource-management division.
And that raises a key question: What is a natural resource? Most definitions agree that a natural resource is something that exists in the environment without human involvement—sunlight, water, soil, fish, forests, minerals. These resources are valuable because they are essential to life and economic activity, and they come in diverse forms. Agriculture uses these resources, but it is not one itself; it is a human-driven system that transforms those raw materials into food.
This distinction matters. Food and economic security are among Alaska’s most critical needs. Yet under the current structure, agriculture is housed within a department whose core mission and culture are focused on managing unaltered natural resources. The result? Agriculture risks being an afterthought, competing for attention and funding against the heavyweights of oil, gas, and mining.
Suppose we accept that agriculture is not merely a subset of natural resources but a vital pillar of Alaska’s economy and survival. In that case, it deserves its own seat at the table.
A Department of Agriculture would not be “just another bureaucracy.” It would be an investment in Alaska’s ability to feed itself, grow its rural economies, and reduce dependence on imported food.For a state with vast land and untapped agricultural potential, the stakes are clear.
The question is whether we’ll treat agriculture as a side note in the resource playbook or as the strategic priority it truly is.
Paul A Bauer Jr. is a former Anchorage assemblyman and Alaska political advocate.
Paul I’m of the opinion that agriculture should stand alone. The food situation in Alaska is not good, it’s a definite concern. If the tote ship failed to show up for 2 weeks we would find out how critical this situation is. And guaranteed at some point that will happen. Food and water are all that really maters to sustain life.
I’ve said this same thing for years. If there is some kind of disaster in Seattle, natural or manmade, we’re in trouble. The stores would empty out and we’d have serious civil unrest. During Covid we had people fighting over toilet paper in the Costco parking lot. We need to start preparing.
Interesting take.
Mr. Bauer is reasoning from a partially uninformed premise—that DNR’s mission is “managing unaltered natural resources.” Alaska’s fish and game management paradigm, world-famous and the model for other national governments and UN sustainability definitions, is distinct from our federal agencies’ in that it posits “active management” of land, waters, and organisms rather than passive. This includes mariculture, aquaculture (hatcheries included), fisheries quotas and counting systems, permits, and development grants and such. And the overall goal is maximum sustained yield for the benefit of the Alaskan public. Heard of the wood bison reintroduction project? Very much hands-on. The point is, the mission isn’t siloing off commoditized and limited living things as US Fish and Wildlife does. It’s developing and encouraging large numbers so Alaskans can get food and develop food-based businesses. In Southcentral it’s probably easy to lose sight of this amidst the heavy focus on oil and gas and lack of useable waterfront.
Still…interesting point made. Alaskan barley cannot be a public resource reserved for the good of all Alaskans. It will be private property.
Unfortunately, Mother Nature is not a good neighbor to commercial agriculture in Alaska! The money would be better spent on improving our energy infrastructure to provide abundant and inexpensive electricity which would allow Alaska to compete economically with the rest of the Pacific Northwest!
Agriculture has existed in Dept. of Natural Resources since statehood and as near as I can tell is not and never has been an afterthought. The writer does not really say why it needs to be changed. So, the questions are: Why change it? How will changing it make my life better?
Hey politician. Heads up.
Alaskans do not want more government or bureaucracy. We want much less of both. We want more decentralisation, fewer fees and a full pfd. Push power away from Juneau and towards families and individuals and watch Alaska bloom.
You think you are part of the solution, but you are a part of the problem. The people will be heard one way or another.
The largest cash crop in alaska is cannabis, and its still regulated by a Board that is very out of touch with the industry. The industry paid approximately $30M in taxes to the state of alaska in 2024. This compares with $4B for Oil and Gas, $170M for fisheries, $140M for mining and $40M for the Alcohol industry.
If managed more “entrepreneurially”, its been projected that the tax could be upwards of twice this amount. The state has an egregiously high rate of taxation (not a percentage, but a flat $800/lb on a product that now has an average wholesale price of about $2400/lb, so over 30%). This high tax rate pushes a significant portion of the demand to the black market, which is completely untested and unregulated product.
Maybe if the cannabis industry were under a Department of Agriculture, it could be managed better than it is now. However, I’m not sure any state agency has the mindset to grow industry in the state – look what we’ve done to oil and gas…
Anyway…
From this piece one might guess that Bauer is for government for government’s sake, because his logic is illogical.
We start with:
“… and the most prominent: Oil and Gas. Most of these divisions focus on managing and regulating natural resources that exist without human intervention, including timber, minerals, water, land, and energy.”
Then:
“Agriculture uses these resources, but it is not one itself; it is a human-driven system that transforms those raw materials into food.”
Okay, maybe I could see his point:
“ Yet under the current structure, agriculture is housed within a department whose core mission and culture are focused on managing unaltered natural resources.”
Until ***the very next sentence***:
“Agriculture risks being an afterthought, competing for attention and funding against the heavyweights of oil, gas, and mining.”
‘Unaltered’ DOES NOT EQUAL ‘oil, gas, and mining.’ Nor, except for looking at them, do Trees/Timber.
The State of Alaska government has spent how many hundreds of millions of dollars (or more?) over the years flushing money down the agricultural toilet?
It doesn’t work. It can’t pencil out.
I support farmers and ranchers, and Alaska Grown. If we as a state choose to support agriculture with public dollars, let’s at least be honest about what, who, why, and how many dollars.
Independent ‘Food Security’ will not be attainable, and any politician (or political advocate) who claims otherwise has an angle they are working.
A very astute observation Paul! I’m an active farmer in North Pole who once thought farming was not a viable activity in this state having moved from a farming state years ago. I hope it happens. The legislature is going to take our PFD anyway. We need an independent food industry.
By the time what will be a bloated bureaucracy regulates ag out of all competitiveness, “independent food industry” will have lost all the independence it now enjoys. Government is not your friend: it is occasionally helpful, seldom necessary, always inefficient, and frequently evil.
Yes … however Bryan Scoresby should not be promoted to run a new, stand-alone Department of Agriculture.
At present, Scoresby is not managing the current, much smaller division in a professional manner. At present, and after I called to discuss a particularly deficiency about which I am aware, he is completely unconcerned about insuring that division requirements clearly laid out in statute are being done. He’s good at giving excuses for not doing his job, however.
Scoresby is completely uninterested in and unmotivated for managing the current division as it should be run and is the last person who should be tapped to run a stand-alone department in Alaska.
I favor keeping agriculture in DNR because of the agricultural covenants attached to agricultural land. DNR could best manage the land issues such as leasing, sales, and enforcing the covenants. The Department of Commerce Community and Economic Development could manage ag loans and grants. Although a separate department could be justified on subject matter, upper management costs need to be reduced as state revenues from oil and gas decline. As another suggestion, perhaps the oil and gas royalty audits and production tax audits could be joined in one department (Revenue or DNR) because of some data common to both.
More government will not cause more agriculture.
Seattle gets $3-4 BILLIIN for AK meat and sets the price.
SOA has sabotaged the food security AK once enjoyed.
https://open.substack.com/pub/donnliston907/p/how-can-alaska-gain-food-security?r=q57oe&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
“Not another beauracracy.” Who is he kidding?
That is exactly what it is.
It will be yet another funding stream to siphon money away from Alaskans.
Show me that this will be more efficient and less costly than what we are already doing Paul – then and only then will I agree. It will only be another excuse to exponentially expand bureaucracy, regulation, and cost.
Lost us at: “…an investment in Alaska’s ability to feed itself, grow its rural economies, and reduce dependence on imported food.”
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Can you stop saying “imported food”? Your Ag Department’s gonna stick import quotas on “imported food” to reduce “dependence”, force everyone to buy local at three times the cost, assuming there’s anything to buy after a bad growing season, so yet another donor class can make bushels of bucks?
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Maybe the Big Boys are talking about buying major agricultural land in Alaska like they’re doing in the Lower 48, and you creating more government for “investment in Alaska’s ability to feed itself, grow its rural economies, and reduce dependence on imported food” is all about facilitating corporate buy-out offers that locals can’t refuse?
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Happens in the Lower 48, but can’t happen here? (‘https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/investment-funds-stocking-up-us-farmland-safe-haven-bet-2023-11-16/)
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Maybe you’ve got the answers, Paul, which Kevin apparently doesn’t:
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In what universe, including that which spawned China’s Great Leap Forward, does more government bureaucracy, more central planning, assure food security for everyone?
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Consolidating government functions may be a good idea, but quantifiable projections based on verifiable predictive-audit data are missing, at least from public view …why?
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Why should anyone who works for a living trust your brand-new Department of Agriculture –not– to be another money-laundering racket, another crony club like the Department of Education for example, and just as useless?
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Ag Department’s guaranteed to make food cheaper? Teamsters, Longshoremen strike, apocalypse hits, China Flu II hits, China buys up all the land, we won’t go hungry even in winter because our Ag shop’s on the job, strengthening food security?
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Remember the acres of empty shelves during China flu hysteria …can’t happen with our Ag Department running the show, right?
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An Ag Department full of fresh-faced unionized wokester REMF’s who never turned a spade, raised a living thing, tossed a hay bale, met a payroll, but …who can regulate, complicate, shuffle data, launder money with the best, working for unelected bureaucrats accountable to no one …what could possibly go wrong?
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Who’s honest, competent, ballsy enough, besides yourself of course, first to get Democrat approval to run this thing …then to tell Co-Governor Giessel how things are gonna be when it comes to funding?
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You can’t fix any other part of our busted, bloated, corrupt state government, but you want to plant a whole new department for Democrats to politically fertilize and triple in size as soon as RCV gets one of them in the Governor’s House, and start it now because it’s all about “food security”, plus everybody in the Lower 49 has one?
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Yes, triple in size. Look at your “Alaska Food Strategy Task Force” roster, will you swear on a stack of Bibles your Ag shop won’t swell to accommodate every one of them plus their strap hangers, lobbyists, consultants, and contractors?
(‘https://alaska-food-security-and-independence-1-1-soa-dnr.hub.arcgis.com/)
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If, as Kevin said, “the administration found a way to make it cost-neutral”, why can’t the administration seem to find a way to make all of state government cost-neutral?
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Why not ditch the hype, buzzwords, and fear-mongering, explain –factual– pros and cons, answer questions from constituents who’ve justifiably lost confidence in their public officials. What’ve you got to lose?
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You don’t even have a mission statement, exactly what your Ag Department’s supposed to do, what checks-and-balances and consequences assure it does that, what consequences like a sunset clause happen if it doesn’t, what prevents future Democrat-controlled lobbyist-legislator teams from morphing it into another corrupt, mismanaged authoritarian bureaucratic nightmare!
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In other words, go all Shark Tank or go home.
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You up for Alaska’s very first Ag Commissioner, Paul, that’s why you’re telling people who work for a living what they “need to rethink”, that’s what your shtick’s all about?
If there is to be a state ag department then it should include SNAP and the Div. of Forestry & Fire, mirroring the federal ag. But I see insufficient justification for yet another department and all the cost redundancies that would bring. Here is a letter I wrote to legislators in February about the idea:
I very much oppose establishing an Alaska Department of Agriculture because of the required 13 new positions and annual cost of $7 to $10 million (as reported in the Alaska Beacon). I very much regret opposing an initiative originating with Senator Hughes by the way.
I grew up farming and logging. I’ve milked plenty of cows, and I think that on a bet I could climb on an old Farmall C, and start it and run it, all while blindfolded. I worked full time at the largest dairy in northern NH for 4 years. I helped people hay every summer from the age of 5 thru the summer I moved here at age 23; 52 years ago. Haying one year without a bailer, at age 9, I think, I had the same problem as the young fellow in Robert Frost’s ‘Death of the Hired Man.’ I both logged and hayed, and sugared too, come to think of it, with the big strawberry roan for whom I am named. As a teenager I boarded for a year with a farm family that operated a sawmill, logging and farming with them, and when I left they may have been just as suspicious of Frenchmen as when I had begun. I owned a John Deere log skidder and a John Deere crawler, selling them before I threw my saws in my truck to drive here and move directly to a large logging camp on Prince of Wales Island.
New Hampshire had two separate logging and farming cultures, one French and one Yankee. I know there were many people who moved back and forth between the two, as I always did, but I cannot remember knowing any. French was the language of the dairy where I spent 4 years, and that dairy employed about 50. I lived in one logging camp in which I was the only fellow who could speak English, and I had to interpret everything the Black girl said when we watched Star Trek on the tiny television.
Farming is a culture. Even states that have huge agricultural industries like Iowa and Nebraska have their own farming cultures. Alaskans have never had much of that culture. (FDR attempted to establish a farming culture here, as we all know, and there is little today to show for the effort. Governor Hammond made another attempt, and we know how that ended. ) By the way, comparisons with Rhode Island fall short in that while Rhode Island produces only slightly more farm income than Alaska does almost half of the claimed Alaska income is in aquaculture. The entire state of Rhode Island is only twice the size of Chugach State Park, or 1/6 the size of the Chugach National Forest.
Throughout 2023 and 2024 the state of Alaska was under pressure to keep up with new SNAP enrollments, but during the same period the media claimed there were two job vacancies for every Alaskan looking for work. I don’t believe any Alaska Commissioner of Agriculture, despite his/her 12 underlings, can entice Alaskans to originate farms or decide to work in agriculture. It’s entirely evident that government cannot even persuade people to leave food stamps and go to work (if in fact government even wants fewer people on SNAP). Convincing people to work in agriculture would be a much steeper hill, and government regularly fails at less difficult tasks.
The Alaska economy, and especially our economic outlook, is very troubled. Oil production dropped 80 percent while our population doubled. Now we focus on how to support the huge state and municipal government (not to mention the 30 to 50 thousand Alaskans who work for nonprofits that depend on government grants) we built when our oil reserve situation was much more positive. Please refrain from increasing the size of government and the number of state departments until Alaskans are once again producing much more of anything the world wants to buy. One way or another Alaska will reduce government to a size the economy can support.
I fully agree with you Tom. I appreciate your logging and farming experience as well as your financial management experience.
Let’s not repeat the past as in investment in chicken and barley farms.
Sure, more bureaucracy is needed. From a governor who promised to reduce government and has already expanded the bureaucracy with very poor results.