Collaboration to Strengthen Alaska’s Food Economy
Photo Credit: Kjekol | Envato
Alaska’s food systems face some of the nation’s most unique and complex challenges, with limited infrastructure and harsh climate conditions. Compared to the Lower 48, costs of inputs like labor and supplies are significantly higher here, making it difficult for local producers to compete with imported food. Imports face endless transportation challenges that leave many communities, especially in rural areas, vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, high prices, and limited access to fresh food.
At the same time, these challenges present powerful opportunities. Across Alaska, a growing network of farmers, entrepreneurs, tribal entities, educators, and community leaders are working to build a stronger, more self-reliant food economy. A vital part of this work is the Alaska Food Policy Council (AFPC) and its monthly working groups.
These working groups are not just about talking. They are about doing. By collaborating across sectors and communities, these working groups help Alaskans co-create solutions that support economic development, entrepreneurship, and local leadership of food systems. Whether through new growing techniques, policy reform, or market access strategies, AFPC’s working groups fuel small business growth and build a more resilient, inclusive economy for all Alaskans.
Each AFPC working group focuses on a key part of Alaska’s food systems. They are designed to connect Alaskans with others working in similar food systems sectors, to share solutions and challenges, and to expand opportunities and collaboration.
By connecting people with shared goals but diverse experiences, these groups are helping Alaskans start, grow, and sustain food-focused enterprises. They offer peer support, practical tools, and a collaborative environment that is deeply responsive to local needs.
Here’s how each working group is helping strengthen Alaska’s food economy, one relationship and one region at a time.
Advocacy Working Group
The Advocacy Working Group plays a critical role in helping Alaskans understand how policy decisions impact our food systems, economy, and the success of small food businesses. It focus on making food policy accessible, understandable, and actionable by developing well-researched policy briefs, fact sheets, and educational tools that clearly explain how legislation and regulations affect areas such as food production, distribution, licensing, labeling, and local procurement.
Members include small business owners, nonprofit leaders, farmers, tribal representatives, educators, public health professionals, and engaged citizens from across the state. What unites this group is a shared commitment to improving food access, supporting local producers, and shaping policies that build more resilient and equitable food systems.
Current Issue
July 2025
Each year, the Advocacy Working Group identifies priority policy areas that reflect member input and statewide food system needs. It supports these priorities through collective action, resource sharing, and coordinated outreach and provides tools that help Alaskans stay informed, speak up, and participate in public processes. It also helps demystify policy and regulation by offering real-world examples of how they impact local food businesses and community food access.
Policy engagement is not limited to lawmakers and advocates. Whether you’re a farmer, food entrepreneur, chef, nonprofit leader, or community member, your voice matters. Staying engaged, showing up, and helping advance food policies supports shared goals and ensures that Alaska’s food systems grow in a way that benefits everyone.
Alaska Food Policy Council staff on the capitol steps in Juneau to advocate for improving Alaska’s food system.
Photo Credit: Alaska Food Policy Council
Traditional Foods Working Group
The Traditional Foods Working Group promotes Indigenous food systems’ cultural and economic importance. These systems are vital to food sovereignty and wellness and represent significant potential for small business development in rural Alaska.
This group includes tribal leaders, traditional harvesters, culture bearers, and Indigenous entrepreneurs. Together, they work to secure continued access to harvest areas, advocate for state-tribal collaboration, and build support for Indigenous-led food businesses.
By creating space for dialogue and collaboration, the group helps elevate Indigenous foodways as essential to cultural resilience, food sovereignty, and community well-being.
Through networking around grants, programs, and policy opportunities, the group supports efforts that strengthen traditional food systems in rural and tribal communities. As interest in locally harvested and culturally grounded foods continues to grow, the group helps ensure that Indigenous knowledge holders and food producers are resourced, respected, and given a seat at the decision-making table.
Food Waste Working Group
Food waste is not only an environmental issue. It is also an economic one. Every year, valuable food is lost across Alaska due to spoilage, surplus, or lack of coordination between suppliers and those in need. The Food Waste Working Group is helping communities and businesses turn that loss into opportunity.
By connecting food recovery organizations, anti-hunger programs, food security projects, and sustainable businesses, this group fosters a network of partners working to reduce waste and redistribute surplus food efficiently.
For small food businesses, reducing waste means lower costs and higher margins. For nonprofit partners, it means serving more people with fewer resources. For communities, it means strengthening local food security and building smarter food storage and distribution systems.
The group also supports composting and circular economy models that create local jobs and value-added products from food scraps. Through data sharing, education, and collaboration, the Food Waste Working Group is helping Alaskans design food systems that are both economically and environmentally sustainable.
Hydroponics Working Group
Hydroponics is a powerful tool for expanding food production, especially in places where traditional agriculture is difficult. The Hydroponics Working Group brings together a growing network of farmers, educators, researchers, growers, and entrepreneurs exploring how this method can support year-round farming and rural job creation.
Participants learn from one another through monthly meetings, where guest speakers share their experiences with system design, nutrient management, crop selection, and business planning. These discussions help demystify the technology and make hydroponic farming more accessible for small businesses, schools, and tribal programs.
In addition to supporting greater food security, hydroponic production can also increase economic opportunities. It enables new farm-based enterprises to thrive in places that lack arable land, supports STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education and workforce development, and creates business models that are scalable, sustainable, and tailored to Alaska’s unique climate.
This group helps connect entrepreneurs to technical assistance, funding opportunities, and peer mentors. It reduces the learning curve and helps launch viable, community-led enterprises across the state.
Food Hubs Working Group
One of the most significant barriers for small food producers is market access. The Food Hubs Working Group is working to change that by supporting the development of infrastructure that connects local growers to consumers, institutions, and retail outlets. Food hubs vary in the services they provide. In general, food hubs aggregate products from multiple producers, and some handle storage, processing, marketing, and distribution. In Alaska, food hubs can take many shapes to best adapt to communities’ unique challenges. This allows even the smallest farmers and food businesses to reach individuals and, in some cases, markets like schools, hospitals, and grocery stores.
This working group includes farmers, tribal organizations, nonprofit leaders, economic developers, and logistics experts who are building and supporting food hubs statewide. They provide peer learning opportunities, planning resources, and technical guidance. In 2024, the group released a statewide report titled How the Alaska “Food Hub” Network Can Best Move Forward, offering recommendations and potential business models for successful hub development.
By creating the infrastructure that small businesses need to scale up and reach more customers, the Food Hubs Working Group is laying the foundation for stronger local and regional food economies, with benefits that ripple across supply chains and communities.
A Collaborative Engine
What sets AFPC’s working groups apart is their collaborative structure and practical outcomes. These are not just networking spaces. They are incubators for real solutions. Creating collaborative spaces where Alaskans with hands-on experience can collaborate helps small food businesses:
- Connect with funding and technical assistance
- Enter new markets and build customer bases
- Learn from peers and industry leaders
- Develop sustainable business strategies
Whether it’s an entrepreneur selling traditional dried fish, a teacher growing greens with students, or a co-op launching a food hub, AFPC’s working groups provide the connections and knowledge needed to succeed.
A Shared Vision
If you’re passionate about strengthening Alaska’s food economy or curious about how to start a food business of your own, there’s a place for you in AFPC’s working groups. Participation is open to all Alaskans, regardless of background or experience level.
To join a group, visit the working groups page on the AFPC website. There, you’ll find meeting schedules, group descriptions, and information about how to get involved.
AFPC believes that food systems change must be rooted in community leadership and local opportunity. Its working groups are helping ensure that all interested Alaskans can play a role in shaping more sustainable and prosperous food futures.
With its partners and participants, AFPC is building networks that support small businesses, advocate for supportive policies that strengthen local economies, and make healthy, culturally meaningful food more accessible.
From composting and commercial hydroponics to policy reform and food hubs, the innovations sparked in these groups are already reshaping Alaska’s food landscape. And it’s just getting started.
Leah Moss studied political theory and philosophy at Hunter College in New York City and has lived and worked in Alaska for the past decade. Her path has included food service, activism, comedy writing, and small-scale farming, but it’s always led back to one thing: a deep love for food as connection, culture, and community. Formerly the Communications and Outreach Director for the Alaska Food Policy Council, she’s now focused on writing and continuing to explore the ways food connects people, policy, and place.
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