Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how something as secure as earning a paycheck can go awry and directly impact our sense of security. As long as the parts of our complex food network keep working—growers, pickers, packagers, fuel refineries and chemical giants, long-haul truckers, brokers, bankers, and barge operators—supper keeps appearing in grocery stores. During this pandemic pause, may we consider how the Chilkat Valley can achieve greater food security this year, and into the future?

The variables listed above aren’t the only factors raising the cost of groceries, or potentially, affecting food security. Three long-term trends are ominous and unrelenting: the loss of farmland, increasing population, and climate change. The topsoil of US farmland is lost 10-times faster than nature can replace, roughly 1.7 billion tons yearly. Our growing population and love of suburbia also gnaw away at farmland. Where groundwater is pumped for irrigation, soil salinity can gradually (or rapidly) poison the land for farming. An example is California’s San Joaquin Valley where nearly 90,000 acres of superb farmland have been lost to salinization.

Climate change may be a mixed blessing for Haines. Human population is on track to increase by about 28 percent in the next 30 years, so key drivers of climate change, more people and affluence, are unabated. On the other hand, we can ripen apple varieties now that would have made Charlie Anway envious. At a bare minimum, climate change is increasing the cost of a bag of groceries.

Our community has a history of farming and we are increasing our local food production. From 1904 through the 1940’s, Charlie Anway grew and marketed apples, sweet and tart cherries, strawberries and a variety of vegetables. One hundred and fifteen years after they were planted, several of Charlie’s original apple trees still produce food for our enjoyment! A panoramic photograph in the Haines Sheldon Museum shows the town in about 1910 with a good number of large gardens. Today we see more greenhouses and raised beds cropping up and KHNS-FM broadcasts The Garden Conversation weekly.

A number of Haines businesses are facilitating food production or growing it directly. The Southeast Alaska State Fair supports a community garden and hosts the farmer’s market. Takshanuk Watershed Council and Haines Borough Schools collaborate on composting, growing food and educating children. Foundroot is a brilliant new seed company focused on organic methods and Alaska-region seeds based at Henderson Farm on property owned by the American Bald Eagle Foundation. The success of Sunnyside Farm and Four Winds Farm show us that commercial farming can succeed. The Chilkat Valley Historical Society is seeking funding to increase tree-fruit production. Numerous Haines planning documents emphasize the public’s desire and the strategic importance of more local agriculture.

Two Haines businesses and a whole bunch of home gardeners produce compost, a vital ingredient for soil-building and food security. Potentially, our seafood processors, Dejon Delights, Haines Packing and Excursion Inlet Packing could also be sources of high quality compost using fish-waste. Can we capture more of that added value for use here in the Chilkat Valley?

Can we bring more of our food production back home where we can keep our eyes on it? That would be a “win” at many levels: for health, for families with children, for small business development, and for our collective awareness and security.

Haines has a number of large properties, both private and publicly owned, with full solar access and water—places where new agricultural ventures might potentially be established. If a few willing land owners were to connect with farmers or community gardeners we could develop more farming enterprises and more fresh local food. A passive approach to accomplishing this would be to wait until some hungry farmer comes knocking. A direct approach would be to develop a Grow Haines Initiative (working title), cultivate relationships, identify opportunities and challenges, define a framework for progress, and promote what we seek to achieve. Which approach do you suppose would lead to more homegrown food and more small business development?

For now we’re staying at home, washing our hands, and crossing our fingers. Going forward, I hope we will pull together, apply Alaska-region models that build soil and community, and cultivate a more secure and holistic relationship to food.