The Alaska Division of Agriculture has $115,000 in grant funding to support the development of Alaska’s specialty crops such as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, nursery crops, and mariculture. As of March 1st, Alaskans can apply for block grants of between $10,000 and $60,000 to support specialty crops under the federal Specialty Crop Block Grant program administered by the Division of Agriculture. The program seeks to enhance the competitiveness of Alaska Grown specialty crops, sustain farmers’ livelihoods, and strengthen local communities.
Director David Schade spoke with KSRM on the where he sees Alaskans becoming food self-sufficient:
“Let’s go back to the 2017 Ag census statistics. In Alaska we had 85,000 acres of crop land that has been developed. A few million acres of range land and that’s including for reindeer, which we have 100,000 reindeer running around out there, but we’re only using 35,000 acres of that. When you go and you look at root crops and realize that instead of the 4,000 acres of potatoes that we could be growing to feed ourselves, we’re only growing 500. Last week we had a meeting with all the potato growers, seed and table stock, saying we need to bring this up a little bit. Cabbage, all of your root crops go very, very well in Alaska.”
Schade said we need to be smarter on storage:
“We can store cabbage and carrots and potatoes year-round and use them for much more of the year. We have some years, I’ve actually seen on a warm year field corn, which blew my mind, but when I started out as a kid 40-some years ago, when I was learning how to farm, we didn’t even think about corn and now you can do that.”
Only projects related to specialty crops are allowed under this funding source. Potential recipients include universities, producers, extension services, soil and water conservation districts, or schools working in cooperation with a farm, ranch or non-profit. All projects must show a benefit within the specialty crop industry.
The application deadline is 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 31.
NOTE: This year, the application process will be simplified, requiring only one “final” application document to be submitted. There is no Letter of Intent required in the 2022 application process. The electronic application, a tutorial video, and links to more information is available on the Division of Agriculture grants page at: http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/ag_