Community voices needed to support Ak's food system

Posted by farmfresh

Posted: November 12, 2008 - 11:07 am

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Why should agriculture be important to Alaska and Alaskans?

Robin Richardson,of the Global Foods Collaborative, sent out a call this week challenging each of us to submit a letter to the editor during the next week to the Anchorage Daily News on why agriculture be important to Alaska and Alaskans.

This week-end the Alaska Farm Bureau meets in Anchorage for their annual meeting that gives a focus to this topic. It is time for those interested in assuring a sustainable industry to publicly come together to express the value that agriculture and growing/harvesting food and bio products means to Alaska and Alaskans. She suggested that the greatest impact would be to submit these letters between November 11 - 16. I am also open to posting your letters on my blog.

Robin commented that this call to action was not only being distributed to those in agriculture, but rather those that prepare, consume, transport, package and distribute food and bio products. Robin stated "in my lifetime in Alaska, Agriculture and the bounty that we can harness from our land has been an afterthought by the general public and policy makers." Today - food safety, health, carbon foot print, transportation costs and sustainable economies and social well being are issues the real world is dealing with and we have an opportunity to think big and act together.

Please consider supporting an effort to raise the profile of this critical and impactful sector to Alaska.

Please submit letters to the Anchorage Daily News (selected due to largest readership)
link

Robin offered to reprint your contributions at global foods collaborative Please submit them to the email address after submitting to the ADN. Please don't forget to include your name and company affiliation.

Suggested topics.

*Impact of growing knowledge workers in food production toward better health/sustainable economies.
*Demand from commercial buyers for consistent and locally sourced and produced product.
*Healthy and nutritious food sources
*Economic impact and reach of agriculture as compared to other resource associated sectors
*Bio-products industry - what is it? What we're missing?
*Why this is a big plus to Alaska's seafood industry.
*How you plan to step up to support agriculture.
*How agriculture and bio-based products can support economic sustainability throughout Alaska.

Thank you for your consideration.

Robin

Robin Richardson

Global Food Collaborative

Office: 907.563.0154

Mobile: 907.360.2900
See What’s New - Global Food Alaska – 2009

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