Despite a seeming abundance of nourishment in the state, with folklore of Alaska rivers so full of salmon that one can walk across to the opposite shore without getting one’s feet wet, Alaska is a very food-insecure state. As of 2014, 15% of Alaskans were found to be food insecure. This rate is part of an increasing trend; from 1998 to 2007, food insecurity increased to 3.7% in Alaska, the largest increase in the country. Further, because only 5% of the food consumed in Alaska is actually produced in-state, there is typically only a three to five-day supply of food available on grocery store shelves. However, food insecurity, particularly lack of access to healthy, fresh foods, disparately impacts rural Alaska populations, which are primarily Alaska Native, because of extreme cost. Alaska Native populations have survived on hunting and gathering for thousands of years, though many Alaska Natives now supplement traditional diets with store-bought goods. These provisions are often prohibitively expensive, because of the cost of importation to these extremely remote locations. This Article provides background on the existing state of food insecurity in Alaska, past government efforts at subsidizing agriculture within the state, and Alaskans’ enthusiasm for local produce. It also discusses relevant existing law in Alaska, in California, and at the federal level. This Article offers a series of recommendations for how these laws can be individually modified to produce a better environment for rural Alaska farmers, including, in particular, school farm programs. It ends by considering how recommended modifications may interact to produce prime growing conditions for young Alaskans with agricultural aspirations. Copyright © 2019 by Charles Kidd. * Charles Kidd is an attorney with the Alaska Native Justice Center in Anchorage, Alaska. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. KIDD FINAL (DO NOT DELETE) 4/29/2020 5:01 PM 158 ALASKA LAW REVIEW Vol. 36:2
In March 2019, the United States Supreme Court decided Sturgeon v. Frost, unanimously holding navigable waters within Alaska’s national parks are exempt from the Park Service’s normal regulatory authority. The result of the Court’s holding has stifled federal law enforcement in Alaska. An overly cautious interpretation of Sturgeon could jeopardize federal enforcement in its entirety on the thousands of miles of navigable rivers in Alaska. However, considered in the broader context of the history of Alaskan subsistence rights and corresponding jurisprudence, there is ample legal footing in the Sturgeon opinion to provide federal law enforcement personnel with authority to enforce subsistence fishing regulations, as opposed to the navigation-based hovercraft regulation at issue in Sturgeon. Should a future challenge arise, the Supreme Court would likely uphold the Department of Interior’s authority to enforce federal subsistence fishing regulations on navigable waterways in Alaska.
