By Sentinel Staff
The Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association announced today that it has been selected to receive a $189,100 Regional Food System Partnership grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a food security and fishing industry workforce development program.
ALFA said the project is one of 30 selected across 24 states to receive the grant, part of the Agriculture Marketing Service’s Local Agriculture Marketing Program.
The statement said the impacts of COVID-19 highlighted long-standing workforce development and food insecurity issues in Alaska.
“The seafood industry provides the backbone of coastal economies but relies on outside labor for processing, marketing, and shipping. Quarantine requirements led to significant labor shortages and high costs,” ALFA said. “In addition, currently less than 1 percent of the seafood caught in Alaska stays in Alaska to benefit the local economy. Alaska is one of the top five most food insecure states in the nation; 95% of the $2 billion of food Alaskans purchase is imported and 14% of Alaskans, including 20% of children, face food insecurity.”
In March, ALFA formed a statewide-coalition of nonprofits, tribal organizations, military organizations, local governments, foundations, fishermen, and seafood processors to address food insecurity and workforce development challenges.
ALFA said the coalition was made possible with funding from Catch Together, a nonprofit that supports conservation endeavors and fishermen-led efforts that address long-term access to local fishery resources, and the Alaska Community Foundation.
“This initiative, which became known as the Seafood Donation Program, provided stipends and workforce support to the seafood industry and deployed $2.5 million to purchase local seafood for distribution, providing more than 630,000 free meals of Alaska seafood to individuals and families facing food insecurity,” the release said.
ALFA said the grant is to fund a two-year assessment of the 2020 Seafood Donation Program and explore the feasibility of expanding it into an ongoing program. In addition, the assessment will look at current seafood industry workforce development programs to identify gaps and barriers keeping local Alaskans from participating in the seafood industry. The project will culminate with a feasibility study for a ten-year statewide seafood distribution and workforce plan with emphasis on cultural relevance of seafood and serving marginalized communities.
“We’re honored to carry this project forward and help lay the groundwork for new projects and programs in Alaska that could help make our communities healthier and more resilient,” said ALFA executive director Linda Behnken. “Thanks to this support from the USDA, we’ll be able to work with a wide range of partners to assess where the biggest needs and opportunities are for ensuring that our local food systems are better prepared for future disruptions such as COVID-19, and that we have the tools in place to encourage local employment in our seafood industry.”
She said it had become apparent during 2020 “how vulnerable Alaska’s food system and workforce capacity are to disruptions, such as the pandemic, and increasingly, climate change. We saw dramatic declines in food availability in many parts of Alaska as well as worker shortages that caused major challenges for the seafood industry. With foundation support, ALFA was able to meet these challenges in 2020, but we are aware how important it is to sustain that effort and develop a more resilient system going forward.
“This grant gives us this support to build on our 2020 work and gather insights from all sectors of the industry and fishing communities to create a plan for a more resilient seafood system and workforce for the future.”
The project will be guided by a steering committee with representatives from Alaska tribes, seafood distributors, national and state philanthropic and foundation leadership, chefs, community, and policy leaders as well as youth representatives, ALFA said. Some committee members will be founding partners of the Seafood Donation Program, including Sam Schimmel of Kenai who helped spearhead several salmon distributions to Native families in Anchorage and Fairbanks.
“I’m really excited to be part of this project and help create new, locally-grown solutions to some very complex problems,” Schimmel said. “We know that these needs are not going away, so this project is an important opportunity for us to all come together, share information, and figure out how we can ensure our Alaska Native communities continue to have access to the Native foods that keep us connected to our traditions and to our cultures.”
Norm Pillen, president of Seafood Producers Cooperative in Sitka, said “There’s no question that Alaska’s seafood industry faces a lot of challenges when it comes to workforce, whether that’s greying of the fleet or lack of new recruitment into the fisheries,’’ and is looking forward to learning how the project “can help advance conversations already underway about the future of Alaska’s seafood industry and our coastal communities.”
