Alaska Food Policy Council and Beyond: Growing Connections and Building Networks for Greater Food Security
Get Involved!
Organizations/ Food Groups/ Individuals:
join the ALASKA FOOD SYSTEM network!
If your business or organizational mission is even remotely related to food, we welcome you to join this statewide network. Not part of an organization or group - join as an individual and find ways to get involved.
This could include work in the food supply chain, education, aid and access, production, harvest, knowledge bearing, and more.
If you’re unsure, just reach out! By joining the statewide network, with some context about how you work in food, you are contributing to a state-wide directory of assets that will be publicly shared. Joining the network also helps AFPC know who is doing what in the state, so we can better connect people with appropriate resources when we receive an inquiry.Individuals and organizations may add their own profile to our growing network of state-wide food systems assets. Our mapping goal is to clearly show where our food knowledge, skill sets, and tangible resources (like storage and processing) exist across the state.
How to sign-up & use the Network Map:
Thank you to Anchor Gardens for this wonderful explainer video! Remember, it’s specific to their map, but utilizes the same software, so the instructions are the same.
Individual impact: Provide feedback and input
There is so much food work going on in Alaska! AFPC connects, informs, and advocates for a healthy food system. We do this partly through sharing our friends’ and partners’ resources and amplifying calls-to-action from around the state.
Rather than perform our own survey to build a regional food system network, we’re choosing to share our partner organizations' surveys, who will then, in turn, share their results with AFPC to include in the 10-year Food Systems Action Plan, due out at the end of 2022. The benefits of this strategy are twofold:
Decrease survey fatigue (seems like there’s a new survey
Foster transparency between organizations to increase efficient use of research funds and better strategize new grants and food systems projects.
Active surveys - please only complete each survey once. You are welcome to complete as many of the surveys (as long as they are applicable to your experience/ situation) listed below:
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) Committee (Spring/Summer 2022)
2022 SBDC Alaska Small Business Survey (all Alaskan businesses are welcome)
Alaska Farmers Markets (farmers markets, food hubs, farm stands, CSAs only)
Alaska Farm Bureau (coming soon)
Ag Alaska - Alaska Village Initiatives (coming soon)
Previous Food System Assessments: Share with Us
There have been many community and regional level food system assessments conducted in the past. If your community or organization has done work in this area, please let us know
More Information:
What is Social System Mapping?
“Social System Mapping is one genre of the new visual language that is developing out of the intersection of data visualization, network science, and systems thinking. We hope it can become a tool as useful to understanding and engaging with the invisible dynamics of human networks and systems, as geographical mapping is to understanding and navigating the physical world.”
SUMAPP: Social/ connection network platform- “Mapping Systems of Connection.”
KUMU: “Kumu makes it easy to organize complex data into relationship maps that are beautiful to look at and a pleasure to use.”
Project Background
In October 2020 the Alaska Food Policy Council was awarded a two-year planning grant, under the Regional Food System Partnership Program. 2020 is the first year the USDA has offered this grant program and it is part of the AMS.
The Regional Food System Partnerships (RFSP) Program “supports partnerships that connect public and private resources to plan and develop local or regional food systems. The program focuses on strengthening the viability and resilience of regional food economies through collaboration and coordination.
The Alaska Food Policy’s goal is to create a healthier, more secure, and resilient Alaska by improving our food system through advocacy, education, and connection. Our project aims to connect localized food system organizations to create a statewide network of “regional nodes.” Through direct facilitation, each node will be guided through a series of network planning discussions, including one node-specific asset mapping workshop to identify unique capacities for local food systems, while revealing barriers and system deficiencies. Through regular statewide connection, communication, and collaboration regional nodes will collectively identify linkages and partnerships which can be leveraged to create a 10-year statewide food security action plan.
The core of this project is based in democratizing the food system through network weaving: building intentional relationships and cooperative structures that can create change in a complex adaptive system.
Knowledge and learning are situated in a diversity of opinions (and places)
Building the capacity to know is as critical as what is currently known
Systems shifting networks focus on equity, inclusion, and nurturing values-based connections
OUR PROJECT FOCUSES ON PLACE-BASED WORKING “REGIONAL NODES” WITH STATEWIDE CONNECTIONS:
all scopes from hyper-local to borough-level, considered
utilizes a systems approach to food security planning
illuminates how parts are all connected
identifies and leverage all the assets in a community and beyond
inventories of food systems capital- from financial and social, to infrastructure and governance
FOUR PHASES OF THE PROJECT:
Over 50 node leaders participated in Virtual Session Series on Building and Nurturing Food System Networks (2021)
GOAL: Improved connection, communication, and collaboration of food system organizations/ local food policy councils, statewide for collective action at improving Alaska’s food system
Node Specific Mapping Workshops: These sessions provide opportunities for each regional “node” to map out priorities for a sustainable food future for Alaska. This is key to amplifying voices on the ground in the process. Each node will come away with some basic goals and action steps. These data (from all nodes) will be funneled into a recommendations report so that AFPC and partners can begin crafting the larger state-wide action plan based on this information (Spring 2022)
GOAL: Identification of community food systems assets, barriers, and capacities (skills, social, political, natural, built, cultural, etc.).
Statewide Network Questionaire & Map
Utilizing the software SumApp survey, organizations and food groups will create a statewide asset map. It will show us who is connected to who and how which sectors are connected to other sectors, which communities are emerging as leaders in food systems work, and where the gaps are so that strategies can be formed to strengthen and enhance network relationships. (Launched March 2022 - ongoing)
Creation of Initial Statewide 10-year Food Security Action Plan, informed by regional Alaskan nodes representing a wide range of locations and stakeholder groups, along with a review of existing assessments and reports
GOAL: to identify ways of working between communities to build a more robust Alaskan food system. Jointly, the partnership will create a multi-stakeholder action plan to address food system deficiencies through collective action. Utilizing what was gleaned from workshops and surveys, facilitators, and the AFPC board, collaborators, partners, we will begin to create a statewide action plan (note: this will be an ongoing process and a living document). Points of action are determined through the process with the nodes, as well as the survey. This document will represent a food systems network that will be resilient and serve as a democratic way to bring forward the issues and priorities of Alaskans, relative to food policy. (Summer/ Autumn 2022)
