Good afternoon, this meeting of the House Resources Committee will now come to order.
It is now 104 PM Monday, February 9th, 2026 in Capitol Room 124.
Members present are Representative Fields, Representative Klum,
Representative Hall,
Representative Meers,
Representative Prox.
Representative Elam, Representative Sadler, Co-Chair Representative Freer, and myself,
Co Chair Representative Diber. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business.
Please take time to silence your cell phones for the duration of the meeting.
Thank you very much. I would also like to thank Cheryl Cole from Records,
Today in house resources, we are hearing a presentation entitled strengthening the Alaska
food system from Jodi Anderson and Jen Wageman of the UAF Institute of Agricultural, Agriculture,
Natural Resources and Extension, so we just have one presentation with roughly 15 slides,
Jody Anderson lives in Palmer and is the director of the UAF Institute of
Agriculture and Jen Wagman. Is the new director
of UIF Cooperative Extension Service?
Can I ask the two of you to join us at the table
and begin your presentation.
Looks like our slide show is up. Just state your name for the record.
Thank you very much for the record. My name is Jody Anderson. I am the director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Agriculture Natural Resources and Extension.
I live in Palmer. We appreciate your
time today and thank you so much for having us. This opportunity is a great privilege for
us to be able to share with you what we work on and how we do what
predominantly federally funded and so we do want to make sure that we give this notice of
non-discrimination as our federal funders request and we like staying compliant as much as possible so
there we go. If you have any questions please let us know. I wanted to start our presentation
may have grand ideas and are unsure and so today we hope to give you an opportunity to learn more
later, of course, ask lots of questions.
That's what we're here for.
We are the University of Alaska Fairbanks,
and we are a land grant university.
Land grant universities began in 1862,
and they were started because the thought of the federal
legislatures were that universities were too high brow.
They studied philosophy and fancy things,
but nothing practical and pragmatic.
And so the land grant is really our mission
of all the lands grants across the United States,
is to take research and through that research,
educate and give outreach to the stakeholders in your state
to help improve their lives, to make their life better.
co-director, and I get to work with amazing people
all around the state of Alaska working
to enrich the lives of other Alaskans.
And we're very lucky to do that.
The way that we do this is in this model diagram.
And in most cycles, you can start anywhere.
And what I'd like to is to give you an example.
that flower in the middle.
This is a P&E.
The Alaska P and E's, as many of you may know,
are the largest and greatest ag export
in a state of Alaska.
The P &E, that beautiful flower.
And I wanted to use this as our model
to explain what the land grant is all about,
because many you know of the P-& E story.
and they're kind of pretty to look at.
So a tip of the hat to our largest export
in our ag industry, it all started with one of our researchers
at a conference, a flower conference in Kansas.
And they were all complaining that when it comes
to summertime, marriages, all the peonies are gone,
in the lower 48.
And our researcher stood up and said,
hey, that's when ours start blooming in Alaska.
And it was that statement and that recognition
that started the P&E industry in Alaskan
because it is that researcher's understanding of
the actual product of the P&E, knowing when they're in bloom, when
they are ready for sale, and then coming back to Alaska and beginning this land
grant cycle of working with stakeholders, working
with farmers who were currently starting to raise P and E's, asking what questions
changing her research model to answer their questions to then help make and
build a viable industry. And so that is what the land grant is all about, is
listening to our stakeholders, being present, understanding the situation that
we're coming from, and through research, improving or building a brand new
both Jen and myself work on at the Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extension.
We refer to ourselves as I-Anri.
It's just a less of a mouthful. It is still a mouthful, but that's how we refer
to our selves in that case.
Thought I think we have roughly 15 or so slides, so we
have lots of time.
And we had a question from Rep. Elon.
Thank you.
Thank, you for coming out and sharing with us today.
I frequently, I'm on the Kenai Peninsula.
We have a number of peonies as well.
But I do hear from a member of folks in the community
when it comes to.
land grant and the university system just in general having a lot of of land on the peninsula.
Does the University do you guys work with anybody on getting access to those lands or plans for those
lands and so and maybe that's a little off topic from the land-grant mission but that was what I
was thinking about when you were through the chair. Thank you very much for that question that
We do not get to play with that particular aspect of the land grant.
It's certainly part of land grants, the Land itself.
The University of Alaska System UA Lands Office are the ones who are responsible for the sale,
the rentals,
the leases and anything else that deals with any of those UA lands.
We do have within our research side,
we do areas that have been
designated agricultural research for the university purposes and those we do
have you know we, do control and we work on those that's located in Palmer where
I'm located at our experiment station in Fairbanks on West Ridge of the
Trothietta campus and also in Delta Junction down the Alaska Highway at 1408.
Follow up?
Thank you. No, that's good information. Do you guys have any plans to come towards the
Kenai Peninsula at all for for any kind of agricultural land use type scenarios?
Through the chair. Thank You. I am
unaware of any plans, especially in the world of the agricultural research.
Fortunately, a lot of research that we do on the Kenai Peninsula with regard to agriculture
is collaborating with farmers who are there and allow us to do work on site, which is a really
resource that we have and connection between our researchers and our stakeholders in that
they feel comfortable enough to volunteer their land in space for that. But in terms of official
agricultural work through UA lands, I'm unaware of any. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank
Thank you.
We have a question from Representative Sadler.
Thank You.
Thank, thank you, Madam Chair, and Ms. Anderson.
Just quick, I've actually worked for an extension service
at the Land and Great University, Ohio State University.
So I'm fully with the Maryland Act,
and I am glad that we have that operating up here.
But my question is, you said the front
that most of your funding comes from federal sources,
which specific department is it coming from,
and what's the general mission
that the federal government supports your agency to perform?
Through the chair,
thank, very much.
We are funded predominantly through solely all of our capacity funding.
It used to be called formula funding, the capacity
funding is funding that is set aside through USDA and within USDA it's NIFA, N-I-F-A,
the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Holders of that capacity funding, it is funding that comes to each land grant
university for cooperative extension and for agricultural and forestry research.
Thank you so much. Thank You Sir.
Question from Representative Prox.
I just want to understand I guess how the funding works from the feds is that just a funding formula because of what?
Relative to other states or is it a competitive thing that if you meet certain goals and objectives you get more and if
You don't get less. How does that work?
Through the chair. Thank you. That's a great question. These formula are based upon
Dynamics that we do not control
They're based upon census numbers on, in the case of the land grant mission,
these are funds that are based on the agricultural census that's done by USDA every seven years.
And those numbers will change based
is it does not change so we will not receive we do not
receive as much money as most other states because we are
smaller in population and we have less of an agricultural
industry. And so what ends up happening is that this is a non-competitive fund that
comes in at a one-to-one match. So for every dollar that we receive for either
cooperative extension outreach work or agricultural and forestry research work
as a one-to-one meaning for every dollar that comes in,
we have to match it with a non-federal dollar.
So these are noncompetitive funds that are delivered
to every land grant university for the purposes
of funding, cooperative extension, and research.
Follow up?
Apparently, state money is currently matching it. Do you have other funding sources through the chair?
Through the chair, we do also have competitive grants that we apply to.
We do that at the state level and also at national level.
We are also involved in collaboration agreement with the USDA Agricultural Research Service
It's a non-competitive grant situation that is collaborating directly with researchers in North Dakota.
Last follow-up.
Do you have specific measurable goals and objectives that you try to achieve over the next year, the
next five years,
the ten years?
Those kind of things.
Where might we find those goals or objectives?
through the chair. Every year we are responsible for developing, excuse me,
every five years we're responsible
for develop a plan of work. That plan
of works is sent to our federal funders NIFA. They read through that and they
approve or recommend changes or deny.
Those five, that five year plan of work is reported out annually, all of our research
grants are reported annually and all those can be found on different reporting resources
for the federal government either and I would be happy to get you those, those email, get
that will be good, the, yeah, we're spending state money,
so we should have, what are we getting?
Penis being an example, there was an industry,
should it have taken what, 15, 20 years, I don't know.
We tried potatoes,
I remember a lot of noise about potatoes
and then it just sort of got forgotten about,
seem to be to me and maybe I'm not looking in the right place but in
the North Pole Badger Road area that seems to
be forgotten about relative to Delta Junction and Nounina and
Homer and etc. And so I guess that's what I am
interested in fighting those so that I can tell other people what you do
For the record, please continue. Thank you for the records
My name is Jen Wagemann and I work for The University of Alaska Fairbanks, and i am the cooperative extension director and
I live in Fair Banks and
Just one quick comment through the chair practice or representative practice the
The UAF.edu slash INRE, I-A-N-R-E, we do post our plan of work and our annual reports
and impact statements that we turn into the Association of Public Land Grant Universities each year.
So you can find all of those reports online there to check.
And my presentation is actually conveniently divided up a little bit like we write those
reports to kind of give you a context of what we
Bringing back Jodi ended with the P&E and it's interesting to,
it is not something that we just left.
So we actually did last year publish a new research bulletin
on P &E work that is continuing with our researchers,
looking at how to store those, what gases to use to
store them, how can we make them last as long as possible
to keep, to extend the season and to get those to different
and really the world to continue selling them.
So what do we look like?
Well, here's a map of our state.
And Jodi mentioned we have our two agriculture
forestry experiment stations.
That's where those little tractors are.
One in Palmer, where Jody lives and one down in Fairbanks
on the university campus, as she mentioned.
The yellow dots there represent our district offices.
we have located on the ground that are staffed.
And then from those, we push out to communities
all over the state.
We do have a little dot up north in Uxiavik area.
But I will kind of, I won't mention that we don't serve as much of the Northern area because that area is served by a cooperative extension through the tribal college through Alexovic College.
So they're part of The Land Grant from the 1994 instead of 1862.
So a little bit different, but a lot of same, the same type of work.
meaning we had feet on the ground in there,
teaching folks and working directly with individuals
and in a variety of areas.
And I'm going to dig just a little bit deeper
into each of these areas for you.
So, a little taste of what we do with regard to community and economic development.
There's a photo here of our Danook grown market.
We have a program at the UAF campus called the Harvest Collaborative.
That program teaches students to some of you who are familiar with the campus might remember
the reindeer that were right there along the farm road that you could drive by.
we have converted that space to a garden where the students can learn to grow,
plan, grow and then market a community supported agriculture box. So for those
of you who support your local farmer and you go you can go and buy a box and each
week you pick it up. We're teaching the student how to do that and
then they're selling those products also at local markets.
and returning the funds back into the program to continue to grow it.
In other areas of community and economic development,
we support the Strong People Program.
Strong people is a strength-
strengthening program which has been shown to increase the balance and agility of aging adults
which is really important in many of our communities. We have more and more treacherous ice storms
more in more falls that cause extensive problems for older folks and so we not only have a train
the trainer so were going and training in different communities around the state so that then when
continuing to train, but we also run classes in Palmer and Fairbanks regularly.
The Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station is home to the Georgeson Botanical Garden, so you see a little
lights there we actually this year started a light a holiday light program
and so we have as you know the summer and during the
summertime we had an ongoing concert series with summer sessions that brings
together the Fairbanks community and now we've continued to open the garden to
the public in the winter months to to increase opportunities for folks to get
out
We are home to the Pesticide Safety Education Program,
which is a training program that certifies individuals
who apply pesticides in homes, businesses.
And so we create the curriculum and teach and supervise
that program to ensure that anyone who is in our state
is trained appropriately in pesticide application.
campus in NOM at the Northwest campus and there's a photo up in the top right
there. We have installed commercial grade sewing machines and our teaching
classes which are actually already full through next year. These are community
based classes that are very popular because as you know if you live up there
it's really expensive to get good gear and if
you can get something that can actually sew through those thick materials and
your wares, then you can get them to last longer.
So it's basic community in interventions
that help build and ensure, build our communities
and insure that our folks, our local residents
are getting their needs met.
I'll pause.
Yes, it was pause there. That was a lot of information. I
Really like the photo with the table of vegetables
There's a school in my district under elementary that has a community garden and I stop by there
You know every so often throughout the summer to see how it's doing and talk to the kiddos there
and
When I asked them they're like
you know, how's it go? And you like gardening. And they're like, well, I used to be afraid of bugs, but now I'm not.
And so there's a lot to learn about
weeding soils.
And my question is,
when you mention students, is that students like high school or just all college or adults?
So in this photo, we're talking about university level students.
So we are integrated also with the Office of Sustainability.
Some of the vegetables they produce also are turned over to the Culinary Arts Program.
And so those university-level students are learning to cook Alaska-grown products
and then serve them and market them.
As I move into youth development,
I'll tell you a lot more about the littles that we reach.
I'm in an effort not to spoil my next slide.
Any questions or please go on, thanks.
So, food systems and food security.
We are probably, for many of you, best known
for our publications.
When I took this position on,
I got an earful from many, many members of our community
about how important these are,
our publications are to them
and the collections that they hold.
We produce through over,
publications that teach individuals all kinds of topics much of it's centered
around food security. So how do you grow particular vegetables? How do
you preserve those vegetables, what can you make with them? And so there's a photo
there of one of our flavored vinegars that we just updated. We are one
of the first things I'm starting to work on in my role as director is in
increasing the number of food preservation classes and trainers that we have in the state.
Because of our budget cuts and as we
Worked with more limited resources. We've really only got two trainers in the state
Who are going out and teaching these classes and we have a lot of demand to all over the states?
So we are developing a curriculum through one of our faculty members to train staff members instead of faculty to kind of push
That knowledge down and get it out into the communities
So, we will do a training of trainers of five new individuals who are
located in our district offices in the coming fall.
And then we hope to use that curriculum
to then bring it out into community and tribal groups
to train more trainers to help folks learn
the important skills of canning, drying,
freeze drying preserving and ensuring
that their food can be stored over the winter months.
In Nome, I got to go up to Noom last fall, and we have a half-time faculty member there
at the Northwest campus who is just amazing, not only is she working on those commercials
machines, but she also is taking, she's working close,
she run the other half of her time
is for College of Indigenous Studies.
She works with the High Latitude Range Management Program,
and then she is bridging that work
with The Reindeer Herders back into extension.
So the photo of meat that you see here is reindeers drying.
What shes doing is getting the herders to donate reendeer
They have a beautiful new behavioral health facility in NOM going into that facility and
teaching post-production skills, so drying meat, canning meat using the hides to sew
products and using antlers and bones to create artwork.
a photo of some reindeer meat drying.
We run our can, our pressure.
Canner testing program. So all every one of our district offices has a pressure canner tester.
Folks can come in to make sure that their pressure scanners are working properly. And then we
also travel with those. For those of you who are familiar with Juneau, Sarah Lewis, our faculty
member here, actually takes her work out on her boat every year and travels to communities that
is canning and other skills in the communities as they as
they demand. Heidi Rader is one of our most popular extension
folks. She has a series called In the Garden with Heidi
a series of videos. We have about 10,000 views. She actually has a little following people or
people tell us all the time. They're like, oh, you guys have Heidi's videos, so she talks about ways
to grow gardens in the Arctic and sub-arctic climates. And then the photo there, I just thought
was fun that those are at the top. There are some crackers that we made using barley that was
And then we, so we made the, the crackers recipe is on one of our publications and then
we create, made those cracker and handed them out at one our outreach events, which got folks
interested.
We also used a birch syrup that was produced through some of the work.
We are also home to the expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.
treatment facilities to teach
budgeting
healthy foods
all of the the skills you need to to
Ensure that you are purchasing the right foods and able to
To use your food and in a in an conservative manner
April is going to be Food Security Week event in Matsu.
We're going partner with the Matsu Health Foundation and APU
at the Fairgrounds in Palmer.
And there will be a big Food security week program there
coming up in April.
I think the other important piece that's going on
In our extension work is working to increase our education regarding homemade foods.
Their regulations changed with the sale or the ability to sell products that are not made in commercial kitchens,
and that has important implications for consumers.
And for producers, both home producers and commercial producers.
I know we've pushed it out online across the state and now we're working towards getting
some publications and a website built so that we can help support consumers and making
healthy choices when they are purchasing products.
Thank you, co-chair through the co chair. Thank You for being here
I mentioned on budget cuts are those budget cots coming from the feds or from The State?
Through the chair and and
I'll defer to Jody if you want to speak more to it, but much of it came from the decrease
in funding to the university. And so as we we shrunk our department, then we really have relied
on attrition to to maintain our status quo. So we just haven't been able to hire new faculty.
we this year we will be able to hire two new faculty so we've got a food science position listed
and an agriculture, horticulture position, listed. Can we have a follow up? Yeah follow
up. So the university uses so it's university funds that are that're supplying the match
the one-to-one right okay so as things shrink from the University that's what you're talking
Thanks.
Thank you very much through the chair.
I'm glad to see that there's more work being done for education for the changes in the
cottage food laws.
Having worked on that along with now and Senator Rouscher, you know, some discussion
went to pass not just through the legislature,
but also the municipality of Anchorage
made conforming changes to allow things there.
And in going through this process,
there was a lot of people that didn't know
what the existing cottage food laws were,
and there were a lotta folks doing stuff
that knew what they were that were not following them.
So like my encouragement is for folks is to get,
still do like,
getting your food handler certificate and doing those types of courses.
so that you don't have to do that for a lot of home kitchens anymore, but it's good practice to
do so. So having that information clear, because it wasn't even clear before having
that clear. Having that process out in the public. I really appreciate that work so
that we can actually improve our public health with homemade foods, with having a system that is
Through the co-chair, thank you, Representative Mears.
I think you're exactly right.
And it speaks to the role that extension can play
because we are around the state
and we can push things out online
and through our publications,
but also as part of community conversations.
And that's really the work that we see as important
and as our mission.
So thank-you.
follow-up representative mirrors. Thank you through the chair. I really appreciate if you could
share with the committee links to that training or that webinar so that we can push that out
into the community because it really has not gotten very much traction even though it can
really make a substantial difference to folks that are starting to grow small businesses.
Try to we will get that out to committee members
Representative Prox. Thank you
Through the chair you said that you I think hired another researcher or something like that
My question would be do you have?
people specifically for marketing
Marketing your programs and teaching others how to market what they're doing
through the culture
We have a communications department to market our publications and we maintain a Facebook page.
We probably have about 5,000 people on our regular mailing list around the state.
So we have that piece, but they don't train individuals in that marketing piece.
I think that that is an essential skill and one of my initiatives that I'll talk about when I talk
Extension is a farmer training program.
And we have had initial conversations
with the School of Business and Securities
regarding creating some classes and trainings
that really help farmers and producers
market their materials and their products.
I and what I'm doing right now is looking at whether or not or what level those courses
and that information should be pushed out at from the perspective of extension can do
non-credit classes so we can be more accessible than a four credit class and
that is our bonus right it's our ability to reach to
Starting with a needs assessment that we got funded through a private
Investor to really look at how to build that in the best in a most effective way, so thank you
Representative fields. Thank you through the chair. I I realize the extensions
Just one element of an ecosystem of supporting local food production. Um, I think my frustration is
Everyone expresses support for local food production, but there's actually not a lot of action
So one thing I would be curious about is what do you see as your role in terms of informing the state
About what we could meaningfully do other than sort of pat people on the back to support local Food production
You know one think that frustrates me is we have a bunch of agencies that don't support that they don t purchase local
food
I don't know if you will have thoughts about systematizing using our state purchasing power
to support local food because if there's one area we could do it, be through the DOC budget.
And you know, beyond that, we've had hearings on should we have a Department of Agriculture,
it's just an agency reorganization, I do not think the case has been made that that would
actually make much of a difference in terms of local Food Production.
If there are other policies out there that support Local Food production other than using
I would be interested in that because I don't just want to sort of say that we care but not actually do very much
So anyway, if you have thoughts on that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you
through the chair.
Thank you for that.
I think that our role is less in the policy side,
in a sense of we will work with the systems that are there.
But I thank the value of having our faculty members
and that expertise at the university
who are serving on boards, who
are part of those conversations.
That is where the University really
in agreed, I would, there's so much potential there.
All right, please continue.
The kids, yay, the kids are so
much more fun.
We have 50 active clubs right now in 10 districts serving 7,563 Alaskan kids across the state.
So 4-H is not just cows and sals, although we do have the little kid up there with the sheep because he is such a cutie pie.
He's at the Kenai livestock auction.
Excuse me, Syfar is one of our programs that is through
through 4-H that is reaching out into smaller communities such as Anderson and
EGLE and even into some parts of Anchorage pushing additional 4H
programming we've got the kids out in EGle with hydroponic systems growing
their own vegetables talking about how yummy they taste and then making food
We've done a little bit of reorganization with 4-H and I'm trying to really get it moving because
I think that there is just such an incredible...
potential in that system. So we've moved our Tananaw district agent up to the statewide level.
She's been, she is all in on 4-H. She probably have met her up here because she does
all the horse stuff, Marla, and she, marla louder. And she's now coordinating the system
as overall as a whole. Then we hired two new agents, one for Anchorage.
So I think she's going to have some great potential and can kind of hit the ground running.
And then we've hired a new agent in Fairbanks at the Tananah District.
He is from Tennessee and has so many ideas and is just very passionate about 4-H.
And recently held on the two days that the kids had no school for counseling or
He held a grilling club to teach kids that 4-H isn't just about gardens and so we had
about 20 kids who came in and learned how to grill steaks, which smelled really good.
and they had a blast.
In Sitka, we had
a 3D printer club this past year.
And they were also, have been cooperating
on a program called 4-H-PH
that is a citizen science program
tracking ocean acidification in their community.
We have a club out in Bristol Bay and that that leader partners with local tribes to provide regional programming for doing both STEM and cultural programming out
in the Bristol bay region. And then our livestock auctions are still really big.
29 animals at $115,177, so the kids are raising these animals from the beginning and then learning
to show them, learning to care for them and and eventually selling them at auction. Three bears
has been a big supporter of that and they are coming in and buying animals, having them butchered
and putting the meat in the stores with the 4-H sticker on them which is a huge point of pride
to see the end product of their work.
We're working also with the university
to look at because.
you know, raising a cow is actually a very significant project and they have to do a lot
of record keeping on a whole lot of work. Will there, are there some ways we can work with
the university and the middle college and North Star College to get some credit for those
kids so that as they're coming into the University maybe they can already have some college credit
under their belts? And they will be here next week. So those are the kids from last year
So keep an eye out for all of our 4-H'ers next week.
You'll be seeing them.
Yeah, yeah, can't wait to meet them!
And there was also a great citation on the floor this morning.
The work that 4H is doing outside of agriculture. They were
bringing awareness to...
glitter plastics yes in Anchorage is really cool we have a couple of questions we
have representative mirrors and representative Prox thank you through
the chair this is just a reminder for anybody that doesn't have it already
marked on their calendar but Alaska 4-H day is the first Wednesday of October
Yes, thank you through the chair is the agriculture
Extension service is that sort of the point of contact organizational forum for 4h
Through the Chair except
Through the chair. Yes, sir. The 4-H is part of the UAF cooperative extension
We have had some conversations because in the old days they called it your first class at Uaf and
That's something that I really want to maybe bring back a little bit because it's a way to
Get youth involved in The University System. Many other
Extension systems in fact have a 4h day at their University where they bring kids
in on campus and they tour and get a special program and that's something that
our new Tennessee or a new guy from Tennessee really wants to see because
that was a big deal in his state when he got follow-ups yes thank you so I guess
specifically the Tannanau Valley Fair since they moved the fair starting dates
first of August rather than towards the end of
August. First of all, you move the rainy season closer to the
first August disappointed in that, but the agricultural part of
the fair, which used to be huge, keeps fading and fading
and fading and fade.
What's the plan?
How do we reverse that trend?
Through the chair. I think that's a really good point and we have lacked a
agriculture horticulture position in this in in the interior of Alaska for many years and
So we that is one of the positions that I just I mentioned earlier that we are hiring and I think
that that my hope would be that position could really help rally that kind of work within interior
Alaska. And then follow up. You mentioned three bears. That's kind
apparently that is that somehow they got around the USDA inspection or something
that works? Through the chair. No, they're not going around there. They buy the
animals at auction. The youth are instructed on how to appropriately
raise those and then the meat is processed in a USDA approved facility
Freddies and Safeway also say they support
Alaska agriculture. How do you interface with the supermarkets?
Through the chair, we don't, you know, much like my earlier statement,
we do not directly interface. Our role is helping.
producers advocate for themselves, and answering questions and helping them connect with other
folks who can help them advocate.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay, please proceed.
My last area that I'm going to go through is forestry and environment.
We are an important part of the invasive species partnership.
Whether you're a fan of it or not, we were a big part in the Choke cherry restriction.
and other invasive species around the state.
We help support their website and we help
support the annual conference that brings together
individuals from all of the organizations
around this state that work in that area.
The state did fund a lumber grading program and that has taken off and I think we have
been good stewards of that investment by you.
We have, Matt has served 183 people in 15 communities around the state teaching them
to grade lumber so that that lumber can be certified and can
Um, we are, excuse me, um,
In Fairbanks, our fun forestry and environment has really been a two-fold effort with one-tree
Alaska. You might be familiar with the tapping of birch trees. All of that is connected to
birched pollen, which is a huge problem, especially in interior Alaska, the middle photo you see
information of how much pollen was in the air and which types and they could no
longer support that. The person who was trained to do that
was came to the university and started working there so we connected with them
and she is now tracking and giving us the numbers and we're pushing those
numbers out on our website. And we had a fantastic web designer
who created little dials so you can see if birch is in the red or if
as you for interior air in addition we we are now tracking green up and pushing that out to the communities because that's a significant part of
of joy in the interior of Alaska, especially after a long and very cold winter such as this year's.
And finally, to kind of segue back to Jody, the bottom right is an image from a new publication
we just put out that really exemplifies how the research and the extension go together.
So Jesse Young Robertson, a researcher in our forestry side of the house just did a study or
study looking at when is the best time to harvest your firewood based on the
amount of moisture in that wood so that you can most quickly dry it and how to
stack and dry so we created a publication that we are pushing out to
interior communities to help folks know when to best harvest the fire wood. So
with that I'll take questions but I'm going to pass off to Jodi. Any questions?
I guess I have a thought.
Something that I learned last summer
is that some people are moving away from the interior
because of the birch pollen.
They cannot live in Fairbank,
so they're moving elsewhere.
And that's like how bad birCH pollen can be in the anterior.
And I know when I see it on my car,
it seems like an inch of pollen,
but I don't know it's not, but it is pretty bad.
Representative Prox, you know
So that is disheartening so yeah
Any a representative Proxx marketing idea
N95 masks with the
advertising
Please proceed
My name is Jody Anderson, I'm the Director of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural
Resources and Extension.
And I will speak on the research side at this time, taking it from extension and listening
to the great things that Jen shared with you about what we're doing to get information
I wanted to take some time to share with you what are some of the research projects that
we're doing that either we are already putting out or we will be pushing out at some point.
The boreal forest is the largest terrestrial ecosystem in the world and that forest system
The work that's being done by our forestry researchers has a lot to do with looking at
the boreal forest and the best way possible to manage its health.
And we're doing that with regard to water cycling because it's a huge cycler of water
at a global scale.
is a very large piece of the boreal forest ecosystem
and also fire.
As we all know, the fires are more extreme
and getting to a point where they're affecting
not only those areas directly in the path of fire
but also far beyond the fire themselves.
So our researchers are working on the top picture,
Dr. Santosh Panda, is working
on using satellite imagery and also machine learning.
I'll say it that way instead of AI
because it's truly machine-learning to teach, if you will,
healthy forests versus unhealthy forests.
And what we know is that unhealthy forest
are more susceptible to insect infestation,
bless you, to fire damage,
and to pests in general disease or insects.
And so it's very important to understand
that because we're such a huge place,
we can't have people with feet on the ground
looking at forest health all the time.
But what we do with these models
is use satellite imagery that's been ground truth.
and then extrapolate that out to show healthy versus unhealthy forest areas.
Some of the work that Dr. Panda has done has been picked up by BLM and the forest service
as well as the statewide forestry. When we're talking about patterns of fire
in the process of a fire happening, the path of least resistance is where the fire will go.
So with his work, we're able to predict the unhealthy forest
areas, and really then fire suppression
can be put in a better place.
So we are doing work to help with fire management.
The middle photo is a picture of Dr. Young Robertson's hand.
And in it is moisture meter.
She's using that as well as pressure.
trees to monitor trees as they take up as a take-up moisture and a
A drought situation puts a tree into a damaged state and makes it more susceptible to disease
and insect infestation.
So the picture in the upper right-hand corner is what a spruce tree looks like after a beetle
bark infestation.
at the south end of Denali National Park.
She was able to actually watch the forest
go into a drought setting, which was the front of a beetle
infestation.
And they were able monitor that and also advise
the park service as to the best ways to approach that.
So doing things in the field that are very applicable,
that very much for the protection.
In the bottom corner,
the right corner is
is Dr. Jan Daw, and Dr Daw is our one tree professor.
And she is responsible for really looking at
K-12 education around using Birch as the focus piece.
She, through her research, was able to take on
the pollen accounts that we now do,
that were responsible for in Fairbanks.
And she's also working to build a larger
Birch syrup industry.
at this point through her work, they have started a tasting vocabulary. That sounds really strange,
but you have to have, in order to describe a food, you
have have a vocabulary that defines it. And so pulling together a lexicon for like a dictionary
Birch syrup if flavors is part of that. So now the syrup
Makers and those who are doing post-harvest
Candies and different things with syrup
Can use a universal language that everybody can understand what the flavors of their syrup tastes like
Representative
That's kind of cool.
My question wasn't quite on that, but that's going to neat.
On forestry, on the Kenai Peninsula in particular,
we've had a lot of spruce bark.
Yeah, and so we had couple of conversations
on The Burro Assembly a number of years ago,
where they were looking at reforesting kind
of after, or, OK, here's what it looks like now
that all the sprues are gone.
Is the university system looking at working with any anybody in that area as well with
reforestation related to potential timber industries or what our ecosystems now support with the
changes in forestation?
Oh, through the chair.
We are not.
a human who has that background at this time.
We just don't have a researcher who can do that work.
It is critical work, we are working on a thinning project
which is the opposite of what you're talking about
but also with the lens of forest management.
for logging purposes.
But we're not working on the reveg side of things.
We just don't have the personnel.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Thank You.
Our current.
Another in agricultural research is there's a lot of very exciting things that are happening
that dovetail into a lotta what Jen spoke about earlier, and some closer details so that
you get some ideas.
I'll start with the bottom right hand corner.
We were very fortunate to get to to be receivers of 2 million
dollars from the governor's office in FY 26 and we were able
to use that money. It was very specifically focused on our
small grains breeding and our.
our livestock nutrition programs, and so we were able to
fortunately
purchase new equipment that was very needed
For both of those programs and for their success
The zern is a very weird looking combine for any of you who are farmers who've been around farming
You'll know that combines can be as wide as
30 rows
This is six row combine
It's called a plot combine.
And the reason that we need a combine that's very specialized
like this is referenced in the picture above.
That's a drone picture in
the upper right-hand corner of our field plots in Fairbanks.
Those are small grains.
Those about six feet wide and a hundred feet long.
And a normal combine would
you couldn't use on those at all because what you need to do is harvest each individual strip.
And so having this zern, this new combine, both of our...
facilities and Fairbanks and in Palmer has been a tremendous win. The other
great thing about this machine is that if you notice there are two technicians
are sitting inside. One is working the machine itself as it harvests and the
other is a technician who is bagging material as
it comes off the the harvest. It's the machinery weighs the harvest tells you
It's moisture level, and it's shaved three weeks of technician work post-harvest just
in that one harvest machine.
So not only are we saving time and efficiency, but we're also saving money in the regard.
The planter, the drill, you'll see the green drill.
The John Deere there in the middle right side.
That is a specialized planters.
Again, we can do it for plot sizes,
and this is not what you would use
if you were a real farmer out there doing real ag.
This is very specialized equipment
that is needed for very specialised work,
and it isn't.
cheap. The great thing about these drills that we have is that they can plant everything
from the size of a pea to something the
size
of mustard seed and do it efficiently.
And so that's very difficult to have that.
range and size and have an efficiency.
So this has tremendously helped our planting process,
which then makes our research a little bit more fine-tuned.
And the upper...
all right side next to our plot or our
plot photo. That is a picture of our newest
Calangate system. It's a feeding system for our
cows, for
our livestock nutritionist. This research is
looking at using
mariculture waste and
kelp from the kelp industry and also uh... crabs ground into meal
and then fed as a rat as part of the rations to the cattle
the idea of a calendar gate is that each cow receives a chip collar
uhm and they're only allowed to access the gate that their collar is triggers
and there's a very special food for them in there for just them
And so we can do individualized research
with individualize animals, all being housed in the same area
with the Cal and Gates system.
So it increases our opportunities
for some really fine-tuned research.
So we're really excited about that.
We'll be getting cows in next couple of weeks in Palmer,
and so these studies will begin as soon as that happens.
The middle picture with those giant tomatoes, those tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes.
They're grown in our greenhouses in Fairbanks, in a hydroponic system, so this is a soil-less
system hydraponically, with water, and you can see in the bottom left photo the beautiful
pink lights, that is our greenhouse in fairbanks on the Trothietta campus.
And those lights are pink because of the LED research that's happening, showing that this
is the range of light spectrum that is best for these plants and it's also the least in
terms of energy consumption.
In the upper left-hand corner, we have a project that's been funded that we're collaborating with
the College of Fishery and Ocean Sciences, and we are really excited that they're doing a variety
trial of kelp.
And it's just like a variety trial
that we're doing in the upper right-hand corner,
except it happening down in Southeast.
And, it is very important that
we understand the environmental characteristics
necessary for certain varieties of kelp,
as kelp farmers, start their farms.
If they're using the wrong kep
for that particular location,
they're going to lose money.
And so we're trying to work with these researchers
to make sure that the recommendations are correct
for the area that that farm is being built.
We have a new alfalfa study that's happening.
Alfaffa in Alaska has traditionally been seen
as a single year crop.
Not like a perennial, like many people grow
and the lower 48 is a forage or a hay crop,
And it's incredibly successful.
We have a stand in Fairbanks on the farm
that has been there for five growing seasons now continuously.
And its been hayed three times each year.
The root maggots are a problem.
Our pest folks are working on studying
whether having a cover crop system actually attracts
be really negative when we're trying
to support resilient agriculture and sustainable agriculture
with cover cropping to keep soil in place.
If that's the case, then obviously the recommendations
that we make in terms of what varieties of cover crops
are going to be critical.
And then our soils program, we have a researcher, Dr. Kaylee Gash, on the right,
has over a thousand soil samples from around the state,
and she's getting a better feel for the types of soils that we
have in Alaska, where people are growing and what they're growing,
and then it better informs her so that
we and Cooperative Extension can make better recommendations for our
Thank you for this slide. I have a question
Kind of a general question for either one of you with the current research on agriculture
What do you suggest
Is a direction we should head in the state, you know, what is it hydroponics?
You know or what would be great general information for the average Alaskan when it comes to agriculture
through the chair, thank you so much.
I would really like us to see a focus in crops
that naturally grow very well in Alaska.
Representative Prakce mentioned potatoes once before,
and I believe that that is a direction
that we need to look into much more seriously.
unkillable hummus and you know franken plants like that need to we need
to figure it out and so as was mentioned earlier also by representative
in the University or in
the state of Alaska that is working in agriculture.
We do have trained ones,
but they're not working
in that field and what is
necessary is it's one thing to grow.
Things especially that grow very well here. We do well with our root crops
We Do very very Well we do Well with Our crucifers our Cabbages our Broccoli's our cauliflowers those are great
But at a certain point we need to know
the next step. There needs to be that marketing step, there needs
to me that sales step there, needs me to that industry step
and there are a lot of things as Representative Fields mentioned earlier
that we need to do to connect all of these
random dots that were cheering on as local food production
we, need, to work on cold storage for post-harvest
and we need to work on some sort of industry that is moving this material to the public in a way that they want and at the right price and all of that takes the expertise of an economist and somebody who truly can see that extension.
So thank you for asking that question.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
We have a couple of questions, Representative Prox
and the Representative Mears.
Yes, thank You.
Through the chair, are you working with, well,
hobbyists and local people, specifically an example
is the farmer's market in Fairbanks?
Many more people are getting interested in that.
A lot of local knowledge that is being acquired and I don't know if it's being chaired as efficiently as it can be, but are you working with?
Local markets local individuals that are doing something now
Through the chair
Representative practice at this time we do not have an individual who's working solely with the Alaska markets
We do work closely with them. We collaborate with him at any chance we get they
Provide space for our publications so that we can put that information out to the public
So that it's available, but in terms of having someone who is working directly with us. I
We'll have to talk about that and seriously there a couple of friends. I would say I'm sorry follow-up to the chair a
couple friends I
Won't say they have perfected storage, but cold storage are doing really well. They they
have as an example carrots all
Year long they're eating last year's carrots in the fall of this year while they were waiting for the new ones
And it's there's some really remarkable things that are being done
And I'm not sure that we're taking advantage of that as much as we could
We have another question from
Thank you through the chair, so I am
searching through my brain trying to remember some of the recommendations we
had from the food strategy task force, but something that did come to mind as
we were talking about this, one of our barriers is what happens next. Once we've
harvested it from
the field, do we have, and it varies depending on the farm, depending
on
the product?
the ability to sort, to clean,
to store,
to process, are we dehydrating
our, you know, like the cooling systems?
Like there's pieces in there
that we're missing for our systems
so that
we've got
a lot of land. We've got the ability to grow some really amazing things up here
because of our conditions because you know we don't have as many concerns
about bolting because temperature. So there's really a number of crops that
Alaska's got a good advantage from but as with many things that we deal with in
this data economy of scale and distance are problematic and it's just my
recollection that that next processing step is something that
Through the chair that is correct. That is that's a huge gap and that why
Farmers markets have grown in popularity across the state and we're now at
68 farmers markets across this state where
Back in 2013 we had less than 20
And so it's those markets are where a lot of our producers go for direct market sales.
It's the best financial choice they have, it is the easiest and it the fastest.
And that cold storage chain, that
cold chain don't exist in Alaska.
It's a really nice way for them to get product directly
to the consumer, and then it's off their hands.
But you are absolutely correct.
It is that post-harvest that it is missing.
So one of the things that we're working on that
we are very excited about is connecting to the
Circumpolar North.
We are members of The Circumpolar Ag Association.
And just this past September participated in the 12th
Circ
We have participants. You'll see the list there. It was what very well attended
Senator Giesel was able to attend and did so and
The very exciting thing for us was that we I
Said I
said that Fairbanks would host the next one.
And so we will be hosting the 13th
Circumpolar Ag Conference.
It will the 29th through the 31st of August in 2028.
We have our conferences every three years.
This is a great opportunity for the university as a whole,
but also the state of Alaska to highlight
and to feature the great work that's happening here.
One of the things that's very exciting is that
because of this, we started a speaker series
that is called Circumpolar Connections
and the next one is actually tomorrow at noon
if you're not doing anything.
They are an opportunity for our
researchers to not give a research talk, but to talk about
and kind of springboard ideas of how the work they're doing
connects to the circumpolar north.
We've had participants at our presentations.
We do them monthly.
And we've have participants from Iceland, from Canada,
from the Faroe Islands, and from Norway participating
in these conversations.
The goal this year is for our
Institute to run them and have the speakers on hand.
Next year, the goal is to show those collaborations
of how the food system reaches across campus.
It's not solely just ag research or forestry research.
It actually, it's business.
It, you know, everything.
And so we're going to look for those partnerships
speakers for next year and the third year preparing for this, our speaker series will
be focusing on producers partnering up with some of our researchers to talk about the
practical things that are happening that could also happen across the circumpolar north.
The reason that I have two pictures of grain in the upper left hand corner is a very exciting thing that's happening.
We have a small grains breeder who works on barley and wheat.
exclusively by Bryce Wrigley and his family in the Alaska Flower Company.
Our breeder is now working on a higher level of production barley. We're looking for a barley
that gives a bigger bang for its buck and he's doing the same with wheat.
He has developed a lab that is really only found in the private sector, and it's very
important that he and we are housing a public lab.
It's called a double haploid process.
The reason it is important for us to house that and not rely on the public sector to
Companies like Bear who do agricultural research are developing seed that gives huge agricultural
response.
They're not going to spend time on cold variety or cold soil varieties that are successful
in Alaska or in the north as a whole.
So having a public opportunity for this, we're going be able to also help advance
other circumpolar nations with the work that we're doing,
but also having visitors come and do work in our lab setup
because we are a public system.
The great news, if you can see those are wheat.
The wheat on the right is our standard.
That was developed.
I believe it's been 60 years,
the angle wheat was
developed in Alaska.
It's perfectly fine. We're still growing it. You'll find it growing in lots of different
wheat fields in the state. It is kind of our gold standard. But if you look at the dish to the left,
those wheat seeds are so much larger and they look just healthier. Probably that's not the right
word, but they are much large, which that means that you're getting a better production for what
It's coming out of this double haploid process
that cuts plant breeding almost in the time and half.
Hardier.
Much harder.
It looks hardier, I have a question from Rep. Elon.
Thank you.
So it looks like it's a higher yield per cutting.
And then how many are you able to get
that condense that you can get more cuttings or?
through the chair, we won't be able to do more cuttings.
Our growing season only allows us to
do one cut.
But one of the things that our researcher is trying to
do is find the characteristics so that it's way better
financially where it is going to come out as a cutting and a
as opposed to where we're at with Ingle now with regardless of what varieties we
grow will only have one cutting. And weed is kind of marginal still in Alaska, but
the wheat that he's developing is going to expand that option so that it's not
as marginal but also you get a better harvest result. Thank you.
Please continue
Thank you on the top middle picture of the the four folks there
These are Arctic ambassadors
at
We had an Arctic ambassador from Sweden
From Norway from and then the two on The Left are from Greenland
They visited the farm
And they were part of Arctic Encounter, which we're also part
of, we'll be presenting this year, and starting agriculture.
One of the things that's been missing at the policy level,
at The Circumpolar North, with our group is working
adding agriculture into the conversations
at the larger circumpolar meetings.
And so working through you Arctic,
working though Arctic encounters,
doing the circumpolar connections,
keeping our relationships strong with
all of our circumpolar neighbors,
we are more alike each other than we
are our lower 48 colleges and universities.
So this is just a really great opportunity for us
as we move forward and kind of look to the future
of what we're up to where we
are preparing for this opportunity.
Thank you.
Please continue.
for the record, Jen Wagemann.
So looking forward, I just spent a week and a half ago,
a couple days in Phoenix, Arizona
with our USDA interns for our next gen program.
We will have 25 interns this summer
and we are providing scholarships
over the course of five years to grow
Students who are interested in careers in USDA and so they were our students actually went down to Phoenix and participated in what they call model USDA if you're familiar with model UN it works very similarly and it was a blast.
had in-depth understanding of the food system in Alaska
because it's so accessible to them
through their experience at school.
And they were able to really debate
with their national colleagues.
There were 200 students from around the country
about how to do things like
whether or not to add ultra-processed foods and sustainability
into the American dietary guidelines.
And so they were all divided into little topics like that.
So we're excited for our students.
My sort of just quick passions, because I
know we are running shorter on time,
is we continuing the work of the Alumber grading program
into a wood utilization program.
We hope to have a website up and built that will connect
Alaskans with folks who are selling Alascan-produced lumber.
So that shed that you see up in the photo
Hemlock and Sitka Spruce that was created from a sawmill in Petersburg.
The manufacturer attended our lumber grading program, so that will be open to all Alaskans
and will provide a central place that folks can connect with each other.
I'm sorry, the Renewable Resource Extension Act is part of our funding from USDA and
they are working now to
connect with
the fire service in Alaska, as we experience more severe fire events, a lot of states in the western region.
A lot extensions are looking at the role that we can play in filling in gaps for fire response and preparing homes,
state agencies and working with them to figure out where those gaps are and whether or not we should be
aiming for some extension fire
agents in the future
We my passion project is also a farmer training program. So I mentioned earlier we received funding
from Ag West which is a funder in this state that is really
supporting a lot of local small farms and producers.
Alaska has the fastest growing new and beginning farmers in the state,
and many of those farmers are not young.
Some of them are retirees, but you get to be in
the same pool with the young farmers if you're a beginning farmer,
and you have only been farming.
10 years. So we're going to do an initial needs assessment to look at really that I think we'll
address a lot of the questions that many of you had about how we can support producers is what
can we do for a credentialing program? Should it be a credit, should be non-credit? We're in talks
with John Deere and others looking at how can train farmers and fixing their tractors
We're in talks with folks about marketing and other supports so that we can move forward
a farmer training program that will best reach all over the state and then also provide
hands-on access to folks in key areas.
What we're aiming for next year by next spring is relaunching of our Master Gardener program,
and I think that that will really fuel some of
our movement into a farmer training program. The Master gardening program has...
Fallen I think by the wayside a little bit and we are looking at ways that we can revamp it create an online system then with in-person
Advanced training so that, we, can really market it towards
Younger folks and get them interested and engaged and by younger folks I mean 20s and 30s
to get, them, interested in engaged in growing food and considering agriculture in their futures
Up for the record, my name is Jody Anderson.
Our funding request this year, we're in the red book,
we are on page 11 of the UA redbook.
The Board of Regents put in a $3 million operating ask for food security support for
our work and we said thank you.
Meet on the governor's budget and so it's one of the cuttings on
the floor, but this is this our ask I think that a lot of a
lot the comments and questions today I do appreciate because
it shows that there's a
lot interest and yet we don't have the capability to work in
those areas and I I will speak to
The amazing work that the folks that we have, the 130 folks across the state are doing.
The work that they're doing is amazing and yet they are specialized.
And so for them to try to do something that
they aren't trained to is a disservice.
And we need experts in these areas of economics.
We need expert in areas for age.
We needs experts so that we are able to respond.
and be and remain relevant to the needs of our communities.
We do appreciate all of your interest and time today.
And please know that we're both available at any time
if you have any questions to feel free to reach out
to either of us.
And we also have some one-pagers and a folder
I believe, yes, we do and so we'll get those to you so that you can see some of our impacts
for the last year and also just a one page on our funding and and the return on investment
we have.
All right.
Any final comments, Representative Prox?
Yeah, questions to
Have you toured some of the marijuana growing facilities in fair rank specifically
Through the chair, I
Have only one it was all outdoor
It's rosy creek
I have not in any of The others because we are not working on
because of our Board of Regents.
Right, I would encourage you actually to do that because they are doing incredible work
on how to grow things, happens to be marijuana, but they're doing a lot of research and some
really interesting ideas.
And then to work more with the greenhouses and what we have.
gentleman, Papa, I can't even remember his real name, but
Papa's greenhouse, out off of Dawson Road.
He died, 10, 15 years ago now,
but he was really making great strides.
And that approach of just really informal,
I think has a lot of value.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, thank you all so much for your presentation.
This is a great kickoff for Food Week here in the legislature.
And so it gives us a lot to think about as we head into the week
when it comes to food security and Alaskans.
So with that, that completes the agenda for our House Resources
Today our next house resources committee meeting will be Wednesday, February 11th,
2026 at 1 p.m. We'll begin the meeting with Hill Corp so they can finish answering a number
of questions for the committee as well as complete a
number of slides they did not get to on January 28th. Following their presentation we'll bring back
and take public testimony at that time.
As a reminder, the amendment deadline for this bill
was previously set for Tuesday, February 10th at 4.30 PM.
And with that,
the time is 2.39 PM,
and this hearing of the House Resources Committee's now adjourned.