In the five years since the pandemic upended the world as we knew it, many aspects of our everyday lives have returned to normal.

The pandemic and the upheaval that resulted is something many of us would probably like to forget, but we can’t forget the lessons we learned during those tumultuous times.

For me, among the lessons I’ll never forget started with the moment we received a phone call informing us of the possibility that ports in Washington state may curtail operations in response to the pandemic.

More than 80 percent of the goods we receive from Outside arrive via the Port of Alaska in Anchorage, including nearly all our food. At that moment I knew we had to take action to increase our food security and become more self-reliant by producing more of our food here at home.

We’ve taken numerous actions since then to encourage agriculture production by making more lands available; building power lines, roads, and funding farm road maintenance; increasing loan opportunities; providing additional research dollars to the University of Alaska; and growing our young farmers through a grant to FFA that has doubled the number of chapters and students around the state.

One of the first actions I took was to create a Food Security and Independence Task Force in February 2022 to provide my administration and policy makers in the Legislature with recommendations to enhance our state’s food security.

The Legislature also formed its own bipartisan Food Strategy Task Force under a bill I signed in 2022 to examine these issues. Both task forces landed on the same top recommendation: the establishment of a state Department of Agriculture.

As a result, on Jan. 21, in accordance with my constitutional ability to reorganize the Executive Branch, I issued Executive Order 136 to remove the Division of Agriculture from the Department of Natural Resources and establish a new Department of Agriculture.

Some have wondered why now? The real question is, if not now, when? The establishment of a Department of Agriculture has been thoroughly analyzed over the past three years and has been the top priority of the Alaska Farm Bureau for decades.

Others view this action as growing government. To the contrary, this action in fact removes a layer of government that currently stands between the needs of the agriculture industry and the Governor and Legislature.

By establishing a department, we will ensure that agriculture has a seat at the table whether it is in the Governor’s Cabinet room or at a committee in the Legislature, now and in the future. Establishing a department will also give our program personnel the administrative support they need so they can dedicate their time to producers, not paperwork.

For those concerned about costs, we are simply converting the division into a department. This action does not increase regulation on farmers or create barriers for new farmers. Rather, a department dedicated to the needs of our producers will be able to address regulations or statutes that need reform and remove barriers to entry whether that is access to capital or retail markets.

Previous agriculture projects in Point MacKenzie, Kenny Lake, or Delta, haven’t struggled to find success because we can’t grow food or animals in Alaska. We know that we can.

Although we are only one of two states without a Department of Agriculture, Alaska is an agriculture state. Look at the bottom of our State Seal and you’ll see a farmer.

The biggest events every summer are those like the Alaska State Fair and the Tanana Valley State Fair that showcase our ag industry. Our University was founded in 1917 as an agriculture and mining college. The Mat-Su valley was settled by farmers in the 1930s and remains a hub of agriculture today.

What we need is a Department of Agriculture that will support our hard-working farmers with a coherent strategy involving marketing, cooperatives, research, and all the well-known tools utilized in other states that we need to take our industry from where it is to where we need to go.

Those who stand to be impacted most by this action have given their endorsements whether they grow potatoes or peonies, including the Alaska Farm Bureau, the Alaska Food Policy Council, FFA, the Kodiak Livestock Co-Op, and the Alaska Board of Agriculture and Conservation, which voted 7-0 on Feb. 25 in support of EO 136.

I’m eager to work with members of the Legislature to ensure that this department is a success and urge them to support EO 136 so we can get to work.