Community and Economic Development
Reindeer Herding for Food System Stability
UAF faculty are working with Alaska Native reindeer herders to advance place-based
Alaska Native
food sovereignty through academic and vocational education. Developing the Alaska
reindeer industry can increase workforce development, youth involvement, commercial
meat sales, tourism and value-added byproduct craft production.
Local Food Leaders
45 Alaska food practitioners and supporters are certified as Local Food Leaders by a national certification program offered through UAF Cooperative Extension. This program teaches food system influences, impacts and engagement practices while connecting leaders in Alaska’s local food system.
Online Gardening Series Helps Hundreds of Alaskans Learn to Grow
A UAF Cooperative Extension faculty member created an 11-part statewide online gardening
course for beginning gardeners in spring 2024. Topics include seed starting, soil
testing, using raised beds, planting potatoes, hardening off and transplanting seedlings
and composting. The response was overwhelming, with hundreds of people logging in
for each class.
Alaska Lumber for Alaska Homes
The Alaska Lumber Grading program has trained and certified 109 participants to self-grade
dimension lumber, allowing them to use locally harvested and sawn lumber for homebuilding
instead of importing expensive lumber from Canada and the U.S. Northwest. This allows
sawyers to use and sell local lumber in places that enforce building codes.
Tracking Pollen in Fairbanks
In spring 2024, the UAF OneTree Alaska program teamed up with a certified pollen counter
to continue a 20-year pollen counting program that would otherwise have ended. By
tracking and sharing birch pollen levels, which have hit world-record levels in Interior
Alaska, the community can access important information that affects the health of
thousands of residents.
Reaching Remote Communities With Practical Tools
Since 2021, the Maritime Extension Program has brought food preservation, home economics,
food entrepreneurship, health management and gardening classes via boat to 90% of
Southeast Alaska communities, where many people garden and harvest their own food.
This work places high-quality information for daily practical use into the hands of
community members, teachers, health professionals and local leaders.