Alaska’s Fragile Food Supply Exposed by Canadian Tariff Threat
The Alaska Highway. (Getty/Eric Benz)
When Canada floated the idea of imposing tariffs on U.S. trucks traveling to Alaska earlier this year, journalist Eva Holland of High Country News began to consider just how vulnerable her state’s food supply really is. The answer: extremely.
Despite Alaska’s reputation for self-reliance, about 95% of its food is imported. Holland points out the irony: “For a state where many residents pride themselves on their self-sufficiency… their food supply was unusually dependent on public infrastructure.”
Only about 4% of Alaska’s food arrives via trucks on the Alaska Highway (or AlCan), most of it hauled by custom-designed Walmart trucks. The bulk of it comes by sea, shipped from the Port of Tacoma to ports in cities like Anchorage. From there, food is distributed by barge or plane to communities across the state.
“We are a ship-to-shelf state,” says Rachel Lord of the Alaska Food Policy Council. “When food comes into the port and goes out, it is, I’ve heard, anywhere from three to seven days’ worth of food. That is an extreme vulnerability.” Unlike other U.S. states, including Hawaii, Alaska lacks large-scale warehouse storage as a buffer between ports and grocery store shelves.
To make up for these gaps, many Alaskans—especially in rural areas—rely on subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering. But these practices are increasingly impacted by climate change. At the same time, the number of farms in Alaska is on the rise, bucking national trends. Still, most are small-scale and not yet capable of replacing imports.
Keeping Alaska fed, Holland concludes, is a daunting logistical challenge. “It’s unglamorous,” she writes, “and it’s work that never ends.”
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