How Our Organization Plans to Protect and Grow Our Food System

At Alaska Farmland Trust, we know that adding 5700 acres in vegetable production is attainable, but we are addressing a real threat to making this a reality: a loss of prime agricultural land near our major population centers.

Alaska Farmland Trust (the Trust) is a 501c3 non-profit that was founded in 2005 to address the rapid loss of farmland in the State of Alaska and particularly the Mat-Su Valley. The Mat-Su Valley is responsible for over half the state’s agricultural production, but unfortunately has been one of the fastest developing zip codes in the nation in recent years.

As these farm properties are lost to development, we lose our ability to feed our neighbors. We become more reliant on Lower 48 and foreign food imports.

After hundreds of acres of the most valuable soils in Alaska were lost to housing developments, the Trust was formed. The Alaska Farmland Trust envisions a future with thriving local food markets that give Alaskans access to fresh, healthy food, and keep our farmers farming. We do this by preserving farmland.

Protecting 5700 Acres in the Next 50 Years With Conservation Easements

By using conservation easements we can permanently protect Alaska’s food future.

For over one hundred years, conservation easements have been used across the country to protect valuable community assets, including farmland. This established form of land protection allows private landowners to permanently protect their property while maintaining ownership of their property. Using conservation easements, the Trust has protected 300 of the most valuable acres of farmland in the greater Palmer area.

The land stays in ownership with the landowner, and we own the development rights of the property into perpetuity through the legal power of the conservation easement. As stewards of the easements, we will continue to annually monitor the property and work with landowners to make sure that no violations of the conservation easement occur.

In this way, we can help landowners maintain the health of their soils and ensure that our prime agricultural lands will feed generations to come. If a violation occurs, we work with the landowner to bring it back into the baseline standards of the conservation easement. Our organization is backed and monitored by the National Land Trust Alliance (LTA), a national membership of over 1000 land trusts; our standards and practices are modeled after and in compliance with the highest national standards set by LTA.

Our ability to write agricultural easements and protect the most critical agricultural lands in Alaska into perpetuity is lead by our Board of Directors that has over 100 years of collective Alaska farming experience. Our Board of Directors has a deep understanding of Alaska’s food system, food insecurity, and agricultural potential. Our board gives of their time, money, and resources to make this dream a reality across Alaska. We take great pride in our mission and see it as a critical service in helping protect one of our community’s most defining characteristics.

Land Trusts of Alaska

• Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust
• Great Land Trust
• Interior Alaska Land Trust
• Kachemak Heritage Land Trust
• Southeast Alaska Land Trust
• The Nature Conservancy of Alaska