Southeast Alaska food security subject of UAF research
December 13, 2010
907-474-7449
12/10/10
If disaster strikes, do you have enough food to weather the storm? Does your community have enough provisions? Are your everyday food choices nutritious and affordable?
To learn more about how Southeast Alaska communities view their food security, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service and Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program are asking Southeast Alaskans to complete an online survey. Researchers hope survey results will reveal the region’s food security concerns and identify how the university can help communities address them.
The five-minute survey is online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/foodsecurity.
Food security is a broad term that means different things to different people, explained Glenn Haight, business specialist with the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program. For communities, it may mean knowing how much food is generally stocked in local stores so that emergency planners have an idea of how many days the community can survive should transportation routes be cut due to storms or other events. For individuals, it may mean how much food is on hand in their homes and its nutritional and cultural value and cost.
“Food security relates to individual’s food quality, nutrition, health and cost,” said Haight. “Also, many remote Alaska communities depend on subsistence foods and shipments of manufactured food, so community food security is also a factor.”
The online survey will be open through the end of the year, and the results will be tabulated soon after.
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Glenn Haight, Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program fisheries business specialist, 907-796-6046, glenn.haight@alaska.edu. Sunny Rice, Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program agent, 907-772-3381, sunny.rice@alaska.edu.
ON THE WEB: www.alaskaseagrant.org
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