Sitka Farmers Market

Sitka, Alaska, is a community of 8,500 people located on remote Baranof Island in Southeast Alaska, an island where there are more bears than people and about 95 percent of our food is shipped or flown into town. We have no real commercial agriculture on our island, and only a handful of large family gardens. At the 2008 Sitka Health Summit, two projects related to food security were launched, and they led to the creation of the Sitka Local Foods Network, http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/. One of those projects was the Sitka Farmers Market, which has been a great success with about 25-30 vendors each market selling fresh local produce, locally caught fish (salmon, cod, halibut, oysters, etc.), home bakers and arts and crafts. It has been a great event to bring the community together, with several hundred people showing up each market.