What Crops Are Grown in Alaska?

Alaska grows a surprisingly diverse range of crops, from potatoes and barley to cabbages, carrots, and berries. The state’s agriculture is small in scale, with roughly one percent of its land devoted to farming, but its extreme summer daylight and cool temperatures create conditions that favor certain crops remarkably well. ¹ The resulting harvest is more varied than most people outside the state would expect.

Why Alaska Can Grow Anything at All

Alaska’s growing season is short, typically running from late May through September depending on the region. But what the season lacks in length it makes up for in light. During the peak of summer, parts of the state receive 18 to 24 hours of sunlight per day. Plants that respond to accumulated light energy rather than calendar time can pack an extraordinary amount of growth into those few months. This is especially true for cool-season vegetables and certain grains that tolerate chilly nights and thrive under long photoperiods.

Most of Alaska’s crop production is concentrated in a handful of regions. The Matanuska-Susitna Valley, roughly an hour north of Anchorage, is the state’s agricultural heartland. The Tanana Valley around Fairbanks, the Kenai Peninsula, and the Copper River Valley also support farming. South-central Alaska benefits from relatively moderate temperatures influenced by proximity to the ocean, while the interior around Fairbanks has warmer summers but harsher winters and more extreme temperature swings. Very little commercial agriculture exists in western, northern, or southeastern Alaska, though home gardens and subsistence plots appear even in remote communities.

Potatoes

Potatoes are one of Alaska’s most established crops. The state has dedicated potato production areas, and researchers have studied the crop there for decades. Cool summers and long daylight hours suit the tuber well, and Alaska-grown potatoes are known for their firm texture and sweetness, a result of the slow, light-drenched growing conditions. Varieties commonly planted include Yukon Gold, red potatoes, and fingerling types, along with russets adapted to shorter seasons.

One advantage of growing potatoes this far north is reduced pest pressure compared to warmer regions. Research conducted in Alaska’s main potato-growing areas from 2004 to 2006 identified 41 leafhopper species in agricultural settings, with 20 species found in association with potato fields. Two species made up about 60 percent of the individuals collected. Three of the leafhopper species found are known vectors of phytoplasmas, which are pathogens that can damage potatoes and other crops.² That said, the pest populations in Alaska are generally smaller and less diverse than in major potato-producing states farther south. Fewer overwintering insect generations and long, cold winters help keep pest pressure relatively low, which reduces the need for pesticide applications.

Cool-Season Vegetables

Alaska’s climate is tailor-made for cool-season vegetables. Crops like lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, turnips, carrots, beets, peas, and radishes all grow well in the state’s long, mild summers. The combination of cool air temperatures and extreme day length pushes these plants to produce large, dense heads and sweet roots. Warm-season crops like tomatoes, peppers, and corn are far harder to grow outdoors and generally require greenhouses or high tunnels to reach maturity.

Cabbage deserves special mention. The Matanuska-Susitna Valley is famous for producing enormous vegetables, and cabbage is the star attraction. At the Alaska State Fair, giant cabbages routinely weigh in above 70 pounds, with record specimens exceeding 130 pounds. This is not a special variety of cabbage engineered to be enormous. Standard varieties, given nearly 20 hours of daily sunlight and cool temperatures that let them keep growing without bolting, simply accumulate far more mass than they would in a typical Lower 48 growing season. The same effect applies to other brassicas, root vegetables, and even some flower varieties, but cabbage has become the iconic example.

Small Grains

Alaska grows small grains including barley, oats, and wheat, though on a modest scale. Barley is the best-adapted grain to the state’s conditions and has the longest history of cultivation there. Spring barley varieties can be planted after the last frost and harvested before the first fall freeze, fitting within the compressed growing window. Barley grown in Alaska has found markets both as animal feed and, increasingly, as a specialty ingredient for craft brewing and distilling.

There is ongoing interest in expanding small grain production in sub-arctic Alaska to strengthen local food security. Alaska imports the vast majority of its food from the contiguous United States, making supply chains vulnerable to disruption from weather, transportation problems, or price spikes. Growing more grain locally could help buffer against those risks, and researchers continue to evaluate varieties suited to the short season and cool soils.¹ Wheat is trickier than barley because most wheat varieties require a longer growing period, but early-maturing spring wheat cultivars have been tested with varying success.

Forage Crops and Hay

By acreage, forage and hay crops dwarf everything else Alaska grows. Much of the state’s farmland is devoted to grasses and legumes harvested as feed for livestock, particularly cattle and horses. Key forage species include smooth bromegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, and red fescue, all of which can establish well in sub-arctic conditions.³ Timothy grass is another common hay crop, valued for its palatability and nutritional quality for horses.

Forage production in Alaska benefits from the same long-daylight phenomenon that helps vegetables. Grasses exposed to near-continuous light grow rapidly during June and July, allowing farmers to get one or sometimes two cuttings of hay before the season ends. The limiting factor is often moisture and soil quality rather than light. Interior Alaska can be dry in summer, and soil fertility varies widely, with permafrost-affected soils in some areas creating drainage challenges. Red and white clover are sometimes planted alongside grasses to fix nitrogen and improve forage quality, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizer.

Berries

Alaska is rich in berry production, both wild and cultivated. Wild blueberries, lingonberries (also called lowbush cranberries), salmonberries, crowberries, and highbush cranberries grow throughout the state and are an important part of both subsistence food systems and the local economy. Commercial berry operations focus primarily on cultivated strawberries, raspberries, and currants, though some farms also manage wild blueberry stands.

Lingonberries are a particularly notable crop. These tart, red berries grow wild across sub-arctic Alaska and are a traditional food for many Alaska Native communities. Researchers studying lingonberry pollination in the Tanana Valley floodplain found that a wide range of insects visit the flowers, including honeybees and several native bumble bee species. Insects carrying the heaviest lingonberry pollen loads included honeybees, certain bumble bee species, and solitary bees in the Halictidae and Andrena families.⁴ Understanding pollination dynamics matters because berry set depends on effective insect visits, and any decline in pollinator populations could affect wild berry harvests that communities rely on.

Cultivated strawberries do well in Alaska, especially day-neutral varieties that produce fruit continuously rather than in a single flush. The cooler temperatures keep the fruit firm and intensely flavored. Raspberries are grown in home gardens and small commercial operations, with some growers using high tunnels to extend the season and protect plants from early frosts. Currants and gooseberries, which are well adapted to northern climates, are also gaining traction as specialty crops for jams, syrups, and value-added products.

How Scale and Food Security Shape the Picture

Despite the diversity of crops that can be grown, Alaska’s agriculture remains tiny relative to the state’s size. Only about one percent of Alaska’s land is in agricultural use.¹ To put that in perspective, Alaska is by far the largest U.S. state in area, but it ranks near the bottom in total agricultural output. The overwhelming majority of food consumed in the state is shipped in from elsewhere, arriving by barge, truck, or air freight. For rural communities off the road system, this makes groceries expensive and the food supply fragile.

This reality fuels a strong interest in expanding local food production. Subsistence activities like fishing, hunting, and gathering wild plants remain central to food systems in rural Alaska, but gardening is increasingly common even in remote villages. Community gardens, school garden programs, and tribal agricultural projects have expanded in recent years, with growers adapting techniques to local conditions like short seasons, permafrost, poor drainage, and limited access to commercial soil amendments. Root cellars, season-extending structures, and raised beds over permafrost are all part of the toolkit.

Greenhouses and Controlled-Environment Growing

Given the climate constraints, greenhouses and high tunnels play an outsized role in Alaska’s agriculture compared to most other states. Simple unheated high tunnels can add weeks to both ends of the growing season, allowing crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers to mature outdoors, which would otherwise be a gamble. Heated greenhouses extend production even further, and some operations in Fairbanks and Anchorage grow greens and herbs year-round under supplemental lighting.

Controlled-environment agriculture is also expanding beyond traditional greenhouses. Hydroponic and vertical farming operations have started appearing in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and even smaller communities. These systems grow lettuce, microgreens, herbs, and other leafy crops indoors under LED lights, independent of the outdoor season entirely. The economics are challenging because energy costs in Alaska are high, but the price of shipping fresh produce to the state is also high, which gives local indoor growers a competitive window, especially for perishable greens that lose quality during the long supply chain from farms in California or Arizona.

For remote communities accessible only by air, indoor growing systems have particular appeal. Several pilot projects have tested container farms and small hydroponic setups in villages where a head of lettuce can cost several times the national average. These projects are still small and often depend on grant funding, but they represent a meaningful effort to diversify food sources in places where the grocery store shelves can empty quickly if a barge is delayed or weather shuts down the airstrip.

Crops That Struggle and Why

Not everything grows easily in Alaska. Corn, a warm-season crop that needs sustained heat and a long frost-free period, is essentially impossible to grow to maturity outdoors in most of the state. Early-maturing sweet corn varieties have been tried in the warmest microclimates of the Matanuska Valley and occasionally produce edible ears, but yields are unreliable and the effort is more novelty than agriculture. Soybeans, cotton, and other crops that require long, hot summers are complete non-starters.

Even crops that technically grow face hurdles. Wheat, as mentioned earlier, needs a longer season than barley and often fails to mature before fall frost. Fruit trees like apples and pears survive in some areas of south-central Alaska, but production is limited and unpredictable. Cold-hardy apple varieties developed for northern climates, including some bred in Minnesota and Russia, can produce fruit in sheltered locations, though the trees face risks from late spring frosts, limited pollination windows, and winter injury. Stone fruits like peaches and cherries are out of the question except in the most experimental sense.

Soil conditions present another challenge. In many parts of Alaska, soils are acidic, low in organic matter, and poorly drained, especially where permafrost sits close to the surface. Permafrost can create a barrier that prevents root penetration and traps water in the upper soil layers, creating boggy conditions that most crop plants cannot tolerate. Farmers in these areas often build raised beds or import soil, adding cost and labor. In the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and parts of the Tanana Valley, soils are better suited to agriculture thanks to glacial and alluvial deposits, which is a major reason those areas became the state’s farming centers in the first place.

Peonies and Specialty Ornamentals

One of Alaska’s more unexpected agricultural success stories is peonies. Alaska-grown peonies bloom in July and August, which is after the peony season has ended in every other U.S. growing region. This timing creates a market niche: when Lower 48 peony growers are done for the year, Alaska farmers are just getting started, and they can sell fresh-cut stems to florists, wedding planners, and wholesale buyers who would otherwise have to import peonies from the Southern Hemisphere at a premium.

The Alaska peony industry grew rapidly in the 2010s, with farms springing up across the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, the Kenai Peninsula, and the Fairbanks area. Peonies are perennials that tolerate cold winters well once established, and the long summer days produce large, deeply colored blooms. The crop requires patience because peony plants take several years to reach full production, but the per-stem value is high compared to most agricultural products. Transportation logistics remain the biggest challenge. Cut peonies are perishable and need to reach buyers quickly, so most growers ship by air freight to markets in the Lower 48.

Beyond peonies, some Alaska growers produce specialty cut flowers, bedding plants for local nurseries, and even seed potatoes certified as disease-free thanks to the state’s geographic isolation and reduced pest loads. The isolation that makes food imports expensive also works in reverse: crops grown in Alaska’s relatively clean growing environment can command premiums when marketed to buyers concerned about pesticide use or seed-borne diseases.