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Extension could rely more on distance education to expand its outreach with deflating budgets. In Alaska, where people are few and far between and even inaccessible by road, opportunities for distance-delivered outreach are particularly significant. In this article, we explore the efficacy of a mixed-method teaching approach that combined three distance-delivery methods: Elive, Blackboard, and teleconference. We share course impacts, completion rates, and satisfaction. We surmise that providing more than one way for students to participate in a distance course increases student satisfaction. [For "Going the Distance Part 2: Five Ways of Teaching an Extension Course: Elive, Blackboard, Teleconference, Correspondence, and Face-to-Face," see EJ1048546.]

Remote and widely dispersed clientele in Alaska create a need for effective distance-delivery programs. Extension agents often travel via small airplane, snow machine, or boat to teach face-to-face classes in off-road communities. Effective and more cost-efficient delivery methods are needed. We taught a course for beginning farmers residing throughout Alaska using five delivery methods: Elluminate Live!, Blackboard, teleconference, correspondence, and face-to-face. We evaluated these delivery methods based on five areas: accessibility of delivery method, course completion, knowledge gain, plans to use skills, and student satisfaction. Our findings will help Extension professionals design distance-delivered programs suited to their target audience. (For "Going the Distance" Part I, see EJ1043013.)

The first Extension-authored link in Google Search (2011a) for "how to garden" was ranked an abysmal 82nd. Worse, Internet users selected the top-ranked site significantly more often than they selected the second-ranked one, and they rarely selected any site ranked lower than #10 (Granka, Joachims, & Gay, 2004). An Extension-commissioned poll in Alaska found only 16% of the "Net Generation" had even heard of Extension, compared with 73% of those 60 years or older (Dittman Research & Communications Corporation, 2010). Extension's websites are so unpopular, those who seek research-based, unbiased information will likely not find it. This article proposes solutions. (Contains 1 figure.)

Local agriculture, food security and food supply are limited in Alaska, as well as in much of the circumpolar North. These limitations stem from a suite of challenges that have never been well characterized, categorized, or wholly defined. We identify these challenges as being environmental, geophysical, biological, or socioeconomic in nature, noting that some challenges are interrelated. Additionally, Alaska is expansive, and growing conditions are highly variable across different regions and microclimates of the state. Environmental challenges to Alaskan agriculture are generally linked to high latitude and include strong seasonality, a short growing season, cold temperatures, and unpredictable frosts. Geophysical challenges are characterized by a high percentage of soils that are wet and cold or low in natural fertility. Biological challenges include cultivar adaptability and selection; the control of various pests, weeds, and diseases; and decreased microbial activity in cold soils, which can allow pesticides to linger and slow mineralization of organic fertilizers. Socioeconomic challenges to farming in Alaska are especially limiting and may categorically represent the strongest hindrances to agriculture. They often overlap or interact with many of the identified agro-ecological and biogeographic challenges. Major socioeconomic issues can be a relatively low financial incentive or reward for farmers; inconsistent or limited markets; the high cost of land, infrastructure, and inputs; zoning challenges; a lack of cooperatives; and for rural farmers, time conflicts with more traditional means of subsistence food acquisition. These challenges collectively represent factors that limit agriculture in Alaska, and they provide a basis and justification for developing more sustainable solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alaska is food insecure, importing the vast majority of its agricultural products and commodities and maintaining a minimal year-round food supply. Much of the circumpolar North, with some notable exceptions, is also food insecure and similarly reliant on foods imported from outside regions. The stark differences in food policies, food security, and overall production that exist between individual countries and regions of the circumpolar North are likely due to variability in their physical and social environments, their varying agrarian histories (e.g., Old World vs. New World), and their different first-hand experiences with food insecurity, often during wartime. Alaska's agricultural history is unique, having progressed through periods of exploration and expansion and having experienced both success and failure. Agriculture exists today in Alaska as an underdeveloped natural resource - based industry that has been shaped by historical events and developmental processes and continually influenced by a host of environmental and socioeconomic factors. Continued interaction between stakeholders, agencies, and others will help the industry to progress to the point of meeting increasing food demands and improving food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]