Source: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS submitted to
THE COURAGE TO LEAD: NATIVE BFR IN INDIAN COUNTRY WILL PROVIDE US THE FUTURE WE SEEK (EET)
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1017202
Grant No.
2018-70017-28604
Cumulative Award Amt.
$600,000.00
Proposal No.
2018-02905
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2018
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2021
Grant Year
2018
Program Code
[BFRDB]- Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, Enhancement
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
(N/A)
FAYETTEVILLE,AR 72703
Performing Department
School of Law
Non Technical Summary
Current Issue or Problem: Native BFR would benefit significantly from a specialized curriculum and training program that takes those needs into account. Programs and curriculum targeting NBFR's unique needs are slowly growing but are not readily disseminated to educators or to NBFR. There is one program targeting NBFR that is national in scope with materials housed at FarmAnswers.org, and that is the Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Leadership Summit (Summit), hosted by our team at the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative (IFAI) along with the partners to this proposal. (The Summit is a previous Standard BFRD project. See additional document addressing "Prior BFR Success" for more details about the Summit.) In addition, the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC), a partner on this proposal, also conducts a national NBFR program.However, there has never been a national, intertribal, Native-led compilation, assessment, gaps identification, and evaluation of all available existing curriculum and programs by subject matter experts and NBFR themselves. This Educational Enhancement Team (EET) project seeks to fill that gap with comprehensive, multi-level curriculum developed and tested by the audience for which it is intended.The content area that will be the focus of this EET effort are inclusive of four key areas tied to the most pressing problems in Indian Country agriculture: Leadership and Management, Data Management, Technology Management.NBFR need to develop skills as managers and as advocates. NBFR need to more fully develop leadership skills, more deeply understand data management and its relationship to success of their operation, and hone essential technology management skills. These topics are critical in helping Native BFR meet their farm business and financial goals. This team will examine existing material related to these topics specifically as they apply to NBFR.Business and Financial Management. Theseare critical economic sustainability measures. Current Ag Census data indicate that while Native farms and ranches are twice as large as non-Native operations, they have about half the income of non-Native operations, and also have lower participation rates in farm program, crop insurance, and cost-share conservation programs, the essential components of the farm and food safety net. (Nat'l Census of Ag.; Am. Indian Highlights, NASS 2012).In most regions of the country, these farms may struggle to be financially viable operations. Under-capitalization at the outset is partly due to complex social and cultural demands on Native producers that are not considered in the planning and goal-setting stage of farm business development for non-Native producers. This team will look at program content as it relates to helping NBFR identify the scale and feasibility of their agricultural business, their marketing plans, managing those business aspects of their operations, and related issues.Land Access, Land Transfer, Conservation Planning and Stewardship.Understanding the complex nature of land access and transfer in Indian Country as well as programs that help steward the land for future generations and depend in part upon control of the land through leasing or ownership, is critical for NBFR. This team will map the programs, materials and curricula currently available in this area.Legal Issues.Recognizing that legal issues are intricately linked to all of the content teams above, we have still elected to create a separate legal issues team. This team will provide critical oversight in both the review of existing programs and the development of new materials in the legal policies arena to ensure trainers have the knowledge and resources they need to provide education and training to help Native BFR navigate the unique legal terrain that Native BFR (and all Native farmers and ranchers) must have deep knowledge of in order to succeed.The project will be a classic EET project focusing on several important areas: 1) analysis of existing curricula for the target audience; 2) identification of gaps in such existing curricula; 3) preparation of curricula in the four key content areas (and others should the analysis warrant); 4) delivery of curricula to Native BFR audiences; 5) train the trainer events to ensure that those working primarily with the Native BFR audience are exposed to the developed curricula; and 6) compilation of compendium of resources, development of online training and workshops. The Native BFR community will provide ongoing input and engagement throughout this project.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
6016099305025%
1310199301025%
8066030310025%
9016199303025%
Goals / Objectives
This EET project will, over the three years of funded activity, assemble a core leadership team, subject matter technical expert teams, and a Native BFR beneficiary team to provide evaluation, analysis, and suggests for gaps on curricula applicable specifically to Native BFR.Native BFR face complex and unique challenges caused by the land tenure base upon which they farm and ranch and their legal and jurisdictional situations.For those Native BFR farming and ranching on lands under the jurisdiction of Tribal Nations, those practical realities will intersect with how they access USDA programs, access credit, design business plans, select business entities, engage in conservation, and many other practical impacts.Their regulatory interface is more complex than any other producer.Their curricula is much more complex and they must master these issues much earlier in their career than any other producer.Building on the successful activities of the lead organizations and partners, we will as a team of experts informed by the Native BFR beneficiaries we serve, build comprehensive curricula and make it publicly available throughout Indian Country to assist the producer and the education community that assists Native BFR.This EET will assemble both nationally recognized subject matter experts and Native BFR (NBFR) to evaluate existing programs and curricula; identify and evaluate gaps in targeting NBFR; create and curate a multi-level set of beginning, mid-level, and advanced curriculum for NBFR that can be used to train educators. Content teams will assemble around four critical areas necessary for success in Indian Country ag: 1)Leadership and Management, Data Management, Technology Management; 2) Business and Financial Management; 3)Land Access, Land Transfer, Conservation Planning and Stewardship; and 4) Legal Issues. Additionally, an Evaluation team will sit across content teams to assess the efficacy of curriculum developed in all areas.Objectives include: 1) Assess and identify existing curricula and gaps in current education, training, and mentoring of Native BFR; 2) develop and deliver a comprehensive curriclum model across content areas identified critical to Native BFR; 3) Develop curricula and train the trainer programs to fill gaps identified by the content teams; 4) help build online capacity and learning networks among Native BFR.Collaborating organizations also include:Intertribal Agriculture Council, FFA; Gary Matteson for Farm Credit Council; Kelsey Ducheneaux on behalf of the Native Youth Food Sovereignty Alliance.Total federal funds requested allocated to NGO/CBO/SAEOs:24.5 %; Total allocated to military veterans:10% (of the technical expert panels); 100% of the total budget will serve Native BFR socially-disadvantaged and/or limited resource farmers/ranchers).
Project Methods
Efforts:To achieve our stated outcome, we will perform the following activities that demonstrate our applicable efforts related to the project objectives and anticipated outcomes:Objective: Assess and identify existing curricula and gaps in the current education, training, and mentoring of NBFR.The EET Core team will lead this effort, including EET Subject Matter Experts (SME's) and EET NBFR project beneficiaries.The teams will:a) catalogue existing curricula and assess the level at which the existing curricula can be replicated or should be modified; b) develop evaluation tools for analyzing existing curricula; c) assess the comprehensiveness of the curricula; d) evaluate previously funded BFRDP projects and EET projects for relevant material; e) identify gaps in available curricula; f) examine all relevant data concerning the NBFR population and ensure relevant data guides curricula analysis and development.Objective:Develop and deliveracomprehensivecurriculum model across content areas and test curriculum with NBFR.Deliver a7-day classroomand experiential training opportunity at the annual Summit, delivered over the 3-year period of projectfunding. During the event, deploy potential curriculum models and test efficacy of materials with NBFR, using NBFR-led focus groups to assist SME's in evaluating the curriculum and advising on improvements.Objective: Develop curricula and train-the-trainer (TTT) programs to fill gaps identified by the content teams.Collaborate with other existing and pre-existing EET, currently and previously funded BFRD projects serving Native communities, Native education provides, FRTEP agents, Tribal college faculty, and other land grant faculty serving Indian Country including eXtension and Communities of Practice.Share curriculum and tools developed and tested by SME's and NBFR, proven to work with the target audience.Train collaborators to assist other programs serving NBFR in succeeding to help this target audience be successful in starting their farm and food businesses.Objective: Help build online capacity and learning networks among NBFR and those who support NBFR.Develop and deliver a series of webinars and online video-based educational opportunities to occur throughout the EET period as project curricula is deemed ready for full accessibility by content teams including NBFR.Collaborate with the Clearinghouse to ensure all materials are incorporated there.Develop an online repository of continually curated curriculum in addition to learning modules, learning aides and evaluation instruments, including self-assessment tools. Include, as part of this repository, a space dedicated to tracking available leadership, mentorship, and professional opportunities for NBFR in food, farm, and ranch businesses both in and outside of Indian Country to further their success in the field and give them opportunities to put their learning into practice.EvaluationThe evaluation process will not be a separate team but is internalized within the IFAI and IAC staff and will sit across all the other content teams. Evaluation instruments will be created unique to each content team and the research staff available to IFAI will develop specific data across various regions of Indian Country to ensure that each content team evaluates according to regional food systems and needs of Native BFR from the area.Objective 2:The curricula assembled, reviewed, and evaluated will be discussed in annual face-to-face meetings and periodically in distance hosted gatherings. Curricula identified will be discussed and evaluated by Native BFR on an annual basis. Using evaluation instruments developed in Year One as part of our first objective, the team will focus on curriculum testing with NBFR in every year of the project, increasing the amount and type of curriculum tested across content areas with each subsequent project year. Curriculum will be tested on site with focus groups of NBFR at the annual Summit. Evaluations will be gathered from all NBFR during the event. Post-event, we will convene the content teams virtually to analyze and incorporate this feedback into refined curriculum. Ultimately, by Year Three, we will test a curriculum with NBFR across all content areas.Objective 3:In all years, content teams will be responsible for identifying and connecting with stakeholders and educators across the country to build relationships with the EET and trainers/educators working with NBFR.In Years Two and Three, trainings and training for trainers/educators will be developed and delivered. Regional gatherings alongside other intertribal meetings and Native BFR mini-summits will dig deeper into specific curricula topics. In all years, the team will continue curating curricula to share with trainers and educators.Objective 4: In all years, we will coordinate and collaborate with the Clearinghouse to ensure curriculum is incorporated there. In Year One, we will develop an evaluation instrument for online content. In all years, we will continually develop and deliver a series of webinars and other web-based content to test this alternative format and delivery method with NBFR. In Year One, we will create a dedicated online space that tracks leadership, mentorship, and professional opportunities for NBFR. In Year Three, we will create a dedicated online space to serve as a repository for the finalized curriculum.

Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience consists of Native youth involved or interested in food and agriculture who are members of American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian communities. The youth are aged 18-24 and including first time students, returning students, and high school, college, law school, and graduate school students/graduates. These youth are focused on wide ranging agricultural production systems: livestock, diversified farming/ranching operations, specialty crop production, small to mid-sized farming and ranching operations, value added production systems, nutrition and health focus, traditional food systems, food sovereignty, and those interested in careers in the supportive professions that are essential to agriculture sector growth and success in Indian Country. All are involved or interested in some aspects of food production and food systems before they are admitted to the educational program as demonstrated by their own applications for admission to our Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Summer Leadership Summit (Summit). The Native youth target audience spends 7 days on the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus and are fully immersed in an intensive educational instruction in the classroom, in field trip experiences, in leadership development programs, career exploration programs, and experiential learning. During the application process the Native youth select one of four learning cohort tracks: (1) Agricultural Business and Finance; (2) Land Stewardship and Conservation; (3) Agricultural Law and Policy; and (4) Nutrition and Health. Changes/Problems:The onset of the coronavirus pandemic cuased the most significant changes in our approach to the work of this project. We shifted immediately to all-virtual events in the last two project years (2020 and 2021) in an effort to continue our work during this global crisis. Given the catastrophic impact of COVID19 on Indian Country, muchof the research and evaluation data gathered from our curriculum was really driven by our 2019 event and evaluation, with the 2020 and 2021 continuing virtually but with reduced attendance, understandable under the circumstances. The 2020 and 2021 virtual events maintained a connection between the Native BFRs served by this program, provided a forum for youth to connect with other Native youth at a very difficult time, and learn about resources that are available to help them and their communities acheive their goals in agriculture. At the same time that our project team was trying to adjust to the realities of operating in a pandemic, we also experienced some significant staff turnover, including a change in project PI and leadership as our previous Director transitioned to a new role at the Intertribal Agriculture Council. One of the positive changes in staff transition was that we were able to hire a full-time youth coordinator in our final project year, who not only plans and executes all Summit programming but also provides a direct connection point to IFAI for all the Native BFRs who come through our program. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Summit itself provides over 100 classroom hours of training for Native BFR's each year, and because the Summit brings experts from across Indian Country agriculture to speak and train youth, youth also have opportunities to speak one on one with experts in the field. Further, as previously reported, the Summit's new curriculum and capstone-focused model is designed to give Native BFRs real world experience and professional development opportunities through its practical, real-world problem-solving design. For example, students in the Ag Business and Finance track created business plans for Tribally owned agricultural enterprises, researched and recommended various different possibilities for obtaining agricultural credit for that operation, and presented those plans to experts representing "tribal council," all practical real-world activities that someone heading upa Tribal farm or ranch would need to undertake. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?IFAI team members have presented on the Summit at various national intertribal and national non-tribal agricultural education events across the country throughout the year, including the naitonal Risk Management Education conference, Intertribal Agriculture Council's Annual Conference, and more. Further, IFAI and the Native Youth Summit have a strong social media presence and reach through or email listserv of nearly 5,000 people. To promote the Summit, we createdsocial media postsregarding what the Summit is about and why Native youth should apply. Further, we also broadcasted live on Facebook, and have the videos archived on Facebook for future viewing by Native youth, the video presentations of each of the 4 cohorts from 2019 when we had our in-person Summit event. Through the actions of the Summit participants themselves as well as the ongoing media presence of the Summit, we continue to disseminate results to all of Indian Country. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Young and beginning Native farmers and ranchers (Native BFR) face complex and unique challenges caused by the land tenure base upon which they farm and ranch and their legal and jurisdictional situations. For those Native BFR farming and ranching on lands under the jurisdiction of Tribal Nations, those practical realities will intersect with how they access USDA programs, access credit, design business plans, select business entities, engage in conservation, and many other practical impacts. Their regulatory interface is more complex than any other producer. Their curricula also needs to be much more complex and they must master these issues much earlier in their career than any other producer. Building on the successful activities of the lead organizations and partners, we, as a team of experts informed by the Native BFR beneficiaries we serve, are building a comprehensive curricula that will be made available throughout Indian Country to assist the producer and the education community that assists Native BFR. This EET project has assembled a core leadership team, subject mattertechnical expert teams, and a Native BFR beneficiary team to provide evaluation, analysis, and suggests gaps on curricula applicable specifically to Native BFR. The objectives of our project are: (1) Assess and identify existing curricula and gaps in current education, training, and mentoring of Native BFR; (2) develop and deliver a comprehensive curriclum model across content areas identified critical to Native BFR; (3) Develop curricula and train the trainer programs to fill gaps identified by the content teams; (4) help build online capacity and learning networks among Native BFR. After assembling teams to identify existing BFR-focused curricula and develop a Native-centered rubric to analyze that existing curriculum, we searched through widely available existing BFR-focused curriculum available through Farm Answers, the Risk Management Library, Tribal education journals, and agricultural education materials generally. We surfaced up approximately 74 materials that broadly touched on some subject matter that mentioned Native or Indigenous specific needs. Of those, only a handful contained actual guidance for Native BFRs to help them navigate the complex and unique legal and financial framework they must traverse in order to be successful in farming and ranching; several of those materials were developed by partners to this project. This analysis was updated at the end of the project but no additional materials were added. After concluding this phase of research, which was our first objective to deliver under this project, we began developing our own Native BFR specific curriculum pieces and testing that with the target audience during the delivery of our annual youth Summit each summer. We had initially hoped to launch a curriculum model at our Summit in 2019 and then continue to refine that curriculum based on Native BFR reviews in subsequent years in 2020 and 2021. Unfortunately the onset of the coronavirus pandemic kept us from having in-person Summits in both 2020 and 2021. We did continue with a virtual event during that time and continued to roll out new curriculum pieces as part of each of our 4 main subject matter focus areas (Ag Law and Policy, Ag Business and Finance, Nutrition and Health, and Land Stewardship and Conservation) but attendance was understandably down at an all-virtual event given the global crisis we were all living through and which impacted Tribal communities disproportionately. Given the strangeness of operating during a pandemic in an all-virtual environment, much of our research and testing of curriculum results come from the 2019 event which wasas previously reported as a significant success. The curriculum reoriented Summit programming around a singular capstone model that gave students a practical problem from a fictional tribal community and asked them to be problem-solvers for the problem together. Throughout the week, all classroom and experiential learning activities were designed to highlight aspects of the problem that students might want to consider as they worked together in a group setting on the capstone activity. At the end of the week, students joined together to present their problems to subject matter experts who gave them feedback on the projects. This model was very well received. In evaluations during and after the event weasked the students specifically to rank, with 10 being the most helpful and 1 being least helpful, how helpful the programming in their track was in providing them information and knowledge that would be useful to their capstone project development. After the first day, over half of the students ranked classes at a 9 or 10: 37% of students responded with a "9," and 22% responded with a "10." No students responded with "1" or "2." On the second day of evaluation, the responses to this question increased on the high ranking side, with 48% of students responding "10," and 13% responding "9." We also asked students mid-week what their comfort level with their group project was to assess how comfortable or not they grew with the project over time. Comfort level typically went up over time as indicated by student responses on Days 3 and 4 of the Summit. For the Agricultural Law & Policy section, for example, on Day 3, 75% of the cohort responded with low ranking scores in response to this question. By the end of Day 4, however, after another day of coursework, 75% of students responded that they felt prepared to present on their capstone project. In 2020 and 2021, because we could not have in-person events due to the pandemic, we focused more on our fourth objective, to help build online capacity among Native BFRs. We experimented with different digital platforms in each year, utlizing Microsoft Teams and Zoom in 2020 and 2021, respectively. For video connection Zoom did seem to be preferred among Native students despite Teams purportedly being more mobile-friendly. What neither platform provided was a strong connection to one another during the year, however. During the last few months of the project we began experimenting with platforms that provide a more social network-style atmosphere for students. Our project partner Intertribal Agriculture Council utilizes a platform called Mighty Networks to provide their membership with a dedicated social platform, which allows individuals to communicate with one another and also provides a forum for hosting curriculum, training, and livestream video. This type of platform seems much more in line with the goals we set for online capacity building for Native BFRs as part of this project, and we have recently leveraged additional funding support to launch our own social platform through Mighty Networks for Native BFRs.

Publications


    Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20

    Outputs
    Target Audience:Our target audience consists of Native youth involved or interested in food and agriculture who are members of American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian communities. The youth are aged 18-24 and including first time students, returning students, and high school, college, law school, and graduate school students/graduates. These youth are focused on wide ranging agricultural production systems: livestock, diversified farming/ranching operations, specialty crop production, small to mid-sized farming and ranching operations, value added production systems, nutrition and health focus, traditional food systems, food sovereignty, and those interested in careers in the supportive professions that are essential to agriculture sector growth and success in Indian Country. All are involved or interested in some aspects of food production and food systems before they are admitted to the educational program as demonstrated by their own applications for admission to our Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Summer Leadership Summit (Summit). The Native youth target audience spends 8 days on the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus and are fully immersed in an intensive educational instruction in the classroom, in field trip experiences, in leadership development programs, career exploration programs, and experientiallearning. During the application process the Native youth select one of four learning cohort tracks: (1) Agricultural Business and Finance; (2) Land Stewardship and Conservation; (3) Agricultural Law and Policy; and (4) Nutrition and Health. Changes/Problems:The coronavirus pandemic has been a significant impact on our work. Not only were the communities and Native BFRs we serve disproportionately impacted by this crisis, but our project team and partners had to shift overnight into a virtual working environment in the midst of a global crisis. The biggest change we made as a result of the pandemic was shifting to a virtual event for our annual Native Youth in Agriculture Leadership Summit. Because of the "Zoom fatigue" that had been well-documented by July 2020, we attempted to run the event virtually by spreading the event out over a two-week period with much shorter class and connection time each day, but preserving the overall amount of material we usually give in a typical week-long event, in order to give Native BFRs more time away from screens. This was not as effective as we had hoped and if in-person events are not possible in Year 3 we will not utilize this model again. We also have had a significant staff transition, with our previous Director and PI on this project transitioning away from this project in November. Our interim director has been with IFAI since 2013 and is very familiar with the Summit programming and we hope to experience minimal issues from this staff transition. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Summit provides over 100 hours of classroom training for attendees. The Summit is also led by agricultural professional and experts from across Indian Country and puts Native BFRs directly in communication with those individuals who can provide them professional development opportunities including internships and fulltime employement. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project team and IFAI staff have engaged inoutreach and information dissemination over the life of the project including in Year Two despite the challenges presented by the pandemic and necessity of an all-virtual event.Fortunately IFAI and the Native Youth Summit have a strong social media presence and reach through or email listserv of nearly 5,000 people. To promote the Summit, we created social media posts and video posts regarding what the Summit is about and why Native youth should apply. Through the actions of the Summit participants themselves as well as the ongoing media presence of the Summit, we continue to disseminate results to all of Indian Country. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?While we are hopeful that the availability of vaccines will allow for an in-person event in 2021 we are planning another all-virtual event for the final project year and will continue seeking a suitable platform for enhancing online learning capacity for Native BFRs. We will also be working to refine the curriculum we have developed in our Year One project year, which was as previously reported very well-received among the 40 Native BFRs attending the 2019 event. This will be the major focus of our final year.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? The onset of the coronavirus pandemic in Year 2 of this project significantly impacted our in-person delivery of the Summit and continued testing of Summit curricula, but fortunately we were able to host an all-virtual Summit in July 2020. While attendance was reduced, with half the students we typically plan for at the Summit attending, we were still able to go forward with the event. Because our project team and our project partner teams all shifted immediately to work from home status in March 2020 we were also able to develop a rubric for curriculum, continue our analysis of existing curriculum and complete that portion of our objectives for this project. Because we had an all virtual event we also tested out the efficacy of Microsoft Teams to provide a training platform to enhance online capacity training for Native BFRs. Ultimately although this program was purportedly mobile friendly we concluded after the 2020 event that it was not the most appropriate platform to deliver on objective 4 for this project and will seek other alternatives in the final year.

    Publications


      Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19

      Outputs
      Target Audience:Our target audience consists of Native youth involved or interested in food and agriculture who are members of American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian communities. The youth are aged 18-24 and including first time students, returning students, and high school, college, law school, and graduate school students/graduates. These youth are focused on wide ranging agricultural production systems: livestock, diversified farming/ranching operations, specialty crop production, small to mid-sized farming and ranching operations, value added production systems, nutrition and health focus, traditional food systems, food sovereignty, and those interested in careers in the supportive professions that are essential to agriculture sector growth and success in Indian Country. All are involved or interested in some aspects of food production and food systems before they are admitted to the educational program as demonstrated by their own applications for admission to our Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Summer Leadership Summit (Summit). The Native youth target audience spends 8 days on the University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus and are fully immersed in an intensive educational instruction in the classroom, in field trip experiences, in leadership development programs, career exploration programs, and experiential learning. During the application process the Native youth select one of four learning cohort tracks: (1) Agricultural Business and Finance; (2) Land Stewardship and Conservation; (3) Agricultural Law and Policy; and (4) Nutrition and Health. Changes/Problems:Currently this project is still ongoing and will be in progress for a further two years, and we anticipate including any "lessons learned" or chnages/problemsin our final report on our overall work at that time.As the project progresses based on out work in Year One, we hope to facilitate more dialogue between our core subject matter teams by implementing monthly check-in calls to discuss findings about existing curriculum and the utility of the rubric for evaluating this curriculum. More frequent communication like this will be very helpful as we move more fully into the gaps-filling stage of developing curriculum so that we can produce modules that work together as a whole to provide the most relevant educational tools for our target audience. While we anticipate that the results of our work on this project will not be fully realized until our project is complete and our curriculum is developed over the next two years of work, an immediate takeaway from our first year of work would certainly be the importance and impact of developing and delivering agricultural education curriculum for Native BFR in a way that is both practical and culturally relevant. The youth at our Summit this year responded very well to our pilot capstone curriculum, which was designed to provide the participants with a realistic scenario that they could likely face in their future agricultural careers. The post-event evaluations we received from our participants indicated high rates of satisfaction with this new model; the youth found it engaging and multiple participants reported on their Day One evaluations that hearing about their capstone project was the best part of that day's learning experience. We had certainly hoped for a positive reaction to this new way of delivering agricultural education material to this audience, but the response was even more positive than we had anticipated and we are excited to continue our work over the next two years, developing materials that resonate with Native BFR and give them the information they need to be successful in agricultural careers. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of this work we also delivered our sixth annual summer leadership summit for Native youth who want to pursue agricultural careers, and tested new educational models with this target audience. The 2019 Summit was held July 18-25th, 2019, on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Attending this year were nearly 40 Native youth ages 18-24 who are involved in agricultural production on their own or their family's operations, or who are pursuing additional opportunities in agriculture like animal science, agricultural law, conservation stewardship, or agricultural lending that will ultimately support their family farms, ranches, and food systems in their communities. The 2019 Summit attendees represented over 25 different Tribal Nations from diverse geographic regions across Indian Country. The educational model we tested with this target audience of youth this year built off our previous year's event, with youth applying to focus on one of four subject matter areas at this year's event: Agricultural Business & Finance, Conservation & Land Stewardship, Agricultural Law & Policy, and Nutrition & Health. The youth focused deeply on this subject matter in their four cohorts during the course of the week all while working on a capstone project that was specific to that subject as well. The capstone project this year was different to anything we had done with this audience before: each project gave the youth a hypothetical fact pattern and tasked them to work together as a group to solve the kind of real-world problems that Tribal leaders, Native farmers and ranchers, and agricultural operators across Indian Country face daily. The youth presented their final work to a panel of experts who asked questions and gave them feedback. The response to this year's Summit via participant evaluations has been overwhelmingly positive and this practical experiential model is something we are looking to continue in subsequent project years with the new curriculum we are developing as part of this EET project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project team and IFAI staff have engaged in a substantial amount of outreach and information dissemination throughout the entirety of Year One of the project, and we will publish all of our full findings and data from all Summit and curriculum development on our website, www.indigenousfoodandag.com. Additionally, IFAI team members have presented on the Summit at various national intertribal and national non-tribal agricultural education events across the country throughout the year. Further, IFAI and the Native Youth Summit have a strong social media presence and reach through or email listserv of nearly 5,000 people. To promote the Summit, we created 6 social media posts and 2 video post regarding what the Summit is about and why Native youth should apply. Further, we also broadcasted live on Facebook, and have the videos archived on Facebook for future viewing by Native youth, the video presentations of each of the 4 cohorts. The Youth presented their final finds and work for the entire Summit with their classmates, answered questions and addressed points raised by fellow Youth and the Summit's teachers, and provided solutions to problems that they were provided as part of the curriculum. Through the actions of the Summit participants themselves as well as the ongoing media presence of the Summit, we continue to disseminate results to all of Indian Country. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Ultimately, we hope to provide through the work of this EET project a full curriculum built around these types of practical, culturally relevant scenarios so that educators across Indian Country have access to curricula that is appropriate and engaging for Native BFR. The pilot testing of this new capstone model at the 2019 event was a success, and our evaluation data from this year supports that conclusion. We conduct evaluation with our students at the conclusion of each day's programming, and asked a series of questions to each cohort throughout the week about this new programming. These questions and responses indicate that the new programming was effective at engaging student interest and promoting knowledge retention: We asked the students specifically to rank, with 10 being the most helpful and 1 being least helpful, how helpful the programming in their track was in providing them information and knowledge that would be useful to their capstone project development. After the first day, over half of the students ranked classes at a 9 or 10: 37% of students responded with a "9," and 22% responded with a "10." No students responded with "1" or "2." On the second day of evaluation, the responses to this question increased on the high ranking side, with 48% of students responding "10," and 13% responding "9." We also asked students mid-week what their comfort level with their group project was to assess how comfortable or not they grew with the project over time. Comfort level typically went up over time as indicated by student responses on Days 3 and 4 of the Summit. For the Agricultural Law & Policy section, for example, on Day 3, 75% of the cohort responded with low ranking scores in response to this question. By the end of Day 4, however, after another day of coursework, 75% of students responded that they felt prepared to present on their capstone project. General student comments in open-ended questions also provided feedback about the new model. In response to the question, "What was your favorite part of today," we received several comments from students in multiple different cohorts indicating the capstone project was their favorite part of the day and that they were excited about learning further. "I am really excited to work on this capstone project and hear what my team mates have for ideas." "Find out what our business plan we will be working this week." "Business plan" "I loved the first session of becoming familiar with our capstone project and just discussing Law and Policy in Indian Country." "Capstone time" "Hands on activities with my group " "Starting to create a conservation plan. I'm conducting my own at NRCSand I'm learning how to do so here from step one and how to go about it in a professional step by step manner." Students in the conservation and land stewardship section particularly enjoyed working with their capstone project, which was to develop a conservation plan for a Tribal landowner that incorporated land stewardship principles they would be learning throughout the week. They began their project by interviewing that "landowner," who was one of our project partners, Zach Ducheneaux, executive director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council. The youth were able to interview him as though they were conservation specialists already working with farmers and ranchers to do land stewardship work, and their comments indicate that they learned a great deal throughout this process: "Talking with Zach DX when he was pretending to be a land owner. I am really excited to work on this capstone project and hear what my team mates have for ideas." "Talking with mike client (Zack Ducheneaux)." "The interview with Zach D., it was fun and was wonderful improv and very interesting taking notes." Additionally, 100% of the students in this cohort reported that they would use the practical knowledge they gained in how to interview and work with conservation customers after they returned home, making this a very valuable part of experiential learning for students. Overall, the results of our evaluations and the work the students did over the week on their practical capstone projects showed that this is a workable model and good way to deliver curriculum to our target audience. We look forward to incorporating similar practices as we review and develop our own curriculum for Native BFR for this EET project over the next reporting period. Additionally, in identifying gaps in available curriculum for Native BFR, we have noticed that it is difficult to find and deliver curricula that are geared towards both a younger BFR audience and a Native BFR audience. The intersection of these two characteristics necessitates some unique, highly specialized curricula that account for legal and financial risk complexities faced only by AIAN producers. As we look at filling these gaps and work directly with members of our target audience to develop curriculum that is the most relevant and useful for them, we have seen so far in our work that keys to success for Native BFR in terms of engaging with curriculum include: 1) curriculum that is developed by and for Native producers; 2) curriculum that has a substantial practical component and allows Native BFR the time and space to work collaboratively to solve real-world problems in an educational environment that prioritizes indigenous ways of knowing and learning. Addressing this issue will be the major focus during the next reporting period.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? Young and beginning Native farmers and ranchers (Native BFR) face complex and unique challenges caused by the land tenure base upon which they farm and ranch and their legal and jurisdictional situations. For those Native BFR farming and ranching on lands under the jurisdiction of Tribal Nations, those practical realities will intersect with how they access USDA programs, access credit, design business plans, select business entities, engage in conservation, and many other practical impacts. Their regulatory interface is more complex than any other producer. Their curricula also needs to be much more complex and they must master these issues much earlier in their career than any other producer. Building on the successful activities of the lead organizations and partners, we, as a team of experts informed by the Native BFR beneficiaries we serve, are building a comprehensive curricula that will be made available throughout Indian Country to assist the producer and the education community that assists Native BFR. This EET project has assembled a core leadership team, subject matter technical expert teams, and a Native BFR beneficiary team to provide evaluation, analysis, and suggests gaps on curricula applicable specifically to Native BFR. The objectives of our project are: (1) Assess and identify existing curricula and gaps in current education, training, and mentoring of Native BFR; (2) develop and deliver a comprehensive curriclum model across content areas identified critical to Native BFR; (3) Develop curricula and train the trainer programs to fill gaps identified by the content teams; (4) help build online capacity and learning networks among Native BFR. We have accomplished several important tasks in Year One of this project, and have taken several substantial steps towards accomplishing the objectives of the project. Beginning with reviewing existing curriculum available to Native BFR as required under Objective 1, we have searched existing databases such as the Ag Risk & Farm Management Library, Farm Answers, and state agricultural curricula to locate all available curriculum targeting this audience across key subject matter areas: agricultural business planning, conservation and land stewardship for agricultural/working lands, access to agricultural credit, legal issues in agricultural production, land use, and agricultural marketing. Our findings to date show that while there is a range of curricula in these areas aimed at supporting young 18 to 24 year old BFR generally, there are few if any resources directly dealing with the issues that American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) BFR must address in order to be successful in agricultural careers. Therefore, in order to successfully engage in Objectives 2 and 3 of the project, the work in Year One has also focused on working with our project team and project partners to develop an indigenous rubric to assess agricultural curriculum for Native BFR and begin building curriculum modules in these areas to fill gaps in existing curricula. We will be convening our project team and project partners next month (December 2019) to discuss progress to date and break into subject matter committees that will be focusing specifically on each of the above subject matter areas for the remainder of the project, developing and testing culturally relevant curricula for Native BFR.To achieve Objective 4, which is on-going throughout the project, we have created online resources based on the Native Youth Summit we hosted as part of this project through social media posts and videos that allow for real-time engagement and interaction between Native BFR. Since the project start date, in Year One we have: Had preliminary conversations and discussions about curriculum, rubric to evaluate curriculum, and committee members of EET core teams with project team and key project partners IAC and FFA; Established a project schedule; Assembled initial compilation of available curriculum across all key subject matter areas (business planning, access to credit, land stewardship & conservation, land use/land tenure, legal); Begun Core EET team subject matter assignments to review existing curriculum; Begun developing final rubric by which all curriculum will be evaluated; Begun gaps assessment in current curriculum review; Developed some preliminary gap-filling curriculum; Delivered preliminary gap-filling curriculum to pilot audience; Delivered a full Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Leadership Summit to target audience using existing and preliminary developed curriculum; Received evaluations on Summit curriculum from target audience; Posted Summit videos and information online an on social media; and Currently, we are preparing to close out this first year by preparing for an in-person all-team meeting at Intertribal Agriculture Council Annual Membership Meeting in December 2019 where we will finalize curriculum evaluation rubric development and select team members for Core team.

      Publications