Recipient Organization
BAY MILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE
12214 W. LAKESHORE DR
BRIMLEY,MI 49715
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
?Bay Mills Community College (BMCC), as a Tribally Controlled Land Grant Institution located in Eastern Upper Michigan, has been developing the capacity required to offer agricultural education at its Waishkey Bay Farm since 2010. The process has involved securing college and community support, partnering with government agencies and private foundations for funding and technical assistance, planning and establishing infrastructure, partnering with local farmers, determining direction for livestock and crop activities, partnering with other land grant institutions, and securing qualified staffing to lead day-to-day farm operations and plan for educational programming. Today Bay Mills Community College's Waishkey Bay Farm includes 280 acres being developed as an extension, teaching, research, and incubator facility focusing on sustainable agriculture and strengthening the local and Tribal food system. Current operations include season extension crops with 2 hoophouses and a greenhouse, a community garden, pasture-based chicken production, an apiary, a small apple orchard, industrial hemp variety trials, cultivated blueberries, and grass-based beef production. Waishkey Bay Farm is verified through the Michigan Agricultural Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP). Waishkey Bay Farm staff currently includes a Farm Manager, two Farm Technicians, and seasonal youth workers; the Farm is part of the BMCC Land Grant Department. In 2012 BMCC received support from the First Nations Development Institute to initiate pasture poultry production and processing education and demonstration activities. To date Waishkey Bay Farm's pastured poultry production has involved chicken breed performance research, supplemental feed ratio research in a pasture system, chicken processing workshops, donations of whole pasture raised chickens (processed) to food bank and elder meal programs, hosted chicken canning food preservation workshops, and made whole chickens available for purchase.Like much of Indian Country and other rural communities, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic Bay Mills Indian Community and the surrounding area saw many of the shortages and supply chain issues in grocery stores. During Covid-19 closures, stay home orders, and reduced gathering policies for public health, BMCC saw increased interest in food sovereignty programming, including over 250 families receiving gitigaan (garden) kits to grow their own food. In 2021 to better support families economically impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 health concern, we increased chicken purchasing options to include EBT/P-EBT/SNAP Food Assistance Benefits through the Brimley Bay Mills Farmer's Market.In 2022 we strategically decided to take a year off from pastured-poultry production so that farm staff could prioritize a number of large infrastructure projects.This has also given our team time to better understand emerging best practices to manage and mitigate avian flu virus present in the state of Michigan in both water foul (plentiful in our community) and domesticated poultry. We have been hearing from the community that they miss the pastured poultry program and the healthy food access it provided. At the same time, some of our 2022 infrastructure projects including a freezer room with food establishment inspection and permitting, have created the opportunity to begin selling our USDA processed beef to the Bay Mills Indian Community owned rural grocery store, Four Seasons Market and Deli. This involved growing our Waishkey Bay Farm team's knowledge base for navigating a multi-jurisdictional environment including farm processing and sales outlets. This experience, infrastructure, and food safety policy understanding gives our team a strong basis to build expanded poultry processing capacity, including institutional sales to Tribal meal programs in the community, restaurants and grocery stores, in addition to direct to consumer sales.Additionally, our farm team has supported past work led by our key collaborator at Bay Mills Indian Community Health Center in developing the Jiibaakwaan Production Ordinance. Jiibaakwaan is the original word that is used to reference food that is cooked, boiled, or canned in the Anishinaabe language. The purpose of the Jiibaakwaan Production Ordinance is to establish regulations for cottage foods produced or sold within Bay Mills Indian Community at the Bay Mills Farmer's Market, with the goal to promote economic development and the spirit of entrepreneurship while managing food safety and foods of cultural significance that are produced or prepared in a traditionally safe manner. This past policy work lays the groundwork for developing regulations and compliance mechanisms around poultry processing on sovereign lands.The Congressional amendment Public Law (P.L.) 90-492 amended the Poultry Products Inspection Act to provide cooperation with appropriate state agency poultry products inspection programs. This Public Law paved the way for many states to develop laws and procedures for small-scale producers to operate under these exemptions when selling their raw poultry products within the state. Michigan is one of the states that has opted into such a state poultry processing program. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) and Bay Mills Community College enjoy a positive working relationship so there is an opportunity to learn from their state level regulations and inspection process to develop parallel procedures that would govern poultry processing on sovereign tribal lands under the authority of Bay Mills Indian Community. This tribal specific poultry processing exemption has potential value to other tribal communities and in years three through five Waishkey Bay Farm staff would work to develop a knowledge product to make our future ordinance and process information available to other Tribal Colleges and Universities as well as Tribal Governments and Food Sovereignty or Agricultural Departments. This knowledge product will be developed as a webinar with recording or regulatory authority visualizations (to be determined). Our key collaborator, Connie Watson, at Bay Mills Health Center has a current budget and agreement with Mitchell Hamline Public Law School in St. Paul Minnesota for 2022-2024 for technical assistance (including legal guidance) to further support Tribal food and processing regulation development in regards to poultry processing under either the USDA authorized 1,000 birds/annually or 20,000 birds/annually exemptions.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Bay Mills Community College Poultry Processing Proposed Goals:Training and education for Waishkey Bay Farm farm staff and key collaboratorsRaise and process baaka'aakwenh (chicken) and/or mizise (turkey) in support of healthy food access in Bay Mills Indian Community and the surrounding communityApply traditional Anishinaabek community values around raising, processing andPlan and build BMCC infrastructure to support increased capacity to raise, process, and market pastured poultry in addition to infrastructure needed for mortality compostingDevelop standard operating policies and procedures (SOPP) for all areas of Waishkey Bay Farm operations regarding the raising, processing, storing and marketing of poultryEngage Bay Mills Community College and/or local middle or high school students in processing birds as a practical biology education and food sovereignty educationHost workshops on raising and processing poultry for local and intertribal farmers and community interested in poultry for personal useDevelop marketing channels for poultry that supports healthy food access and food sovereignty that aligns with Anishinaabe values and cultural practices (such as elders always eat first)Ensure sustainability of the project by developing a cost analysis and marketing plan that includes a break even or profitable value chain for after the duration of the grantCreate and deliver knowledge product that synthesizes our learning for other TCUs or Tribal Agriculture or Food Sovereignty Departments/staffParticipate in annual NIFA Poultry Processing Grant meeting for TCU co-learning
Project Methods
(N/A)