Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Initiative is established to deliver a holistic agritourism workforce development framework that regeneratively contributes to the economic and socio-cultural solidarities of African American and Pacific Island insular communities in the U.S. Through inspiring intercultural, inter-institutional and interdisciplinary project activities, we aim to provide major financial assistance and counseling support to undergraduate, master's and doctoral degree-seeking minority students in agritourism-related fields. To expand student exposure to agribusiness and technologies, we will introduce students to two international and two domestic agritourism destinations. By offering Agritourism Summer Academies and other experiential learning activities, the Initiative will educate four cohorts of Pacific Islands students about the diverse entrepreneurial opportunities and career pathways in agritourism-oriented business contexts. Through the MANRRS outreach activities, we will empower the community learners with a wide range of knowledge on the intrinsic connections between tourism, agriculture, food, human and natural resources, and more importantly with community solidarity and identity-building. We will work closely with the advisory boards to development culturally-appropriate agritourism curriculum that prioritizes the interests of African American, Pacific Island insular and rural learners. The impact of the Initiative will be long-lasting as the expected outcomes will strengthen the collaborative relations between students, faculty, and institutions from the above-mentioned communities. We will be committed to establishing a nation-wide recognitionof agritourism that enriches the learning, research and extension landscape of U.S. agriculture and food. The Initiative will foster a talented workforce determined to contribute to the private and public agricultural sectors and their allied industries and disciplines.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
40%
Applied
20%
Developmental
40%
Goals / Objectives
Major Goals and ObjectivesGoal 1. Expand knowledge training in agritourism-related academic disciplinesOB1. Provide financial and counseling support to learners pursuing degree and career pathways in agritourism related discipline:Promote and distribute Educational Assistance Awards to student recipients. An increasing number of students that enroll in and complete agritourism-related degree programs.Goal 2. Inspire students with agritourism experiential learning in the global contextOB2. Expand student exposure to agribusiness and technologies at domestic and foreign agritourism destinations:Organize student field trips to agritourism destinations;. An increase in students' exposure to agritourism businesses and entrepreneurship practices.OB3. Enhance community awareness of agritourism entrepreneurship opportunities in private and federal sectors.Goal 3. Innovate on interdisciplinary agritourism learning for underrepresented learnersOB4. Implement adaptive instructions of diverse knowledge systems related to agritourism:Organize summer academies of agritourism themed training opportunities.Interdisciplinary agritourism learning between diverse institutions flourishes.OB5. Develop culturally appropriate agritourism curriculum for underserved learners and communities:Meetings with advisory boards on agritourism curriculum design.A new curriculum system of agritourism is introduced in higher education institutions.
Project Methods
Student Scholarship Projects (SSP) - The Agritourism Educational Assistance Awards program will provide financial assistance that covers up to four years of tuition costs and stipends to a total of 34degree-seeking students in undergraduate (21awardees), master's (8awardees) and doctoral degree (5awardees) programs in four primary areas related to agritourism: (1) the food track includes disciplines in and related to food safety, food brand management, food sovereignty and food culture, food science and nutrition; (2) the agriculture track includes disciplines in and related to agroeconomics, agricultural production and processing, aquaculture, farm and rural management, rural development, agricultural education, agricultural marketing; (3) the natural resources track includes disciplines in and related to horticulture and landscape management, outdoor recreation, conservation and sustainability; (4) the human sciences track includes disciplines in and related to tourism and travel management, poverty, Pacific Island development, African American community development. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of agritourism development, it is critical to also recognize disciplines and academic programs of business administration, engineering, and information technology that may inherently enable strategy formation and implementation of agritourism operations. An awardee must have been accepted into an aforementioned degree program. The Awards evaluation will be based on GPA, personal plan on agritourism career development, extracurricular activity participation and recommendations. Appendix X shows detailed evaluation criteria. TSU: The Food Service Management Advisory Board Scholarship Committee will select twelve (12) TSU undergraduate students in the food service management program to receive a one-year scholarship of $10,000. The scholarship is renewable up to four years based on academic progress. Students must have a 2.5 GPA to apply and must have a 3.0 GPA to apply again in the subsequent year.The Initiative offers three ELP projects that foster agritourism experiential learning in the domestic and international contexts. The first project, Contained Environment Production Workshops, offers interested community learners in the Northern Mariana Islands training lessons of indoor and vertical farming. The workshops will address food security and sovereignty challenges of West Pacific Island communities. With the expected increased capacity of indoor and vertical agricultural production, island entrepreneurs will be able to develop and maintain local and regional food supply chains that support hospitality and food businesses serving both the tourism markets and local residents. WSU extension faculties will lead face-to-face lectures and laboratory experiments on the NMC campus. The program expects to attract and educate three cohorts of students from Fall 2023 to Summer 2024. Each cohort will have 15 students, and a total of 45 student participants are expected. The second project involves a series of one-month Summer Academies in areas that contribute to agritourism development. From Year 1 to Year 5, the learning themes include Food Science, Agriculture & Food Security, Geospatial Analysis for Agritourism, Agribusiness Economics and Horticulture. Each Summer Academy will recruit 15 student participants from the Northern Marianas community. The learning opportunities will introduce undergraduate students and 11th and 12th graders from high schools to various technological skills and management concepts required to establish a successful agritourism ecosystem adaptive to local capacity, wisdom and socio-economic constraints. NMC and UOG research faculty will lead the annual Summer Academy of Food Science. Faculty members from the WSU College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences will lead the other themes of the Summer Academies. The third project involves student field trips led by NMC, TSU and UOG faculty members to various destinations with existing or strong potential for agritoursim development. Two foreign visits will take place in Fukuoka and Hokkaido, two prominent Japanese agritourism destinations. The experience will enrich the exposure of undergraduate students tothe unique place-based curricula and programs of food science, food branding and general agritourism operations in Japan. Fukuoka University and the Hokkaido Agricultural Research Center of NARO Japan, both of which have existing institutional partnerships with NMC, serve as the hosts of the field trips. Three domestic field trips will be organized for intercollegiate visits between NMC, UOG, TSU and WSU students and faculty. These experiential learning trips will allow the partners and collaborators to establish mutual awareness and understanding of the strength, opportunities and challenges that each institution faces in capitalizing the various natural and human resources in the U.S. For all the experiential learning trips, NMC and TSU will each recruit 6 undergraduate students, and UOG 2 undergraduate students.To expand the extension capacity of NMC, WSU and USDA in large in the NMI, the Initiative proposes to establish a Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) chapter at NMC. It will empower the local students to develop careerbuilding strategies with the support of a national network of FANH scholars and experts. It will also inspire the indigenous and minority learners to execute leadership in their agriculture and food career endeavors. The MANRRS chapter at WSU will assist NMC in the process with two streams of efforts. Firstly, MANRRS-WSU led by faculty advisor Dr. Colette Casavant will facilitate to establish the framework, policy and processes of the MANRRS-NMC chapter. The chapter will be instituted with a focus on the diverse natural resources and human capitals critical to the design of agritourism operations that embody agriculture- and food-related elements. The primary target audience will be NMC undergraduate students who will learn about the public and private sector career opportunities in agritourism and FANH in general. Secondly, as the launch events of the new MANRRS-NMC chapter, WSU College of Veterinary Medicine faculty will be invited to the NMI to conduct workshops that will expose the community to animal-related career paths under FANH. The workshops will be in three themes: 1) discussions on diversified veterinary employment and entrepreneurship opportunities that bridge animal agriculture and sustainable farm tourism developmentin the 21st century; 2) discussions on the linkage between animal welfare, animal ethics and farm tourism activities that involve animals and livestock, aswell as the emerging volunteer tourism phenomenon that involves animal rescue; 3) veterinary demonstrations, which are part of the College's "Healthy People + Healthy Pets" community outreach, to address routine vaccinations and simple treatments relevant to farm operations in economically underrepresented or marginalized communities.