Progress 06/01/24 to 05/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:This year our target audience included 1) students interested in agriculture or Indigenous food systems at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College and Montana State University, 2: students of minority serving (1890 and 1994) institutions of higher education, 3) producers (farmers and ranchers), and 4) rural communities.. Changes/Problems:One staff person left the project and two staff people took extended leave of a few month each. Then beginning in October 2024, we were unable to drawdown funds that had been expended. This remained into early 2025. The impacts on the funds being unavailable to our project created significant challenges: such as staffing changes, student recruitment and retention, and the cancellation of activities. The international Steward-to-Steward exchange with the Mayan Intercultgural University in Mexico had to be cancelled. The student participation in the USDA Summit was canceled. The partner in-person meetings were cancelled. There were disruptions in pay to faculty, staff, and students. There were delays in workflows. The work to reappoint payroll and finance payments due to the federal pause on funding was time consuming. The pause damaged shared expectations with community partners. The pause also diminished the morale of team members. Our project teamemployed a responsive approach to the unprecedented challenges and barriers, with program adjustments informed by feedback loops and shared-problem solving. These adaptations underscore the resilience and responsiveness of our collaborative structure. Our institutions were willing and able to address the absence of funding for several months by pausing activities and shifting staff onto other sources of funding. This was a short-term solution to address the most critical needs for us to continue our work. Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College also experienced some delays in the development of our certifcate program due to challenges with securing consultants for the curriculum development of courses and institutional processes needing streamlining for the offering of continuing education units. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? NHSC staff participated in the FALCON Conference, Minneapolis, MN, October 13, 2024 where they contributed to two sessions with one focusing on Indigenous Data Sovereignty and another highlighting the work of the college gardens. NHSC's Agriculture Department staff, Native American Studies faculty, and students grow traditional and conventional produce for consumption, seed saving, and community education purposes. Through this work, they are able to share hundreds of pounds of foods and thousands of seeds with their community to strengthen the tribal food system and serve as an example of organic food production and regenerative agriculture methods. NHSC Ag Department staff, faculty, and students participated in a number of workshops throughout the project year with ag-related topics including: Human Health & Food Nutrition, Seed Saving, Regenerative Practices, Indigenous Plants, Corn Grinding, and Raised Garden Beds. The workshops enhanced their current work in the college gardens and the community education opportunities they provide. Students, faculty, and staff of Buffalo Nations-MSU work together to grow, save, and distribute Indigenous and market-available seeds to families and community garden programs in the communities of this region. This is a co-learning environment in which the Buffalo Nations team learns from and with seeds, land, elements, climate, and through peer-to-peer exchange with other Indigenous seed stewards. Many of the students that work with Buffalo Nations-MSU, participate in the Buffalo Nations Summer Fellowship, a full-time three-month immersion in the Buffalo Culture seasonal round. Here students learn while working on the land, foraging, wild harvesting plants and animals, growing food in four Indigenous gardens, and through participation in community cultural and educational events. Buffalo Nations holds regular plant walks, food harvesting and cooking workshops, crafting and land-based skills workshops. Through these hands-on-the-work opportunities we learn resourcefulness, ancestral skills, and food systems skills, while building community interdependence. Two Sustainable Food Systems master's students and an undergraduate Agriculture Education student attended the Intertribal Agriculture Conference co-convened with the Intertribal Buffalo Council Conference in Las Vegas in mid-December. They hosted a table at the conference to promote and distribute information on the Steward-to-Steward Exchange and educational offerings of Buffalo Nations-MSU including the new Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Food System and the emerging Buffalo Care Taker Curriculum. Additionally, the students had opportunities to network with Native food systems professionals and benefit from knowledge shared in summit/conference proceedings.One graduate student made connections with four professionals working with buffalo whom she will interview for her research. The undergraduate student in Agriculture Education made connections with members of his own tribe who he will join this summer to receive teaching on salmon and salmon fishing, a significant part of his Shoshone-Bannock food system. A Buffalo Nations-MSU delegation attended the annual Buffalo Treaty Signing Event in celebration of the International Buffalo Treaty at Standoff, Alberta. This event is held in alternating years in Canada and the US and is a gathering where comprehensive dialogues on Buffalo including aspects of education, research, health, conservation, land, water, and policy, are conducted. Students had a broad engagement with buffalo nations, care takers, food systems professionals, regenerative agriculture specialists, and food sovereignty leaders.Students grew in understanding of their role in buffalo return, the work of buffalo signatory nations in stewarding tribal herds, the role of buffalo in the food system, challenges and benefits in integrating buffalo into diet, education, and on the land. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?NHSC utilizes our college website, social media, listservs, digital and printed material to share on campus, with other institutions of higher education, and community partners. We also utilize our local newspaper, radio, and television channel to reach more local community. We have utilized our partner, American Indian Higher Education Consortium, to share information with the other Tribal Colleges and Universities. As the momentum of our work and expanded network further developed this second year, we saw an increase in participation in our workshops by in-person and virtual attendance. Our largest attended event had over 60 participants. Buffalo Nations utilizes our website, social media (Instagram and Facebook), listservs, and campaigns distributing posters, postcards, and other print and digital materials in community spaces across the MSU campus, amongst Tribal Colleges, tribal programs, and to non-profit partner organizations across the biocultural region of the Northern Plains and Rockies. This year we found success in these approaches as we introduced the new Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Food Systems and the Steward-to-Steward campaign. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During Year 3 of the project, we plan to further integrate our efforts.We plan to hold a partnerexchange betweenNueta, Hidatsa, Sahnish College and Montana State Universitythis Fall with hopes of gathering around our goals and objectives and deepening the relationships we have developed. We will focus on ways we can share curriculum, be responsive to the understandings we are gaining through engagement in our shared goal and objectives so far, and consider how we support one another's work in the areas of seed stewardship and return of buffalo in our communities. Complete develop of Buffalo Care Taker Lodge and Certificate in cooperation with International Buffalo Relations Institute by January 2026. Complete the first year cohort of the Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Food Systems and recruit a second year cohort to commence March 2026. Continue the Steward-to-Steward exchange. Offer tribal food systems courses virtually and begin the institutional process for adding a certificate program in Indigenous tribal food systems.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Within our first goal, we seek to address the issue of supporting students seeking career pathways in rural and Indigenous communities require specialized training that meets the unique needs and challenges of Indigenous Food Systems and Agriculture. The beneficiaries of Indigenous food systems curriculum and stackable certificate programs are directly the students who will follow career pathways in this field, who will work in tribal and community food sovereignty programs, Indigenous food producers and food product developers, caretakers of tribal and private buffalo herds, and Indigenous farmer and ranchers. Indirectly, Indigenous and rural communities, land, water, soil, plants, and animals benefit from the professional development of trained Indigenous food systems and agriculture specialists. Curriculum designed by Buffalo Nations-MSU forms cohorts and partnerships that brings students of Indigenous food systems together to form relationships that lead to collaborative learning and long-lasting food systems' professional networks. Similarly, the Buffalo Caretaker Certificate Curriculum is designed to create a co-learning community of professionals imagining buffalo care in a context in which buffalo husbandry has not happened in the past. Directly, this curriculum will benefit buffalo herd caretakers, managers, program staff, and ranchers. Indirectly, this curriculum will benefit Indigenous and rural communities through connecting people to the nutritional, ecological, and cultural benefits of buffalo. Together, the project team and the advisory team identified various foci for a certificate program in Indigenous food systems that would be relevant to multiple tribal Nations. As we work to develop the certificate program requirements, the tribal college project team identified courses that fit within the field of tribal food systems and agriculture to support, including 1) Controlled Environment Agriculture and 2) Traditional Tribal Agriculture. At our tribal college, we piloted 36 workshops with Indigenous food systems topics with some only being offered in-person and some being offered virtually. Participants shared how the content was presented in ways that were relevant, "a wide range of information and was very great and helped breakdown terms that were hard to understand." They also commented on how one of the larger attended workshops also creating a cohesive learning environment, "One buffalo brought our 6 segments of community together." To work on our Indigenous Food Systems Certificate, we also hired a consultant to develop a nutrition course that will be able to be offered virtually. We developed a Learning Management System to house all of our videos, educational resources, and virtual courses. The Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Food Systems was launched, with 9 students in the initial cohort. In student reflections submitted at the end of the first seasonal course, students reported "this program came as a timely blessing, grounded in community and land-based knowledge, and unlike anything else I had encountered in formal education." The students found Indigenous food systems understandings previously unavailable to them: "The concept of seasonal ecological learning and buffalo consciousness has been pivotal to my awakening with understanding of how our ancestors moved with the Land, and how our traditional knowledge systems reflect those patterns." The Buffalo Caretaker Certificate Curriculum development, facilitated by 1 faculty and 2 graduated students, is resulting in two cooperative points of access where buffalo caretakers and community members may access professional development and education on buffalo. Our second goal seeks to address the issue that knowledge of place-based Indigenous and rural food systems have been overshadowed by dominant systems of agriculture that are decontextualized from place and the communities they serve. Experiential learning experiences specific to place and community are needed. Tribal youth, students of rural and Indigenous food systems, land stewards and food producers, as well as the land and communities they serve, will be impacted by these experiential learning opportunities. We have ongoing efforts to build relationships with local communities and increase student internships and apprenticeships. There was an increase in student participation in hands-on learning experiences related to tribal land management and food systems. These opportunities are grounded in cultural relevance, focusing on Indigenous food systems, sustainable agriculture, and buffalo caretaking. Two Sustainable Food Systems master's students and an undergraduate Agriculture Education student attended the Intertribal Agriculture Conference. Thirty-four candidates, ranchers and farmers, signed up with them to receive information on the Steward-to-Steward exchange program. Additionally, ten people interested in the Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Food Systems requested more information. Students returning from this event stated that they grew in their understanding of the food systems shared infrastructure development such as meat processing plants and mobile trailer units, shared intertribal agricultural policy work such as the Farm Bill coalition, approaches to bison herd financing, and models of Indigenous foods culinary training for tribal communities. A delegation of ten students, staff, and faculty attended the annual Buffalo Treaty Signing Event in celebration of the International Buffalo Treaty. In reflection on the impact of participation in this event, students reported: "allowed me to learn and think about many things I have never considered before, as well as more deeply understand the complicated history of this country," and, "Encompassing aspects from cultural restitutions for tribal nations, to ecological revitalization witnessed on every trophic scale, to the dissolution of fences and borders connecting us together as one people, the return of these relatives to our landscape is a renewal of overwhelming hope and optimism hard to put into words." Our third goal seeks to address how access to higher education programs focused on Indigenous Food Systems is limited and can be inaccessible due to tuition costs to members of the communities who stand to benefit from them. Indigenous food systems professionals and the communities and land they serve stand to benefit from the scholarships we offer for the Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Food Systems and the Buffalo Care Taker Certificate. Students who represent the recruitment pool for an Indigenous Food Systems Certificate program also benefit from the scholarships we provided. Graduate students studying in the programs of Sustainable Food Systems and Indigenous and Rural Health received support in the form of scholarship funds. These students served as Graduate Research Assistants in support of the Buffalo Care Taker Certificate and the Steward-to-Steward exchange. Qualitative data in the form of story, an Indigenous research method, was gathered to understand stewards' challenges, needs, and achievements in Indigenous food systems. Data gathered by steward-to-steward exchanges will inform the continuing development of other curricula within our programs including current and future certificate programs as well as steward-to-steward exchanges. Three Steward-to-Steward exchanges have been organized. Two of the three exchanges have taken place.
Publications
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Progress 06/01/23 to 05/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:This year our target audiences included: 1. Students interested agriculture or Indigenous foods at Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (Agriculture department interns) and Montana State University (Indigenous Foods Student cohort). 2. Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College community: This included students and employees of the college, as well as local high school students and members of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold. All workshops were open to the public, with specific marketing to this community. 3. Buffalo Nations Food Systems Initiative Advisory Council: This is a group of five knowledge holders from the Buffalo Nations biocultural region of the Northern Great Plains and Rockies, who guide the work of the Buffalo Nations Food Systems Initiative. 4. Montana State University's Curriculum Committee for the Indigenous Food Systems Graduate Certificate. Changes/Problems: A delayed starting date for the project due to allocation of funds being delayed (October 2024 start date vs. expected June 2024 start date) has delayed some activities. It took time to write the subaward agreement with Montana State University and get all the required signatures for both institutions. Additionally, some of the grant activities rely on other funding sources, which were also delayed in being allocated. For example, the Buffalo Caretaker Certificate is in the early curriculum development stage due to delayed funding from other grant sources. This certificate is expected to be launched in 2025. This slight delay in implementation of the new certificate program also delays activities related to seeking WINHEC accreditation for the certificate. The project team anticipates no long-term problems in completing grant activities. Scholarship, internship, and CEU process needing to be streamlined at NHSC. Identifying consultants and relationship building with consultants for curriculum development at NHSC has delayed the contracting of services. We have several consultants who will are working on service agreements and should be able to catch up with the work. Both teams (NHSC and MSU) hired staff to work on the project. It took time to create the job descriptions, recruit, hire, and train the new project staff. Now both teams are fully-staffed and the new employees are up to speed on the project and institutional processes. This should not adversely affect our project timelines in the future. We changed our external evaluator and have been working with them to develop our evaluation framework. The subsequent years' work and reporting will reflect our evaluation framework. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training activities: Indigenous Food Cohort Meetings; projectjoint meetings with students; in-person visit to the partner institution; project staff participation in theIAIA Introduction to Beekeeping and Pollinator Stewardship for Indigenous Stewards Train-the-Trainer course. Project staff particpation inthe NDSU Extension's Master Gardener course. Professional Development: Project staffparticipationin a workshop on a Tribal Climate Adaptation menu. Project staff attended USDA-NextGen Project Directors' Meeting in Washington, DC. One student attended Agri-Forum and returned to her institution excited about all the opportunities she learned about at USDA. She shared all the materials she brought back with other students and faculty on campus. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project teampresented results of the project at the Fort Peck Food Sovereignty Summit in April 2024. Projecgt staff gave an update on the project during the NHSC Food and Seed Summit in April 2024. That event was hybrid, allowing for in-person and virtual participation. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In year 2 of the project, regarding goal 1 (curriculum), the Buffalo Caretaker Certificate will gain institutional approvals at Blackfeet Community College, certificate application platform will be developed, scholarship application criteria and selection process will be developed and course syllabi and learning outcomes will be fine-tuned. The first cohort for this certificate is expected to begin in summer or fall of 2025. Additionally, MSU and NHSC project partners will identify clear steps for WINHEC accreditation of new academic (certificate) programs. Relative to goal 2 (experiential learning) in year two the relational framework between NHSC and MSU students will continue to be strengthened by having at least two in-person visits (one at MSU, one at NHSC) and six virtual meetings. The first international exchange will take place in year 2 when a project team travels to learn about milpa farming from Mayan partners in the Yucatan peninsula. Planning for year 3 travel to Sami reindeer herding partners will begin in year 2. Finally, relative to goal 3 (scholarships), in year 2, the first scholarships will be awarded to TCU faculty to enroll in the MSU grad certificate in Indigenous food systems. The scholarships will be awarded in early 2025, and the first certificate cohort begins in spring 2025.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: Our project team created a curriculum committee with representatives of various tribal nations, tribal communities, and tribal institutions of higher education. Identification of curriculum needs and where the appropriate knowledge holders resided. The format of the curriculum is unique in comparison to many traditional educational programs because of the Indigenous methodology of following the natural seasons and cycles of bison instead of the rigid, artificial timelines in higher education. We have also piloted workshops with Indigenous food systems topics to gauge the interest within the community as we begin to work through developing the microcredential requirements. We have also spent time building relationships with potential contributors to this work, such as curriculum developers, intern hosts, and resource producers. We also produced several short videos about the local tribal food system for use in classrooms, workshops, and for marketing of our program. Other activities: We have hosted other Indigenous educators and shared our unique tribal food system knowledges. We also distributed traditional seeds and seedlings while providing information about our microcredentialing program. Data Collected: Curriculum committee meeting notes, course descriptions, syllabi and application criteria have all been gathered. Summary statistics and discussion of results: There are no summary statistics or results to report currently, as curriculum development is in the early stages of development for both the Buffalo Caretaker Certificate and the post-secondary certificate in Indigenous food system. Goal 2: Experiential learning. A literature review has been completed, examining the design and impact of short experiential knowledge transfer exchange programs. Our project had thirteen students regularly engaged in experiential learning as interns, research assistants, workshop participants, or site visit participants. Two student interns worked in the community gardens, orchard, research garden, and traditional garden. One student completed their degree and transferred to our partner institution to pursue their master's degree online. One graduate student received training in conducting literature and web reviews, developing online surveys, development and submission of IRB protocols, as well as the design of webpages for an Indigenous audience, in order to promote the steward-to-steward Indigenous food system stakeholder exchange program. She deepened multiple skills, from qualitative content analysis to management and leadership skills. When first participants registered, the students felt "proud to succeeding in things I never expected I would." She found it important to experience "how you can make a real-life impact by starting from reading some papers." One undergraduate research assistant assisted contributed to the "Steward-to-steward" program design, assisting the graduate researcher with Indigenous community protocols in building research relationships. This student advanced his skills in cultural knowledge recovery of plant and foodways, public education, and event organizing. This student who has very few Indigenous students in his discipline, said, "I have found my people here in this group of Indigenous students who are doing the work in food systems for our communities." His comment acknowledges the isolation and disconnect that many Native students can feel in various food systems-related fields such as Agriculture/Plant Science, a disconnect that has been overcome through the NextGen program. Five students engaged in experiential learning as part of a trip to Native communities to discuss, experience, and present on food sovereignty initiatives. This tour included a visit to the NextGen partner institution, a Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe community, and another tribal college. Students received Anishinaabe teachings on water and other traditional ecological knowledge topics, toured an Indigenous farm and tribally-run hydroponic greenhouse, visited with Indigenous horticulturalists and seed stewards, visited the tribal buffalo herd, and participated in a community food sovereignty summit where they presented the work of Buffalo Nations Food System Initiative to several hundred community participants. One of the students summarized this experience saying, "Buffalo Nations has provided a life-changing pathway for Indigenous, land-based education at Montana State University. I have had opportunities to learn directly from elders, engage with the rich cultural landscape of our region, and receive holistic support from a beautiful community of other students and staff. The development of my Relational Foraging program, a series of classes in the Bozeman community focused on the Indigenous food system of the region, would not have been possible without the learning opportunities I have had as a part of this initiative." Another participant through conversation summit presenters discovered her passion for nutrition in support of Indigenous women's health and is now working on research that includes recipe development using Indigenous foods to balance female hormones. Other students participating in these visits have similarly found their career pathways through individualized Indigenous food system related research including Indigenous horticulture, ancestral seed propagation and seed saving protocols; and use of ArcGIS mapping to demonstrate traditional and current Indigenous relationships with land in this biocultural region. The project's pilot tribal food systems workshops had a total of 147 participants. Many of the participants expressed an interest in continuing to learn about traditional foods and methods within our tribal food systems. Major activities completed / experiments conducted: To launch the "Steward-to-steward" exchange program, a literature and web review was completed, examining the design and impact of short experiential knowledge transfer exchange programs at both national and international levels. Guidelines were developed to structure the domestic exchange program. IRB approval was granted, and a website was created to receive applications. A database of Indigenous food systems stakeholders in was further compiled, and initial outreach commenced. The groundwork has been laid for a robust and expanding program, one that will foster leadership in students and farmers, facilitate the transfer of ecological knowledge and Indigenous values, and strengthen connections across Indigenous food systems. Data Collected: Established methodology for field data collection. Goal 3: Provide scholarships. Who or what will be most immediately helped by your work, and how: Scholarship recipients will primarily be TCU faculty or students, or others working on Indigenous food sovereignty in tribal communities. Major activities completed / experiments conducted: The curriculum committee developed draft selection criteria for scholarship recipients for the graduate program. We awarded six scholarships for undergraduate students, two of the recipients were non-traditional students and were exposed to agriculture workforce opportunities while developing applicable skills working in the gardens. The graudate scholarship application will become available in Fall 2024, and the recipients will be selected in early 2025. The first cohort for the program begins in Spring 2025. Data Collected: Qualitative data in the form of meeting notes from the curriculum committee meetings of the MSU graduate certificate in Indigenous Food Systems have been gathered. Discussion of certificate application and scholarship processes and criteria are captured in these notes.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Conference presentation: Plenty Sweetgrass-She Kills, R., Ramaker, J. F., Cawood, W., Moreno, S. N., Zimmerer, J. T., Moreno, L., & Smith, A. (2024, April 12). Finding Our Way Home. Fort Peck Food Sovereignty Conference, Fort Peck Tribal College, Poplar, MT.
- Type:
Book Chapters
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Jill Falcon Ramaker (Anishinaabe) and Ruth Ann Plenty Sweetgrass-She Kills (Hidatsa, Mandan, Nakota, Dakota) Thinking with the seeds of our ancestors as they find their way homes, in Indigenous Environmental Research Agendas, edited by Melissa K. Nelson. London, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Plenty Sweetgrass-She Kills, R., Friedrichsen, C. N., Abe, S., Alberts, B., Barnoskie, K., Brunelle, D., DesRosier, M., Dubois, T., Echo-Hawk, D., Ramaker, J. F., Fellows, S., OBrien, R., Stephens, C., White, & Young Bird, B. Seed Rematriation: Fulfilling Our Responsibilities through Relational Work with Traditional Seeds of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation. Submission to Wicazo Sa Review anticipated 6/1/24
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Buffalonations.net
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