Progress 04/01/24 to 03/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:In the first year of our project, the target audiences included: Tribal agriculture agencies, nonprofits, and producers. We worked directly with Tribal Departments of Agriculture, Tribal nonprofit organizations, and Tribal farmers to provide technical assistance related to diversified crop and livestock production. Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition: This entity organizes the Tribal Food Box Program. The project team participated in weekly calls on distribution to offer expertise and guidance and assisted with an economic impact report. FDPIR - Great Lakes Region. Food Distribution Program to Indian Reservations (FDPIR) includes Wisconsin Tribal Nations and is Tribally administered. It contracts with local distributors for the product and aims to improve the program to support Indigenous farmers and provide more traditional foods. This last reporting period, we discussed data analysis and professional development opportunities. Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative: This group distributes food for the Tribal Elder Food Box Program and other federal programs to improve regional food access. We worked together on data analysis and modeling in the first year. 4-year Nutritional & Dietetic programs at other universities: The project team engaged in outreach and discussions with other universities throughout Wisconsin. Dietitians: The project team engaged with Native & non-Native dieticians sharing project findings and offering technical assistance. Tribal Health organizations: The project team engaged with Tribal Health organization sharing project findings and offering technical assistance. "Food is Medicine" initiative partners: The project team engaged with the WI Department of Health Services, WI Medicaid, Tribal partners, UW-Extension, the Great Lakes InterTribal Coalition, and Tribal health departments monthly meetings discussing the strategies and impact of medically tailored meals that will begin to roll out. Graduate students: The project team supported graduate students through supplementary learning opportunities. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project directly supports five graduate students working with the five transdisciplinary research teams. These students are mentored not only directly by their advisors and committee members, but also throughout regular project meetings and specific bi-weekly meetings to provide team-based support of the students. Supplementary learning opportunities at Tribal farms and research sites were also regularly organized throughout the course of the project. Students were encouraged to attend the Indigenous Research Forum held at the UW-Madison campus in Spring 2025. Project team members presented at several trainings aimed at Tribal Productions, including workshops focused on agronomy and equipment safety. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Project communication has been facilitated by project team members' involvement in meetings led by Tribal food systems leaders, including regular attendance at GLIFC meetings. Research plans have been reviewed by and developed in conjunction with the Tribal Coordinating Committee (now known as the "Leadership Team"). Preliminary results have been disseminated through GLIFC meetings and activities, one-on-one technical assistance, and formal workshops. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective Teams 1 and 5 will begin to create a curriculum crosswalk with the two WI Tribal Colleges (College of Menominee Nation and Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University) A curriculum crosswalk, in the context of university transfer or between institutions, we will create a structured document that aligns courses or learning outcomes between two different programs or institutions. It helps students, advisors, and faculty understand how a student's coursework at one university can be recognized and credited at another, promoting smooth transfer processes. A more detailed design includes: 1) Facilitated Course Transfer: Crosswalks will help determine which courses taken at one institution will be equivalent to or fulfill requirements at another. 2) Promotion of Student Success: By aligning curricula, we ensure students can seamlessly continue their studies without losing credits or facing unnecessary delays. 3) Improvements in Institutional Communication: Crosswalks provide a clear and consistent understanding of how courses are valued and aligned between institutions. 4) Course Alignment: the document lists corresponding courses or learning outcomes from the source and target institutions. 5) Credit Hours: specifies the equivalent number of credit hours for each course or outcome. 6) Learning Outcomes: clarifies the learning outcomes that are being met in each course or program. 7) Program Requirements: outlines how courses or learning outcomes contribute to overall program requirements. Continued tracking of the roll out of the Wisconsin Medicaid's In Lieu of Services Food Is Medicine benefit and identification of possible points of alignment with intertribal food system efforts. Objective teams 2 and 3 will implement the agronomy and engineering research designed in Year 1 of the project throughout the second and third years of the project. Team members will conduct an initial analysis of the data after the field season. Project team members will begin research plans related to grazing and the integration of livestock into annual cropping systems. Objective 4 team members will be presenting the first year of work at professional society conferences. Collection and synthesis of data will occur in Year 2 as well as the development of iterative models for use by Tribes and the WFHC to plan rural food logistics. A perspectives paper will be written (e.g., to be published in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy) outlining the current knowledge and needs for economists studying tribal food systems. An initial economic impact analysis will be expanded to provide a more robust and comprehensive impact analysis, including studying the effects of the Tribal Elder Food Box Program on health care cost savings. The team will evaluate the "Food is Medicine" policies to analyze how the introduction of these policies impacted food expenditure, food purchasing substitution (i.e., are people purchasing more healthy food as a result?), and begin translating these outcomes into health care savings amounts. Two processing and handling workshops are being explored - meat processing and refrigeration. Meat professional development is planned for Year 3, as a classroom, hands-on event at the UW Meat Lab, with the animals that will be processed raised by Indigenous producers, including poultry, beef, and potentially buffalo. A refrigeration workshop was requested by the Tribal Food Business Center and ideally will be offered in conjunction with FDPIR warehouse managers. Objective 6 team members will continue to assess priorities related to Tribal agronomy and food systems training. Specific training topics will be selected after consultation with Tribal Departments of Agriculture, Tribal non-profits, and Tribal producers. Student mentoring (informal and formal) will be continued through one-on-one meetings, biweekly student mentoring meetings, team project meetings, and supplemental learning opportunities. Opportunities to integrate Tribal food systems initiatives into UW-Madison courses will continue to be explored. Tribal apprentices will continue to be supported through placements on Tribal farms with mentorship by Tribal producers. Progress on objective 7 will be achieved through work with an external evaluator to iteratively assess progress towards project goals and their impacts.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective # 1: Map assets and resources across the Great Lakes Region. Accomplishments: 1) Attended 2025 Wisconsin Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (WAND) meeting to network with and gather information on existing universities and colleges that offer nutrition-related degree programs; 2) Support connections between Great Lakes InterTribal Council (GLITC), Tribal Nutrition Educators, and Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition, with GLITC staff assisting with traditional food recipes included in Tribal Elder Food Box Program (TEFBP) boxes. 3) Worked with Department of Health Services (DHS) on a Produce Prescription Survey to identify existing efforts; 4) Conducted interviews with 8 of 11 Tribal Nations in Wisconsin to assess food systems programs led by each Tribe. Objective #2: Develop production strategies for Indigenous agriculture Accomplishments: 1) Partnered with Ohelaku, a non-profit farming organization comprised of Oneida families, to develop long-term management strategies for cover cropping, fertility management, and soil building; 2) Planned research related to interseeding cover crops into indigenous corn, including impacts of row spacing and species selection; 3) Worked with the Menominee Tribe to develop production and research plans related to integrating crop production with rotational grazing; 4) Worked with Ho-Chunk Tribe to address challenges related to larger-scale management of culturally-important crops. Objective #3: Assess technology to scale production Accomplishments: 1) Provided outreach and assistance related to harvest of indigenous corn at the Ho-Chunk Nation and with Ohelaku; 2) Provided outreach and assistance related to post-harvest corn drying techniques to the Ho-Chunk Nation and with Ohelaku; 3) Planned research related to interseeding cover crops into indigenous corn, including research related to management using innovative mowing technology. Objective #4: Planning, optimization, training, and economic analysis to support safe and resilient supply chains Accomplishments: 1) For logistics analysis, we are creating a model (including efforts to collect data to build that model) that generates tabular logistics data and another model that uses these data to predict how rural Wisconsin supply chains, especially Tribal supply chains, may look in five years. Proprietary data from the Wisconsin Food Hub and public data from the Wisconsin DOT, RFSI and FDPIR programs were used to iteratively build these models. 2) For the economic analysis, we assessed the level of detail we can infer from publicly accessible data and identified a needs assessment of what information we will need in the future to achieve further project objectives; to date, we have assembled the history of USDA Census of Agriculture data, identified where data and variables are missing within this dataset, and laid out methodology for how we might interpolate the missing information. A second part of this project requires us to identify the historical introduction of U.S. interstate highways. We have prepared a shapefile for all U.S. highways and their dates of introduction to understand historical connectedness of Tribal food supply chains. 3) Assessed the Economic Impacts of the Tribal Elder Food Box Program: Analyzed the economic contribution (or return-on-investment) of this program. Objective # 5: Nutrition Accomplishments: 1) Met with (a) Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Medicaid Services,GLIFC, and GLITC to understand the new In Lieu of Services Food Is Medicine benefit(June-July 2024); and (b) with WAND to inquire about existing data and information related to the number of Native nutrition professionals in the region; (c) with NACHP to discuss health-related degree programs and student supports (fall 2024). 2) Participated in launch of Medicaid "In Lieu of Services" (ILOS) benefit, whichstarted in Wisconsin on January 1, 2025; 3) Participated in the Wisconsin Food Is Medicine Coalition with monthly meetings (national movement that emphasizes the importance of providing access to high-quality, culturally relevant foods due to their significant impact on diet and health outcomes. This access is essential for the well-being of individuals and communities. A lack of nutrient-dense foods--especially fruits and vegetables--can impede both the prevention and management of chronic diseases, leading to poorer health outcomes and higher healthcare costs). Objective #6: Create learning and mentoring opportunities for Indigenous farmers, students, and researchers Accomplishments: 1) Initiated bi-weekly meetings with graduate students to provide mentorship on research methods; 2) began planning for 2025 Indigenous food system workshops; 3) Participated in second annual Indigenous Research Forum on UW-Madison Campus; 4) Organized Indigenous Agronomy special session at the American Society of Agronomy Conference in San Antonio, Texas. #7: Evaluation Accomplishments: Secured an external evaluator for the project.
Publications
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