![]() ![]() The tribe is also partnering with Terramera, a Canadian soil testing technology company, to track how regenerative agriculture practices are affecting the soil. "You want to remove barriers and that’s what we're trying to do in every single step." "To change minds, you don’t want to tell them what to do and try to give them a really amazing argument," Vannett said. Farmers who sign up with CERNA get a guarantee from the tribe to buy everything that they produce. The goal is to incentivize the regenerative agriculture practices and take the risk out of the transition, according to Rhodd. The Iowa Tribe also wants to expand the educational efforts to neighboring BIPOC farmers who aren’t tribal members. "We can act as that in-between because we're closer to the ground to work with each individual farmer." "Big companies don’t really have the ability to work with individual farmers," said Artees Vannett, chief operating officer of the Iowa Tribe. That will continue to create new markets near the tribe for new crops, such as tofu and sorghum, and pay farmers on both tribal and the neighboring lands to learn and practice regenerative agriculture. The tribe is also planting cover crops and pollinator plots, and integrating livestock rotations to help increase biodiversity and balance the nitrogen levels in the soil.Īnd in December, the USDA issued a $5 million Climate Smart Commodities grant for the tribe’s Center of Excellence for Regenerative Native Agriculture (CERNA) pilot program. With the regenerative agriculture push, the tribe has expanded its crops to barley, rye, soy and sorghum. "The tribe is leading the effort in not only bringing our old native ways, but marrying that with more, western science and regenerative agriculture practices that are in alignment with Mother Earth and Mother Nature." "I foresee in another 100 years, we won't have enough topsoil in the United States to grow any food," said Tim Rhodd, chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. But the conventional farming practices were killing the land. The tribe’s crops included corn, wheat and vegetables both for commercial sales and selling on the reservation to the 780 tribal members who live in the service area of the reservation, which includes neighboring counties, as the closest grocery store is 25 minutes away. It was originally a fully agricultural operation until the tribal-owned White Cloud casino opened in 1998. The tribe owns about 6,000 acres on a total reservation of about 12,000 acres - checkerboarded with non-tribe ownership. It also led Nutrien, the fertilizer and farm input producer, to partner with Indigenous communities to incorporate their knowledge into its business practices and supply chain.įor the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, investing in regenerative agriculture over the past 10 years has reinvigorated the soil and created a profit to buy back some of their tribal lands. In Alaska, that enabled the Nenana tribe to buy back 2,450 acres from the state and reclaim it as an Indigenous-led farm. In November, the Biden administration announced the USDA Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative to further incorporate Indigenous perspectives into agriculture. Traditional agriculture has started to inch slowly towards bringing indigenous communities and practices back to farming lands in order to rehabilitate the soils and create a climate resilient farming industry. ![]()
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