Progress report for ENE25-195
Project Information
Project Focus: The SRMT Agriculture Program is dedicated to enhancing food sovereignty and cultural resilience within the Akwesasne community, which has been historically impacted by industrial pollution and loss of traditional agricultural practices. The program aims to engage the Akwesasne community by reviving traditional food production knowledge and sustainable agricultural methods that align with Mohawk culture. By reviving our traditional food practices and sharing this knowledge while providing support, this will promote self sufficiency. A community survey conducted in February 2023 revealed a strong demand for workshops focusing on traditional food practices, such as the cultivation and processing of Mohawk white corn, other Haudenosaunee corn, beans, and squash, seed saving for heirloom varieties, and sustainable gardening techniques. The project will directly address the community's needs by first training the Agriculture Program staff to then host workshops and demonstrations at the Tribal farm. This will empower local residents to reclaim their self-sufficiency and cultural heritage through hands-on education and workshops led by traditional knowledge holders.
Solution and Approach
To meet the identified needs, the SRMT Agriculture Program will implement a comprehensive train-the-trainer education program. This program will involve hiring a full-time Traditional Food Production Educator, Mary Arquette, who possesses extensive experience in traditional Mohawk agricultural practices to train, coordinate, and teach these workshops. The approach will include:
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Capacity Building: Training Agriculture Program staff to develop the skills and confidence necessary to facilitate workshops. This will be achieved through a blend of onsite training at the Tribal Farm in the traditional foods demonstration garden, and mentorship from Mary.
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Community Workshops: Hosting monthly workshops that cover various topics essential to traditional food production and sustainable agriculture. These workshops will be open to 10-15 community members at a time, ensuring that knowledge is shared widely and inclusively.
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Cultural Integration: Each workshop will incorporate Mohawk language, emphasizing its integral role in food production and cultural identity. Our traditional teachings must include our language. This will be done in coordination with workshops but also by having "community days" weekly at the farm to practice the language. This will be open to all community members to come to farm one day a week to provide hands on demonstration and experience in the traditional foods garden, and to build community connections.
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Sustainability Focus: The program will incorporate sustainable agricultural techniques that address climate challenges, such as soil health management, organic pest control, and water conservation strategies. This will empower community members to adapt to environmental changes while maintaining their cultural practices.
By engaging the community through direct education and empowering local trainers, this project aims to revitalize traditional food systems, promote food sovereignty, and foster resilience against external pressures, thereby enhancing the overall well-being of the Akwesasne community.
6 to 8 Agriculture Program Staff trained by a Traditional Foods Educator will educate 150 community members and 5 farmers on traditional food practices and facilitate 156 weekly community day sover 3 years at the Tribal Farm integrating Mohawk language into all activities.
By achieving performance targets, the SRMT Agriculture Program aims to effectively enhance food sovereignty, cultural resilience,and sustainable agricultural practices within the Akwesasne community.
Educational approach
It is important to note Akwesasne community members are visual and hands-on learners. Presentation and classroom style learning does not support community members in retaining information and the language. The best way to teach community members, especially traditional knowledge, is to be hand-on and physically involved in the teaching.
Engagement (2 types):
- First, create a Traditional Food Production Educator position within the Agriculture Program that will retain Mary Arquette at a fair and livable wage. Mary will provide the education to team members and share traditional knowledge about Mohawk food production as well as providing workshops open to community members which includes our language.
- Second, train the SRMT Agriculture Program staff in traditional food production as well as current sustainability practices through onsite training at the Tribal Farm facilitated by the Traditional Foods Educator and other Traditional Knowledge Holders from the Akwesasne Community. This will be a Train-the-Trainer framework where the Agriculture Program staff will receive relevant training to gain the hands-on skills, knowledge, and confidence to train food producers in Akwesasne. Once staff are trained, they will be hosting workshops with the guidance of the Traditional Food Educator, open to Akwesasne.
- Recruitment Process: We will recruit project participants through community outreach efforts, utilizing the advisory committee networks, and including online flyers, and announcements on the local radio and through word of mouth promoting. The SRMT has a Communications Department to promote events. Collaborating with local organizations and community leaders will help raise awareness and encourage participation.
- Number & type of service providers: There are at least 5 - 10 small farms located within Akwesasne. These workshops will be catered to their needs in addition to all community members who are interested in traditional food production. In addition, the Traditional Foods Educator position will train the 8 staff members in the Agriculture Program in a train-the-trainer style. We anticipate engaging 5-7 traditional knowledge holders throughout this project because each traditional knowledge holder typically has an topic of expertise.
- Cohort enrollment - We plan to have all workshops and demonstrations open to the entire community and participants can enroll in all of them or just specific ones they are interested in. A cohort is not being pursued.
Learning
- The types of learning include all aspects of Traditional Food Production that is relevant to Mohawk culture. Traditional Food Production includes the teachings, tool making, harvesting, preserving, and cooking of the food. This includes learning the traditional Mohawk seed varieties (corn, beans, squash, fruit, & other plant/medicine varieties), the tools needed to prepare the food, ceremonial uses of our food (ceremonial information cannot be shared in this grant), language, as well as how to cook/preserve the food produced. An example a workshop series will be teaching about the Mohawk white corn including how to select seed, what makes this corn variety different, how to plant it, how to harvest, how to prepare it for food, how to store the seed, and the tools needed to prepare the corn. The same topics can be taught about each Haudenosaunee variety. The goal of this is to have families and local farms engage in growing out our traditional varieties to keep the seeds going. Haudenosaunee seeds are not commercially available for purchase but are carried on by a few families in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
- Workshops and demonstrations will take place in the Tribal Farm Demonstration Garden to give hands-on experience and visuals to the teachings. The demonstration garden will focus on growing our Haudenosaunee food varieties in combination with utilizing modern sustainability practices like composting, no-till, cover cropping, water & pest management. The garden will also have weekly "open house" community days for all participants.
Support
- The Agriculture Program and Traditional Foods Educator position will provide continuous support through hands-on training/assistance by providing the needed materials/guidance to successful grow their own food in a sustainable and culturally relevant manner. This will be provided by the Traditional Food Educator and other knowledge holders. This will allow the Agriculture Program to meet its goal of being an education based farm rather than a commercial production farm. The Tribal Farm will be open during regular business hours (Monday - Friday, 7am - 4pm) to assist any community member that requests it.
Evaluation
- Evaluation will be a continuous task. This will take place after each workshop/training through developing in-take questionnaires, evaluations, and discussions at the end of each workshop/"open house" community day. This will allow the Program to continually quantify and modify the education based on the changing community needs.
Milestones
Target: Hire a Traditional Foods Educator and develop curriculum to Train 8 Agriculture Program staff members by the end of Year 1.
Milestone 1:
- Engagement - Follow SRMT Human Resources hiring authority process to hire for the Traditional Foods Educator position. This will involve Emma Phillips with assistance with Ahtkwiroton Skidders.
- Begin March 30, 2025 and complete by April 30, 2025.
Status: In Progress.
Accomplishments: The hiring process (and all other milestones) was pushed 7+ months in order to ensure that the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe's hiring authority process was followed correctly as well as the farm operations were not negatively impacted. The pushing of the timeline would also allow us to meet the project goals and objectives to our satisfaction. The job description was completed in September 2025, with the job posted for 2 weeks in October 2025. The job posting closed on October 29, 2025. Interviews took place on November 21, 2025. Mary was the selected candidate with a start date of January 20, 2026. A laptop and office space have been secured as well. Email correspondence with Katie Campbell-Nelson took place on April 1, 2025 with the following explanation for a change to this timeline: "Since the project technically ends December 2028, but the funding would end by November 2027, would it be possible to push the hiring of the traditional foods' educator position to this fall instead of by April 30, 2025? This would push our timeline by about 7-8 months.
There are two main reasons for this; the timing of our busy season and giving this position ample time to plan thoroughly. To have the position filled April 30th and completing workshop planning by May 30th will be very difficult to accomplish as we are starting our busy gardening season. My thought is that once we are mostly through our busy, that will give ample time to post the job description and follow our internal hiring process. It will also give the program time to acquire a laptop and get office space ready for this position. Once the Traditional Foods Educator position is filled, they will have the winter months to begin planning out the 2026 workshops and topics as well as coordinating with other community organizations and programs.
We currently have Mary Arquette on board as a seasonal laborer starting April 28th, 2025 going until October 28, 2025. I recently learned that I would not be able to simple change the position type from seasonal laborer to Traditional Foods Educator, I would need to post the position and go through our hiring process. The Traditional Food Educator position could begin on or around October 29, 2025." Katie responded "Your explanation is very clear. and makes sense. We go through similar challenges and steps to hire people. Your contract will still startnow, and you may begin the work on the project. You may also begin invoicing, however, since the budget is all staff salary, I imagine wewill not expect an invoice from you until the person is hired in November or December?
I can let our finance team know so that they are not expecting something. In your first annual report, you would explain this rationale on your first milestone and report anything you have done towards the project such as weekly community days or anything else you do while Mary is still hourly staff. This is normal to have steps planned, but completed later."
Milestone 2:
- Learning - Once the Mary Arquette fills the Traditional Foods Educator position, she will develop baseline curriculum on traditional food production based on community and advisory committee input and begin reaching out to the small farms located in Akwesasne to better understand their needs. This includes creating a timeline of events.
- Engagement - Begin reaching out to other community programs to develop partnerships for the beginning of the garden season.
- Timeline - Begin April 30, 2025 and complete by May 30, 2025.
Status:
Accomplishments:
Milestone 3:
- Engagement - Begin advertisement of upcoming training workshops in the community by working with SRMT Communication Department to assist with advertisements. This includes online flyers, announcements on the local radio station, advertising through internal emails to the SRMT, advertisement on social media, and word of mouth advertisement.
- Timeline - Begin April 30, 2025 and complete by May 18, 2025
Status: The community days were advertised during summer 2025. There was not a large participation. For the 2026 season, outreach is being done with the Akwesasne Boys and Girls club, the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe Family Support Program and other Tribal Program, as well as through advertising at each of our events.
Accomplishments:
Target: Host up to 36 monthly workshops over the three-year project duration, with an average attendance of 10-15 community members per workshop.
Target: Educate at least 150 community members & 5 local farmers on traditional food practices (e.g., cultivation of Mohawk white corn, heirloom seed saving, heirloom varieties).
Target: Train community members in at least 5 sustainable agricultural techniques (e.g., soil health management, organic pest control, water conservation) by the end of Year 3.
Hands-On Community Days
Target: Facilitate 156 weekly "community days" at the Tribal Farm over three years, allowing community members to engage directly with the traditional foods, demonstration garden (weather dependent).
Cultural Integration and Language Use
Target: Incorporate the Mohawk language into all workshops and community days.
Milestone 4:
- Learning - The Traditional Foods Educator to provide training for Agriculture Program staff beginning with heirloom varieties to begin the planting process at the Tribal Farm's traditional foods demonstration garden. Trainings will be given to the Agriculture Program first. Next, the Traditional Foods Educator will provide trainings for the 5-10 small farms in Akwesasne. Lastly, the Traditional Foods Educator will begin providing workshops and trainings for community members. This will be done monthly with a different topic each month with weekly "open house" opportunities to practice the knowledge taught in the traditional foods demonstration garden. An example of this would be:
- Week of May 12 - Train Agriculture Program staff
- Week of May 19 - Host a training workshop/demonstration for small farms
- Week of May 26 - Host a training workshops/demonstration for community members
- Weekly - the traditional foods demonstration garden will be open for anyone to join and get additional hands on experience to practice the knowledge taught and the language.
- Learning - The Traditional Foods Educator, with assistance from Emma Phillips, & Ahtkwiroton Skidders,to begin training Agriculture Program staff sustainable agriculture practices such as crop rotation, organic pest & weed management, cover cropping, no-till soil management, water management, and garden planning.
- Learning - Other topics will include workshops on Haudenosaunee bean and squash varieties, medicinal plants in the garden, ceremonial process of gardening, animal involvement, how to harvest and prepare Haudenosaunee varieties for food, characteristics of Haudenosaunee varieties (i.e. open-pollination).
- Timeline - Beginning May 1, 2025 and continue monthly with a different topic each month with weekly teachings and learning opportunities in the demonstration garden by the Traditional Foods Educator.
Status:
Accomplishments:
Community Feedback and Adaptation
Target: Collect after each workshop/demonstration and analyze feedback monthly to adapt workshops and educational content based on community needs and preferences via forms or conversations.
Milestone 5:
- Evaluation: After each training and workshop, provide the verification tool to each participant. This will be done verbally as well and remarks will be recorded.
- Complete after each session and compile monthly with each training/workshop/demonstration to ensure topics are relevant to community needs.
Status:
Accomplishments:
Milestone 6:
- Evaluation: Evaluate the topics on a 6-month basis to ensure the topics are relevant to the needs of the local farms and community members.
- Complete the first topic evaluation on September 30, 2025. Next evaluation would be March 30, 2026, September 30, 2026, March 30, 2027, September 30, 2027. A final evaluation will be conduction by September 30, 2028.
Status:
Accomplishments:
Performance Target Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes - Service Providers
Target #1
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6 Agriculture Program Staff trained by a Traditional Foods Educator will educate 150 community members and 5 farmers on traditional food practices and facilitate 156 weekly community days over 3 years at the Tribal Farm integrating Mohawk language into all activities.
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