Sustainable fruit, vegetable, and traditional Indian crop production through multigenerational education of Delaware Indian Tribe members.

Commodities

Practices

Abstract:

The purpose of this project is to educate Delaware Tribe of Indians (DTI) members, local school students, and community members about sustainable practices, food waste recycling, and production of traditional crops historically grown by DTI. The ultimate goal is to increase food access, help ensure food sovereignty, and maintain tribal food customs. This will be accomplished by constructing and using Geodesic domes that include sustainable practices such as drip irrigation to decrease water use, passive ventilation to manage temperature variance, in-bed vermiculture to increase food waste reduction, and other sustainable Best Management Practices (BMP’s). Yield, soil nutrient values, pest pressure, other BMP's data will be collected from interior dome raised beds, control dome beds, and outdoor raised beds. Crops produced will be weighed and assigned a value based on current market prices. Data collected from raised beds inside the dome will be compared between the control dome and dome using in-bed vermiculture, and the exterior raised beds to determine benefits of enclosed space dome production. An additional goal of the project is to demonstrate practices that encourage economic, environmental, and societal benefits of sustainable agriculture practices, and encourage the adoption of those practices. If funding from Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture grant is available, a cooperative project with Perkiomen Valley schools will replicate this project on DTI’s original homeland.

Examples of these benefits include:

Economic: Reducing input costs with the use of in-bed vermiculture to increase soil nutrition,

Environmental: Use of drip irrigation to reduce water use, and in-bed vermiculture reducing food waste

Societal: Encouragement of intergenerational/community activities to share cultural aspects of food and producing food to benefit elder lunches and tribal food back needs. All crops produced will be used to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the elder lunch program and tribal food bank. Intergenerational tribe member participation will be encouraged and incorporated into the process with formation of four Intergenerational Teams of tribal members that will choose a crop(s) of tribal significance and plant that crop in a given section of one of the domes. Teams will be responsible for production of that crop and providing presentations on the significance and use of the crop. Other opportunities for intergenerational participation will be construction of the domes, involving interested elders in production, harvesting, and preparing crops produced for daily elder lunches.

Community involvement will include partnering with local schools and the community to provide educational materials, in-class lessons regarding dome construction, crop production, composting to encourage food waste reduction. Active learning activities will include visits to the dome to assist will planting and harvesting of crops to document yields and other data. Outreach will also include dome open houses, creation of a web page to highlight project progress, presentations from the Intergenerational Teams to promote crops of tribal significance, and other activities to highlight the outcomes of the project.

Succes of this project will be promoted to the other federally recognized Delaware Indian Tribes, community members, and schools, to encourage adoption of sustainable practices and dome construction.

1. Conduct a needs assessment with Delaware Tribe of Indians (DTI’s) to determine desired crops and explore intergenerational collaboration opportunities.
2. Improve DTI food sovereignty through education regarding geodesic dome food production, sustainable practices and season extension to boost yields.
3. Build and maintain domes as learning labs: one dome for traditional DTI crops, one dome to serve as a control, and one dome using additional sustainable practices such as in-bed vermiculture.
4. Compare data from indoor, outdoor, and control beds to evaluate benefits of domes and sustainable practices.
5. Education on composting and in-bed vermiculture to reduce food waste.
6. Track production costs and returns determining economic impact of domes.
7. Collaborate with Perkiomen Valley Schools replicating the project on original DTI grounds.
8. Share project results to promote sustainable agricultural practices.