Sustainable Agricultural Workshop Series for Tribal Educators

Sustainable Agricultural Workshop Series for Tribal Educators

Summary

The Intertribal Agriculture Council’s 2016 SARE PDP activities focused on the major Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit held at Gun Lake Pottawatomi’s Jijak Camp from April 21-24, 2016.  Held in various forms at Oneida since 2012, this event evolved through this move in reaching a major milestone through the move to a completely new location with an accompanying shift in the event structure.  The event also included a concurrent regional youth summit, which was the first of now several regional youth summits organized and hosted by the Intertribal Agriculture Council.

Building upon previous efforts, this event brought together 330 total registrants for four days of active hands-on learning, sharing, and networking.  Twelve Native chefs from across the country led a larger team to prepare Indigenous foods throughout the event, and the setting at the Jijak Camp provided an unparalleled classroom complete with a farm and its seed bank, a maple sugar operation, the powwow arena, and a literal summer camp of cabins, meeting rooms, and a central kitchen that connected several outdoor cooking areas.

The overall event structure was based on two days of intensive workshops on Thursday and Friday, followed by weekend of more general presentations, demonstrations, and networking the included the Intertribal Foods Festival and Earth Day Celebration.  Thirteen workshop sessions Thursday and Friday covered topics ranging from seed keeping to conservation planning to animal butchering.  Sessions were full mornings or afternoons, giving sufficient time for in-depth coverage of key topics.  Additionally, SARE Michigan Coordinator, Dean Baas, presented at the event and conducted two demonstrations with the rainfall simulator.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Since 2016 extended the SARE PDP grant, this final year only included one major event, although it was an event that drew 330 people from 72 Tribes or Native organizations, as well as numerous USDA, other federal, and state agencies.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Hosting an event as large and comprehensive as the April 2016 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit at a completely new venue was a significant accomplishment.  The event itself set several new milestones in terms of chef collaboration and menu development, comprehensive workshop structure, and incorporation of traditional ceremonies and teachings.

In featuring the first regional Tribal youth agricultural summit, the event set another milestone that has since been followed by successful regional youth summits in the Southeast, Southwest, and Pacific regions.  Youth at this event were able to join professional chefs in the kitchen before serving food to full event audience.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Many events supported by this SARE PDP grant have received tremendous positive feedback, particularly the initial Food Sovereignty Summit, but the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit at Gun Lake’s Jijak Camp sparked a response unlike any other event.  Social media absolutely exploded following the event, and many organizations have contacted the Intertribal Agriculture Council for assistance in hosting similar events that combine traditional teachings with modern agricultural education and outreach.  While there has been a corresponding rise in overall presence of the Indigenous culinary movement, these cumulative events have started to impact more “mainstream” conferences that now include a greater presence of Indigenous foods, and the events have also provided a critical forum to convene such significant numbers of educators from a broad spectrum of professional fields.  

The successful summit at Gun Lake’s Jijak Camp was followed by a Fall 2016 Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit at Red Lake in northern Minnesota, and a second event will be held at Gun Lake from April 19-23, 2017.  Thirty-five chefs has thus far submitted applications to present and cook at the event.

The Intertribal Agriculture Council’s SARE PDP provided essential funding at a critical time for advancing the outreach and eduction.  We thank SARE and USDA for the opportunity to partner on an effort that has reached so many people.

Collaborators: