Expanding Youth Access to Traditional Community Buffalo Harvests

Commodities

Practices

• Animal Production: meat processing, meat processing facilities, meat product quality/safety
• Crop Production: food processing, food processing facilities/community kitchens, food product quality/safety
• Education and Training: demonstration, mentoring, networking, workshop, youth education
• Farm Business Management: community-supported agriculture, land access
• Natural Resources/Environment: habitat enhancement, wildlife
• Production Systems: holistic management
• Sustainable Communities: community development, employment opportunities, ethnic differences/cultural and demographic change, food access and security, food sovereignty, leadership development, local and regional food systems, partnerships, public participation, quality of life, sustainability measures

Tanka Fund is the only known organization returning Buffalo to individual Native Buffalo caretakers. Tanka Fund will organize 4 traditional Buffalo harvests, in collaboration with regional Native Buffalo Producers, to increase Native K-12 youth access to knowledge of the reciprocal relationship between our lifeways and Buffalo relatives. Tanka Fund’s project utilizes storytelling to teach Native youth about our Buffalo relatives, the traditions and importance of caretaking the Buffalo, and career pathways in sustainable agriculture connected to the Buffalo, thereby fostering curiosity, excitement, care and pride for carrying on our traditions for the next seven generations.

Objective 1: Increase K-12 Native student access to traditional Buffalo harvest methods, storytelling, and career pathways to connect with and carry on traditional lifeways

Objective 2: Host 4 traditional Buffalo harvests to increase access K-12 Native youth access to Buffalo meat