Growing Stronger: Supporting Indigenous Sustainable Agriculture through Federal Policy | Article

Though Indigenous agricultural practices and generations-old traditions are rarely codified by federal or academic institutions, they are often some of the most effective sustainable practices given their ecological and historical grounding. Dedicated federal funding can be a crucial method for supporting the elevation and implementation of sustainable agricultural practices informed by Indigenous tradition.

Like other experience-built sustainable agriculture methods, traditional Indigenous knowledge and agricultural practices often operate outside of federally-supported frameworks. Sustainable methods are built through generations of direct experience and grounded in practical context, rather than academic abstraction. Indigenous agricultural practices and traditions are frequently passed by word of mouth or direct generational instruction. As a result, they are often given less credence by government or academic institutions.

Funding Legacies of Sustainability

Though many Indigenous producers are centered on the use and instruction of traditional practices, they are not the only ones who can support the protection and promotion of traditional knowledge and sustainable practices. Both the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska’s Center for Excellence for Regenerative Native Agriculture (CERNA) and the San Xavier Cooperative Association provide examples of the benefits of federal grant program support, which aids Indigenous communities that may be marginalized and under-resourced. The San Xavier Co-op Farm, founded in 1971, is implementing traditional values, growing practices, and crops in its day-to-day operation and longer-term climate resilience planning. CERNA, launched last year, will support Native-led research and the sharing of traditional agricultural knowledge among producers. These two projects have each received federal funding allocations. However, funding is often a key barrier to the success of similar projects, particularly given the centuries-long history of suppression and continued systemic economic and social disadvantage faced by Indigenous people.

The 2023 Farm Bill and other legislation provide promising opportunities to both elevate marginalized Indigenous voices and to ethically facilitate the integration of traditional Indigenous practices into the research and development process for broad-scale sustainable agriculture. Indigenous practices—through their initial development, historical and continued implementation, adaptation for a changing climate, and sharing of knowledge—all place producers themselves and their on-the-ground work at the forefront. Because of the cultural integration of food production, support for Indigenous agriculture also has significant benefits for community nutrition, economic development, and cultural reinvigoration.

“Our ancestral knowledge is your research,” says Missty Slater, chief of staff for the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. “We have cultivated these learnings over centuries…[we] pass that knowledge down and continue to refine it.”

It is essential to support non-academic research through grant funding and programs like the Federally-Recognized Tribes Extension Program (FRTEP) that promote Indigenous practices within their cultural context in order to allow others to learn from those practices.

In Slater’s eyes, this support can happen in two stages: first, the federal government can empower Indigenous producers to adapt traditional practices to a changing climate, and second, the broader implementation and expansion of these practices must be led by Native voices.

Building Policy that Centers Sovereignty

Slater says increased sovereignty is key to elevating traditional practices. The most important aspect of that sovereignty, she says, is the authority to manage some programs previously overseen by the federal government. This is known as “638 authority” (after P.L. 93-638, the legislation which first created that authority). Opportunities for exercising 638 authority enable tribes to benefit from federal programs and adapt them to specific traditional practices instead of adhering to prescriptive federal standards.

Increased availability of dedicated grants through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), including implementing new set-asides for disadvantaged farmers and ranchers and expanding existing ones, can be particularly impactful in directly addressing the effects of systemic Indigenous oppression. The Native Farm Bill Coalition advocates for set asides for tribes in programs outside of FRTEP operated by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which it says would aid in shifting the focus from the current competitive nature of funding opportunities towards more collaborative development. The coalition also recommends increasing Agricultural Research Service projects that center on Native knowledge, as well as including grants dedicated towards youth agricultural education. Grant funding geared specifically to Native producers, along with increased autonomy, would affirm the value of Indigenous tradition, culture, and practice in the field of sustainable agriculture.

These practices can then be adopted in non-Indigenous settings so that other producers can learn not only from the methods themselves, but also from the people who practice them. Slater describes this process as “a Native-led movement with non-Native partners.” According to her, “That’s the key to using traditional knowledge in a way that isn’t resource extraction.”

Some federal lawmakers are already focused on amplifying Indigenous voices. In March of 2023, Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the respective chair and co-chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, led a roundtable discussion on Native communities’ priorities in the Farm Bill.

Furthermore, Indigenous voices can be elevated in legislation in support of sustainable agriculture research that either directly calls for the representation of Indigenous producers, like the proposed Seeds and Breeds for the Future Act (S.2023), or through opportunities that focus broadly on the field of sustainable agriculture, such as the proposed Sustainable Agriculture Research Act (H.R. 3844). Support for Indigenous producers and practices can be codified throughout the Farm Bill in myriad ways as well, according to the Native Farm Bill Coalition.

Given the grounding of Indigenous agriculture in ecological and cultural structures, providing support for sustainable, Indigenous agricultural practices and education also inherently benefits communities more broadly. Programs that amplify Indigenous knowledge benefit the physical and cultural health of marginalized, disenfranchised communities. Legislation and federal financial support through the Farm Bill and other programs can therefore not only provide opportunities to promote Indigenous knowledge and allow other producers to learn from traditional methods while still respecting Indigenous leadership and sovereignty, but also improve the overall well-being of Indigenous communities.

Author: Georgia Wluka

Read the other articles in our Growing Stronger: Spotlight on Indigenous Sustainable Agriculture series on The Federally-Recognized Tribes Extension Program at Work and The Sustainable Roots of Indigenous Agriculture.