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- By Chez Oxendine
- Food | Agriculture
Native agriculture advocates are mounting a coordinated push to help tribal nations take greater control of their agriculture.
A National Congress of American Indians resolution adopted last fall supports the establishment of tribal departments of agriculture that would mirror state regulatory powers and strengthen food sovereignty.
The Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF) and the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative (IFAI) worked with NCAI members to advance and pass the measure, which requests that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior support tribal departments of agriculture across tribal homelands.
The departments would handle policy, regulation and economic development, localizing and protecting tribal control over their agriculture.
NAAF CEO Toni Stanger-McLaughlin said tribal departments of agriculture would allow tribes greater authority over their own agricultural regulations, development and guidance — blending the practice’s cultural and economic importance.
“Bringing those two realities together ensures that agriculture and tribal sovereignty remain at the center of long-term economic development in pursuit of resilient food systems,” Stanger-McLaughlin said in a statement. “Tribal departments of agriculture are a core expression of sovereignty, and NAAF will continue to support this work in the year ahead.”
Every state in the country operates a department of agriculture, which serves as the centralized authority for agricultural policy, regulation, economic development and program implementation. Tribal nations have the same sovereign authority to create and operate their own agricultural departments.
Establishing and expanding these entities places tribes on equal footing with states and strengthens self-governance in food systems, land management, climate resilience and rural economic development.
NCAI President Mark Macarro, who also serves as tribal chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians, said the resolution reflects growing interest among tribes in building long-term capacity in agriculture, food systems and land stewardship.
“Strengthening these departments ensures tribes can build the capacity to steward their lands, support their people, and ensure agriculture leads to healthy food on tables, income for producers, and futures for our next generation,” Macarro said in a statement.
IFAI Executive Director Carly Griffith Hotvedt said departments of agriculture are critical tools for tribes developing food systems and making investments in agricultural economic development. They help retain institutional knowledge, support the preservation and proliferation of cultural knowledge and practices and provide advocacy and service delivery not only for tribal agricultural interests, but also for tribal producers, Native entrepreneurs and anybody who eats.
“[They] also occupy regulatory space, which prevents encroachment from external jurisdictions attempting to regulate food systems that don’t belong to them,” Hotvedt said in a statement. “Tribal sovereignty requires food sovereignty, and tribal departments of agriculture are conduits to accomplish that goal.”
