Feeding Ourselves

In partnership with Echo Hawk Consulting, headed by Crystal Echo Hawk, and Wilson Pipestem of Pipestem Law, the Indigenous Food & Agriculture Initiative (IFAI) is proud to announce the release of Feeding Ourselves: Food Access, Health Disparities, and the Pathways to Healthy Native American Communities. This comprehensive report discusses the state of food access in Native American communities and the resulting health disparities in Native Americans.  The report – commissioned by the American Heart Association (AHA) and its Voices for Healthy Kids®, a joint initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and AHA – calls for Tribes, the federal government, and philanthropic organizations to serve as agents of change in the area of Native food access.

Written with Janie Simms Hipp, IFAI Director, and Wilson Pipestem, the report describes the problem Natives face:

“Now-repudiated federal policies that forcibly separated Native peoples from our historical lands and traditional sources of food are manifesting in our bodies today. Separation from healthy foods has been one of the most pernicious health problems we endure. The epidemics of obesity and diabetes in Native communities, even among our children, are direct consequences of limited access to healthy food.”

Feeding Ourselves examines success stories from grassroots programs in tribal communities that inspire and educate.  The authors then suggest specific pathways for tribes, the federal government, and philanthropists to empower Native people to solve these difficult problems.

About Feeding Ourselves, National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby says:

"American Indians and Alaska Natives since time immemorial have relied on our traditional foods, or First Foods, to sustain us. The ability of Indian Country to feed itself with healthy, local, and traditional foods is a not only a critical part of a strong tribal community, it's vital to tribal sovereignty. Feeding Ourselves is an excellent resource for tribal communities to see the extent of the food-related issues in Indian Country and begin to develop tribally-driven solutions using the information in the report and our collective wisdom to solve them.  I highly recommend this report as required reading for all of Indian Country.”

Chairman Charlie Vig of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community says:

“Feeding Ourselves provides a clear analysis of and important solutions to the dietary problems among Native American communities which undermine so devastatingly our peoples’ health. All of us who are working to improve Native nutrition must applaud the American Heart Association and the authors of this report for casting a bright light on this crisis for a wider audience.”

You can download the full report here. An Executive Summary is also available.

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About Echo Hawk Consulting
Echo Hawk Consulting offers expert services in executive nonprofit leadership, philanthropic giving, community development, program design, fundraising, public relations and marketing to tribes, grant makers, businesses, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic individuals focused on strategic growth, social change, and investment in Indian Country. For more information visit www.echohawkconsulting.com

About the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative
The University of Arkansas School of Law’s Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative, is the nation’s first law school initiative focusing on tribal food systems, agriculture and community sustainability. Janie Simms Hipp serves as the Director and a visiting law professor. The initiative provides educational and technical assistance to tribal governments, private entities and businesses engaging or entering the food sector. Other areas of research, service and education include agriculture, health and nutrition law and policy development, and the formation of pipeline programs to engage Native students in four-year higher education institutions, law and graduate opportunities. For more information visit: http://law.uark.edu/ifai/

About Pipestem Law
Founded by Wilson Pipestem in 1999, Pipestem Law serves tribal governments and other Indian country clients on matters related to protection of tribal sovereignty, exercising tribal rights, and holding the federal government accountable for its treaty and trust obligations to Indian country.
 
About the American Heart Association
The American Heart Association is devoted to saving people from heart disease and stroke – the two leading causes of death in the world. We team with millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, fight for stronger public health policies, and provide lifesaving tools and information to prevent and treat these diseases. The Dallas-based association is the nation’s oldest and largest voluntary organization dedicated to fighting heart disease and stroke. For more information visit heart.org

About Voices for Healthy Kids
Voices for Healthy Kids®, is a joint initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and AHA. Voices for Healthy Kids works to help all young people eat healthier foods and be more active. Nearly one in three kids and teens are overweight or obese. By engaging, organizing and mobilizing people in communities across the United States, Voices for Healthy Kids will help make the healthy choice the easy choice in the places where children live, learn, and play. To learn more: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Advocate/Voices-for-Healthy-Kids_UCM_453195_SubHomePage.jsp

Hillary Renick Accepts Position as Natural Resources Advisor

Our congratulations to Initiative graduate assistant Hillary Renick, who recently accepted a position to serve as Natural Resource Advisor for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of the Regional Director, Division of Environmental, Cultural Resource Management and Safety in Sacramento, California. In her position, Hillary will be providing professional assistance to 102 Indian Reservations in the Pacific Region service area. Hillary will be conducting scoping meetings, public hearings, environmental reviews and consultations with various governmental, tribal, and private sector projects that may potentially impact lands on or near Reservations or Rancherias. She will be conducting environmental training and presentations, creating and monitoring mitigation measures required under NEPA, tribal ordinances and regulations. She will also be analyzing baseline resource data for sites contaminated with hazardous wastes/substances.

Hillary is also an LL.M candidate through the LL.M. in Agricultural and Food Law program here at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Hillary serves as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for Sherwood Valley Rancheria.  Before coming to the University of Arkansas, she worked for the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. She has also served as Yakama Nation Chief Judge; Environmental-Air Quality Specialist for Yakama Nation; Associate attorney for the LaPena Law Corporation; a Law Clerk for Oregon Governor Kulongoski's Office of General Counsel; and a Law Clerk for Anderson Law Group in Anchorage, Alaska.  Hillary has several years of public service employment with the Indian Health Service in Rockville, Maryland; the Environmental Protection Agency; the National Institutes of Health; the Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and the International Environmental and Scientific Affairs; Office of Senator Maria Cantwell; Bureau of Land Management; and the American Red Cross.  She is also alumni of the Pre-Law Summer Institute (PLSI) at the University of New Mexico School of Law; the Morris K. Udall internship in the Office of Senator Maria Cantwell; the AISES Summer program at the State Department; the Washington Internship for Native Students (WINS) at American University; and a recipient of the Rodney T. Mathews Scholarship, Morongo Band of Mission Indians.

Hillary received her J.D. from the University of the Oregon School of Law, with certificates of completion in Environmental and Natural Resources, Ocean and Coastal Law, Pro Bono, and Public Service. While in law school she was a Native Environmental Sovereignty Fellow and served as Public Relations Outreach Officer for the Native American Law Student Association. She was a Research Assistant for Professor Mary Christina Wood, researching Nature’s Trust and Public Trust Doctrine as it relates to Climate Change.  She also completed graduate studies in Cultural Resource Management at Central Washington University, successfully defending her Master’s Thesis on Yakama Indian Treaty Fishing and Significance of Traditional Places and graduate studies in Public Health at George Washington University assisting, Dr. David Goldsmith with his research on Native American health problems associated with exposure to agricultural pesticides in agriculture and during repatriation.  Hillary received her B.A. in Anthropology from American University in Washington, D.C. Hillary is also alumna of Mendocino College, Phi Theta Kappa.

Hillary currently serves on the Board of Trustees for California Indian Legal Services and was previously a member of the Native American Advisory Group to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.  Hillary is a member of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians and descendant of the Hopland Shanel, Noyo and Ft. McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone communities.

PROFIT: Financial Planning, Business Planning, and Food Safety for South & East Oklahoma

The University of Arkansas School of Law Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative has joined with the Farm Credit of East Central Oklahoma, the Wallace Center at Winrock International (Washington DC), Morse Marketing Connections (MMC), and the Choctaw Nation and Muscogee Creek Nations to offer an important set of “bootcamp” workshops in southern and eastern Oklahoma during 2015.

Attendees will hear the latest on food safety regulations and GAP certification, crop insurance and risk management tools, and will be given hands on experience with one-page financial, risk assessment and business plan tools. We will also provide information on new markets in the region and how operations can participate in food hubs that are growing in number across the country.

In-person and webinar sessions will be available; the flyer below has the complete schedule for both sets. NOTE: All webinars require registration, so please register now using the links in the flyer.

 PROFIT Meeting & Webinar Agenda

Edit 4/10/15: The first in-person workshop has been moved from Idabel to Broken Bow. Please download the updated flyer.

Please send this flyer on to anyone you know who may be interested. For more information, contact Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative Director Janie Hipp at jhipp@uark.edu or her assistant Rebecca Sims at ras017@uark.edu or 479-575-4434.

Applications available for the 2nd annual Native Youth in Food & Ag Leadership Summit!

We're excited to announce that applications are OPEN for our second annual Summer Leadership Summit for Native Youth in Food & Agriculture at the University of Arkansas School of Law! We are looking for student applications from American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian youth between the ages of 13 and 18 who are passionate about food & agricultural production and have the courage to lead their Tribes and communities into the future. Please see the links below for the appropriate application form!

If you're a college-aged student, we hope you'll consider putting an application in to be a Student Leader, and if you're back for a second year as a student, please fill out an application to be a Summit Fellow. Details about the Fellows program can be found in that application.

Spaces are limited, so PLEASE APPLY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Dates:                   July 19-July 28, 2015 (this includes travel dates)

Location:              University of Arkansas School of Law– Fayetteville, Arkansas

Hosts:                   Indigenous Food & Agriculture Initiative, University of Arkansas School of Law

                              Farm Credit Council

                              Intertribal Agriculture Council

                              National FFA Organization 

 Supporters:         First Nations Development Institute 

Cost to attend:     All food, lodging, instructional materials, and field trip costs will be provided. 

Depending on the number of students, some travel scholarships will also be provided.  However, we need applications as soon as possible to plan for travel needs.

Application Information:         The deadline for all applicants is June 1^st, 2015.

1st time attendees:         Complete the Student Application

2nd time attendees:        Complete the Summit Fellow Application
College-aged:                 Complete the Student Leader Application

Click the links above for .pdf copies of the applications. Need an email or print copy? No problem-- contact Rebecca at ras017@uark.edu.

The Summit 2015 staff can't wait to read your applications! See you this summer!

 

Upcoming Event: Origin Products & Tribes

On Thursday, March 5th, IFAI Director Janie Hipp will join a team of academic and legal professionals gathering at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque for a discussion of intellectual property issues, rural development, and the differences in the laws and policies of United States and European Union countries on these critical issues. The panel will specifically be addressing American Origin Products and Geographical Indicators as vehicles for revitalizing rural development, as well as any legal protections these kinds of intellectual property laws can and cannot offer for Tribes seeking to utilize them.

Janie will be joined on the panel by Dr. Elizabeth Barham, Giulio Menato, and Mervyn Tano. Detailed speaker biographies for Janie and her colleagues are available online here, as is a full schedule for the panel.

The panel is free and open to the public, and there are several options to view or attend. Participants are welcome to join the panelists in person at the University of New Mexico in the Student Union Building (SUB), Ballroom A, on March 5th from 1:00-3:00pm MST. The panel is also offering a distance option in the form of a webinar. Directions on registration for in-person or webinar participation, as well as directions to the University of New Mexico, are available on the panel series website. A recording of the panel will also be made available online after the session concludes.

The panel should provide all attendees with an exciting discussion of these important issues. We hope to see you there!

Legal Issues in Indigenous Food & Ag: now in classroom format!

It's hard to believe we're already one month into 2015, but time speeds along with considerable alacrity when you're planning exciting new programming for the second annual Summer Leadership Summit for Native Youth in Agriculture, developing a series of webinars on credit repair and financial education, and-- as you probably guessed from the title of this post-- teaching, here at the University of Arkansas!

The Indigenous Food & Agriculture Initiative is very fortunate to be housed at the University of Arkansas inside the School of Law. Arkansas offers our staff a beautiful campus, a diverse University community with a rigorous agricultural education program, and a home within the School of Law's LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law. Since 1980, the LL.M. program has produced lawyers with highly specialized training in the complexities of food and agricultural law. The program represents a dynamic educational opportunity for lawyers both new and experienced, with courses taught by an impressive roster of professors, visiting instructors, and alumni, and the Initiative staff benefits immensely from having that kind of expertise within shouting distance-- literally. The Initiative's offices are located on the same hallway as most of the LL.M. resident faculty, and it's not uncommon to hear several of us shouting to each other across the corridor about the felicities-- and the frustrations-- of food and ag law. We have a congenial and collaborative working environment here on the second floor of the law school, and we've found that more often than not, our work complements the work of our colleagues.

Recently, we've had the exciting opportunity to do more than call across the hall at our colleagues: for the first time in its thirty-year history, the LL.M. program in Agricultural & Food Law at the University of Arkansas is offering an advanced law course in Indigenous Food & Agriculture. For one hour every Friday, we have the privilege of teaching six students about the particularities of food and ag law that apply only in Indian Country.

While the course is designed to give our LL.M. candidates a landscape-level view of the legal issues relevant to excellent future legal practice in this space, we've done our best to ensure that the students understand that this particular legal landscape is not always easily traversed. After a few weeks in the course-- and with the class session on land use, land tenure, and land fractionation happening today-- it's safe to say they've got that part down.

As the course's primary instructor, IFAI Director Janie Hipp is thoroughly enjoying her return to the classroom, with her teaching experience enhanced not only by the years she spent teaching in multiple undergraduate and graduate colleges here at the University, but now informed also by her seven and a half years with USDA. The students are having a great time with her.



In addition to intensive lectures and classroom discussions with Janie-- and a few words now and then from this statistics-loving staff attorney, including a talk on the 2012 National Census of Agriculture data  (thanks, NASS!)-- the students have read materials from a host of people and organizations who have been working diligently for decades to support Indian Country producers and train the next generation of Native farmers, ranchers, and agribusiness professionals. Through our course, the LL.M. candidates have been introduced to the work of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, First Nations Development Institute, and Indian Land Tenure Foundation; they've read about the rich history of tribal producers and the present-day realities of operating in Indian Country. And yes-- we've had them read statutes and regulations, in abundance.

But it hasn't all been reading, of course. We've also had the joy of introducing our class to a series of guest speakers, with our first guest presenting this past Friday. Brian Ross (Cherokee), Director of Financial Education for the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians (OST), spoke about his work encouraging responsible money management in Indian Country, especially among Native youth. His initiatives include a robust financial education program for OST employees, enabling them to serve as ambassadors in their communities, train-the-trainer workshops for OST field staff, and the expansion of partnerships with tribal governments, schools, nonprofit organizations, and other federal agencies working in the area of financial education.

The LL.M. program's fantastic distance learning classroom has even made it possible for us to look well beyond the confines of the University campus and bring in some folks with a deep understanding of Indian Country food and agriculture. In the near future, the LL.M. candidates will have a chance to hear from Ross Racine (Blackfeet), Executive Director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council, and Zach Ducheneaux (Cheyenne River Sioux), Program Manager of IAC's Technical Assistance Network. Thanks to some fun new technology, our friends at IAC won't have to leave chilly Montana to give our students the benefit of their knowledge and experience. And later in the semester, our candidates will also be joined virtually by Christine Webber, a member of the class counsel legal team in Keepseagle v. Vilsack, for a discussion about litigating civil rights issues.

It has been an intensely busy but immensely rewarding first few weeks of class! As a recent LL.M. candidate myself, I'm so pleased about this course's addition to the program, and I'm delighted to have played a role in developing it. I hope we can continue to offer our LL.M. candidates the opportunity to learn what it means to be a food and ag lawyer in Indian Country.

--Erin

Erin serves as the Initiative's Staff Attorney-- and occasional communications director, graphic designer, and statistics nerd. When she's not researching, tweeting, or reading NASS publications, you can find her writing about legal issues in food waste & recovery or papering her office walls with Post-it notes about the intricacies of federal budget law & policy.