Living Earth Festival 2021: Building an Agriculture Business in Indian Country

welcome everyone and thank you very much for joining us i'm carmen davis founder and president of davis strategy group a consulting business services and media production firm serving indian country and i'm also the publisher and executive editor of native business magazine i am honored to moderate today's exciting program building an agricultural business in indian country we're going to address one of today's most crucial issues creating innovative robust and ecologically sound food systems and agricultural businesses in indigenous communities each of our three speakers will discuss their work in building an agricultural business in indian country and reveal how creative development and wise stewardship of agriculture and natural resources is foundational to tribal sovereignty and success following the presentations i'll moderate a conversation with these accomplished native leaders and entrepreneurs about the opportunities obstacles and challenges of building thriving sustainable businesses we'll hear first from mark n fox chairman of the mandan hidatsa and arikara nation a fierce proponent of tribal sovereignty chairman fox has dedicated his administration to improving the lives of all mha nation members as part of his administration's food sovereignty initiative he is working towards sustainable food production by reallocating mha's energy resources to power long-term greenhouse agriculture production that will not only empower mha people but also serves as a scalable template for future generations of greenhouse farmers across indian country welcome chairman fox thank you very much this is chairman fox of the mandela hadas on the record nation um my name is uh a traditional name is pronounced this way and that means sage man also jiwadud in arikara language meaning sageman but it's not a pleasure to be here and to talk about such a very important topic and subject area agriculture in indian country and i want to say it's an honor to be able to share uh some some of the concepts and some of the things that we're doing at mha nation uh with you at this time so uh let me start out first about uh um where we come from the mha nation what we're about when it comes to agriculture we're greatly experienced and in fact i wanted to really mention that you know our art our tribes the mandan hadas and arikara nations coming together as one but separately and together we have a long history of agriculture in in north america for thousands and thousands of years we were so successful in that in denver endeavors of raising uh crops and growing agriculture that we were considered uh aboriginal trade centers all in north america you have a number of major aboriginal trade centers and we were one of them and uh that's because of our agriculture we grew corn beans squash watermelon and other uh products as well so successfully that many many tribes came to our our res to our area in uh our trade centers and they would trade and this had gone on for thousands and thousands of years major trade center as well so uh that being said you know another another significant part of how we grew our crops is we did most of our agricultural development along the rivers the missouri river in particular uh other tributaries but uh marshall on the missouri and so that created what anthropologists call riverine tribes where tribes that are closely connected to the river closely connected to its being both economically socially politically and spiritually so a very important concept so throughout the years of of course we we we did this agriculture but with the advent of of europeans coming into our territory into our area radically changes begin to occur uh from smallpox epidemics that wiped out uh 90 of our population around 17 80 81 to uh the first time that the united states declares war against the tribe uh west of the mississippi and that was against the rickard in 1823 so those end up having and that's that's what occurred to us as well and so uh by 1851 the united states government uh went into a treaty with us amongst other tribes in the northern plains at fort laramie we had the laramie treaty of 1851 which was about uh made a determination between the united states government and mha the mandatory peoples that their territory is about 13 million acres and uh that's what uh what the landscape of what we look like you can see a map on there our vast territory really uh touching about four states and uh from the black hills to into montana and wyoming and then of course in north dakota so that's where uh our territory but i want to make the no mention that our territory is much more vast than that 13 million acres it's just by treaty that's what they agreed to do okay so now let's kind of bring us forward a little bit more we had some flooding that went on in uh because of what they call the pixel program flooding of building of dams and flooding of areas up and down the missouri river and we really suffered greatly we lost a lot of our agricultural bottom lands our ability to sell our ability to grow crops our ability to do all these things were greatly diminished because of this flooding and so from that time period in the 1950s we have struggled greatly in regards to agriculture uh it sustained us for thousands of years but now it was radically um radically impacted and so uh we've been building out of that situation since that time of that great flooding that occurred on our reservation on the map you'll see uh what we now bring us forward uh now to today and in the last 10 years we've had a significant development because we uh stand upon in our area a huge field a few huge formation of oil and gas that lies beneath our borders it's called the bakken formation uh there are other names uh as well uh three forks uh bird bear there are a number of formations that exist underneath that but the the most important point is that millions and millions of barrels are underneath billions in fact are underneath our feet in this area in this it's highly productive formation area and it's one of the highest formation areas in the whole united states our our production on that is about 30 uh all nearly 300 000 barrels per day and so uh this has radically changed our economy our landscape and everything else that we've been doing to this point there's a lot of negativity in the beginning 10 years ago 11 years ago when this began but i want to say now because we've we've worked our way through it we've made the adjustments that it now presents great opportunities for development and what we're doing with uh oil and gas and relationship to now with agriculture as well so our our membership is about you know 17 000 people and uh these are some of the things that uh our reservation about now is about a million acres with about half into in the trust and so as we're developing our economy you know stemming off and using the catalyst of energy oil and gas we've created what we call a sovereignty model it's it's a model that's based upon not just sitting back and leasing lands and getting some royalties and a few taxes we're very aggressive we believe that the economy uh we need to participate that in that at all levels and so we call that the sovereignty model and that model is means that we will use every option available to try to create revenues for our nation and to use that to further develop other development uh economic development so we also believe in responsible development as well to that responsible development meaning how do we protect our resources how do we protect our lands and everything else our people our land our water our air and so that responsible development means even though we're developing energy oil and gas we want to do it in such a way that a thousand years from now our children grandchildren all all the the uh the children to come and and our people in the far future will have an opportunity to enjoy what we have in place so also we have of course uh you know a lot of huge availability of a lot of resources and uh we're trying to take advantage of that one of those in particular is is about gas when you drill into and you develop energy oil and gas three things come out of the ground uh there's water uh water comes out of the the earth as well as oil and then of course gas and that's one of the things that has really been a big concern because we need to capture that gas today uh there's been a tremendously negative impacting of gas throughout the whole nation but also in our area as well so gas is being burned into the night and uh it looks something similar to what we're talking about right now and you'll see on these maps these are google maps north dakota is not a heavily populated state but if you look at the maps these stemming back about seven six and seven years ago it looks like where we're at and the bakken formation is a huge city comparable to minneapolis or chicago but that's not the population and the lights that we have those are flares and so those that flared gas is something that has been a challenge for us how do we capture that how do we how do we get our our hands around uh not wasting this resource it's burned into the night because it's more expeditious for production companies oil companies to just pull the oil out and sell that to market so in this process we want to be able to capture that put it to use so that three things are happening uh one we get a continued development but two uh we get more royalties for landowners for those that possess the minerals we get paid royalties and then number three of course when we capture that gas it's more environmentally uh sound and safe and that's what we're really pushing for in that regard as well is we want to do those three things so now what has happened and thinking about all these things i came across an article once in a national geographic and that that article talked about uh how a a country a tiny country feeds the world it said and it was like a holland the the country of holland uh in europe that was capturing gas similar to what we're talking about had an abundance of fresh water and also have built thousands and thousands and still stand today of greenhouses and so we have put ourselves in a situation where we want to do something similar to what they have done there what one country can do so can another and so our mentality has always been how do we do the exact same thing capture that gas grow food and help it support our continued uh sovereignty and development and that's what we've been doing uh since that time so we came back and we began to put together this food sovereignty initiative uh we're capturing this gas we're gonna grow products we're gonna grow crops we're gonna get them to market not only for more um not only for more um healthier choices of the foods that we consume not only for own consumption but also uh to export to create an export uh to enhance our economy as well too and so this food sovereignty we think is going to play a big role a big role in pushing uh our economy forward and and being able to raise more revenue to do other things as well so uh what is what do we have to do i mean uh what it's going to do for us in doing that is increase the standard of living for our people it's going to provide diversity for our economy and it's also going to help reduce federal dependency which i think is key for all tribal nations across the united states that they're going to have to accept that we've got to reduce that so in this process we have beginning stages of development we have got to get the land you got to get the architecture together you've got to do all the logistics you got to have a combined heat and power machine that costs millions of dollars you've got to do a lot of these things that'll push us forward in our stages of development you've got to get infrastructure the water the gas lines the compression all these things but we are well on the way to doing that currently so uh when we do this you know when we do create this what we're calling our business the native green grow ng2 that is the name of our business that we have obtained and are utilizing when we put all this project together which we're in the phases of developing uh very fast right now uh but we're gonna be able to you know create food sovereignty and the tribal members capturing gas in these wells and then converting that waste into a heating power and then creating this production that we're looking for as well too and also currently and i i and so here's and here's an example of what some of the models looking like we're actually digging in the ground today but these are uh what they call conceptual drawings of the facility itself uh it's gonna be uh the first day's gonna be one hectare about two and a half acres and then eventually phase two will be two hectares it'll be nearly five acres of production as well so again what it does for us is that it promotes healthy lifestyle uh return of cultural roots because we come from a strong agricultural background it's also an aggressive agriculture program we want usda the commodity program we want to be able to uh put put our products on the shelves of walmart and everywhere else and so we want to take a a strong lead in doing that uh we also want to uh try to uh foreign trade as well we want to do a number of these things but it hasn't been without challenges uh to be honest with you uh covet of course created a tremendous towns um it really backed our calendar up our our development uh schedule but we have now began to overcome that we're moving back forward again and of course you know technological challenges they're always there uh we want to make sure we do things at the highest level as possible and of course you know um there's always you know finance how do you build something this first one this model project is going to be a little more costly than others and then there are other things that we have to do the logistics the labor the training all these organizations so when we open our doors we want to hit the ground running we want to set set the tone in indian country uh all sovereigns if you want to be a true sovereign you have to grow your own food you have to be able to not only feed yourself but to export that to others and that's our goal here uh you know we'll have uh great great uh healthier foods to eat but at the same time dramatically change our economy and changing and now no more reliance on no more reliance on the federal government's always been our goal and we think this is a excuse me this is a significant step in getting us there thank you very much for this opportunity to participate and to show you a little bit about what mha nation is doing and we're really excited about what's happening and and this project that we've got with greenhouses and looking forward to really making a difference and showing indian country that this can be done thank you chairman fox for sharing the remarkable story of mha's agricultural business your nation is creating mha nation's native green grow food sovereignty initiative is a testament to your leadership the legacy of indigenous resilience and an innovative demonstration of how tribes can deploy their natural resources along with their sovereignty and in the agricultural and food business thank you thank you our next speaker is don sherman who brings more than 25 years of business expertise and entrepreneurial skills to her role as ceo of native american natural foods tonka bar a member of the lakota shawnee and lenape tribes she has worked to restore bison to the land revitalize traditional foods and innovate food systems that benefit the health and wellness of her indigenous community as well as the world at large please welcome don sherman thank you carmen i really appreciate that um it's absolutely a honor and a privilege to be here to talk about tonka bar or native american natural foods uh i first thing i just want to say matakiyape again my name is don sherman ceo of native american natural foods native american natural foods is actually a 14 year old business now so i'm really excited to take over as second generation woman leadership native american leadership in this company a big shoes to fill as i always say with the two founders uh carlene and mark but the mission has always stayed the same and true to who we are as a people and as a company our mission is to heal the people and our mother earth by building a company that innovates new food products based on the traditional values of native american respect for all living things by living in balance with mind body and spirit our actual goal and what we've always set out to accomplish is to return the buffalo to the lands lives and economies of our people buffalo was our main staple traditionally and wasn't was a traditional food our the story began as i said 14 years ago with the founders and that was to create the opportunity they were both approached within the community and by the producers we have buffalo what can we do with this we you know we just do not have a market so the founders got together and had this crazy idea of saying let's take wasn't on make it into a bar where you take buffalo and high acid fruit and it was dried and put with the fat and stored for many many years that our ancestors have used for sustain to sustain energy to get them through winters things such as that so they took that idea and actually modernized it and hence what came out of native american natural foods was tonka bar and that actually was just not by mistake the founders started in the community so we had over 800 members get together and take that idea of wausau into a bar and they they came up with the name tonka and taka means the biggest thing you can ever think of a big idea um and so they took that and ran with it with the community being a grassroots so that's uh part of like we said our mission and the core value of who native american natural foods are and why it started as an ag business and built forward over these 14 years we i we represent a large systemic uh change within the food industry and being able to get value-added food and healthy foods to our people when you look at the community you know we have all the items that come with the poverty as far as unemployment and the distance where you have to go to get groceries and healthy food so this was definitely something that was close to people and in a way that we understood we took something we already knew and modernized it and ate it so it's a great way to introduce healthy foods to your people within the communities as we as we move forward and launch tonka bar in 2007 all of a sudden four years later a category was created and we were the create creators of this category which now you see in a lot of natural food stores and grocery stores which is the meat and fruit bar category so you'll see a lot of competition from us so being the innovators of this category you know they're that we came with all those obstacles that came with it within the food industry and having uh big corporations uh pour the money into those categories so you know we faced a lot of those adversities throughout throughout the 14 years and just like how we always do i we always reference back to the buffalo because they are close to us um and they are part of our nation our sister nation and that was just to face the storm and continue forward no matter what the adversity or what the obstacle was we plowed forward we faced every obstacle because we knew eventually we would come out of the storm so over the years with the competition and everything that we have these last this last year we have actually um come out with a solution that one keeps our native spirit two keeps the native leadership and three we get to maintain our authenticity as we move forward so those opportunities that we're speaking of when you're talking about an agriculture business and keeping to the values of the buffalo we can address many things as you know as you see here we talk about climate change lack of access to capital and in industry changes so the opportunities we see are in those big categories climate change when you talk about bison they are the keystone species of this land so when you talk about a keystone species it goes from the ground up to the animal all the way to the consumer to the front so the ecosystem that the buffalo brings back from the lands the soil the grass the animals that they uh nurtured to bring back to the and as well as themselves so you have a a holistic regenerative model when you're talking about biasing and returning them to the land the lack of access to capital native american natural foods or tonka bar as we said faced all those adversities over these years with the big corporations and the competition but it also brought out the opening of how hard it is to bring money into a food industry business or a regenerative model that we have here and that is a systemic change that indian country we all face we all face that adversity so to actually have investors come into our new system here and really support what we're doing uh shows that we can make that change as long you know just stay adverse and you stay in front of that and then industry changes you know the industry changed for us we had competition it's really great to be on top when you're number one and you're the only one but when those come in is our opportunity as we move forward here these next years and our growth with with this is to be the innovative leader again we are um indigenous people are the people of this land we have the innovation we know the practices of the land and the food and how to eat healthy it's all there we just want that opportunity in that platform and that's one of the great things that we're looking forward to over these next several years is to take over that innovation again and bring back some more of those products that you'll you will see here over the next few years so i'm really excited to talk about that um and actually show it to everybody through this as native american natural foods and tonka bar was growing over these 14 years uh as you looked at the business itself it wasn't only just enough to put a value-added product out onto the shelves and get it to your consumer we realized um the obstacles our producers were facing how do we pull them into this how do we bring them into the supply chain and bring value to them so we created um that tonko ecosystem which is a regenerative food system so native american natural foods is the brand and your value added that you know we're purchasing the product and getting it out to the consumers we also have our non-profit which is tonka fund and they us directly support our producers so they're in there helping our producers so nana can native american natural foods can buy by the animals and the third we have the tonka resilient ad which is uh the collective of producers which is in the beginning phases so when we looked at a regenerative business it actually we had to look at it again holistically like we always do is how can we pull that producer into the supply chain because they're the ones out on the ground taking care of the animal taking care of the lands they're the stewards we're here advocating for them to make sure that they're part of this circle so that that is the regenerative that we have so this allows our producers and also give them access to capital access to land and access to technical assistance so as you learn more about tonka bar native american natural foods you'll hear a lot more about our full ecosystem that we're talking about to bring that producer into the circle as we move forward uh our products they're great fantastic products as you talk um you'll see that it is a regenerative model we're supplying bars bites and sticks out to our customers and we're educating everybody that comes to our table and our booths and while we're out there uh talking about how healthy tonka bar is for you um one of the you know the bringing this model together of regenerative and native american natural foods was to bring equity and equality you know to to building uh wealth sharing opportunities to our people and to the owners and to the partners of native american natural foods and getting more brands like-minded to that to think of bringing food to our people holistically it's not always about the cheapest route or the cheapest food to get into there it's about how can we get that so that's the journey that we ask everybody to join us on and i do want to thank everybody for joining and i appreciate this opportunity to talk about native american natural foods and you can find more at tacobar.com thank you miss sherman for sharing an amazing story of vision persistence and innovation sure to inspire emergent entrepreneurs throughout indian country so thank you so much for joining us thank you carmen our final speaker is leonard forsman chairman of the suquamish tribe the squamish people continue to live in the puget sound area as they have for thousands of years the name sukhwamish comes from the leshuzi term for the people of the clearwater clear saltwater chairman forestman will describe squamish nation's initiatives in developing a sustainable seafoods business protecting the environment and reinvigorating ancestral northwest foodways welcome chairman forestman actually hill carmen thank you for the introduction my name is leonard forsman chairman of kwamis tribe and hello to everybody here from the port madison union reservation which is the home of chief seattle and chief kid sap and i want to talk a little bit about our modern efforts to reclaim our traditional culture and lifestyle that we've known for thousands of years and with that we'll need to start with a little background um you know the suquamis tribe of course has been here for thousands of years and has had a marine adaptation that began about five thousand years ago as the sea level stabilized here in puget sound and we started to see salmon and clams and other shellfish come into the area and so um our people have lived um from the bounty of the sea for all this time and uh we've established winter houses and um in different places including old man house where the photo from the first slide shows be standing and that's the waters that are named people the clear salt water comes from so the salmon and other shellfish and berries and other foods and wildlife deer elk all sustained us and to be able to store up enough food to have for the wintertime and this continued on where we would go out in the summers and gather this food and trade and socialize and and carry on with our traditional ceremonies um thanking the earth for all the bounty so um we had our first contact here in 1792 uh when george vancouver came to bainbridge island not far from here and chief seattle was a young boy six years old went out with his father to trade with the new um explorer that came into the area since then our tribe has signed the treaty of point elliot this reservation was established um our land was a lot of our land was lost through federal land policies and our uh grandparents and great-grandparents were forced into boarding schools where they lost a lot of their language and culture um and then you know back in the 1970s with the bolt decision we started to get recognized as co-managers of our resource and ever since trying to restore our way of life one of the traditional stories that we have that was relevant is that deer was once a person and many of the things that we see today on this earth were once people and dhokuba was the transformer the changer long ago and he came in and changed everything and one day dear when he was a person was whittling on a knife and he was tired of the char the changer um making all these changes so he decided he was going to kill him with this knife and the changer found out about this transformed himself into somebody that the deer would not recognize and as we end later on i'll tell you how that turned out in this picture here um you see some of the salmon being roasted over a open fire probably no doubt an alderwood fire that was probably during one of our ceremonies or canoe journeys and uh of course salmon was a very important backbone of our economy and our way of life and in the other image you can see some of our elders gathering cedar park which was extremely important textile to our people and we used it for clothing for rope for fishing nets for twine for i even heard baby diapers in the day and so this has been a very important part of our cultural resurgence and canoe journey is being a great part of that and we see a lot of artists throughout our area including adherence equalization of course up to my carmen's uh tribe of the macaw tribe where there's some great um cedar bark hats and other um artwork that's so um important to our spirituality and our identity and uh so that those are very important that we get out and find those things in the woods too so we we have a real interplay between the uplands and our our beaches and the waters of the sales sea and speaking of the salish sea here is one of the products that's very important to us the gooey duck is a king clam giant clam that grows in deep water around the piece of sound and our people are engaged in harvesting this clam for shipment over to markets in china so we have a dive crew they go out in the morning they jump overboard go down with a water gun harvest the clams clams are brought up to the to the vessel brought to the plant where people pack them drive them to the airport ship them overnight to china so there's a live market restaurant market in china that has a great market for these so providing great jobs for our divers and also low income for the tribe and contribute to the trade the u.s trade deficit with the u.s and canada so we kind of can affect that as well we also are engaged in a oyster cultivation enterprise as part of our seafood program we have an enterprise of uh called cuomo seafoods not only manages our gooey duck operations but also um operates uh oyster aquaculture where we raise uh oysters on some of our tidelands that we own as a tribe and we're able to grow these oysters for a restaurant market and uh because a lot of the places that uh are that were there where oysters grew wild are gone now because of impacts of logging and pollution et cetera et cetera so we're able to find places with clean water and uh and to be able to create another industry that's important to our seafood enterprise to create these oysters for our for that market and the real challenge is trying to keep the water clean in order for us to have a a clean product that can be shipped to market and that's one of the threats that we are under as as this area continues to grow we have um these problems so we have to be very careful about um how we move forward and treat the treat the environment and our habitat as we move forward because there was a very important belief system where we believed everything in the um in our world was human at one time and the transformer came and and changed everything into what it is now from human into what it is now so the deer the elk the salmon are all or once people so those things were changing where they are today so we need to have that respect um in this slide here we have um our clam digging um group out there this is a opportunity for our fisheries department to provide an area for our people to dig clams commercially and so we bring our tribal members out here to harvest little neck clams manila clams for the another restaurant market and this is very important to our people as they um go ahead and are able to get out on the beach which is always good for their spirit and also gather with their friends and family and also make a little income by being able to get out there and practice their traditional harvesting and we continue to work really hard on trying to restore and protect these beaches and at one time this wasn't even legal quote in quotation marks according to the local authorities and a lot of these clamdiggers had to avoid prosecution by the county and the state on what they considered illegal clam digging until 1995 when the bolt decision was applied to shellfish harvesting and that right was adjudicated in federal court now we have these controlled harvests um where people can continue to dig um without uh interruption which is uh of course very important and in the photo on the right you can see some herring that were harvested here uh last year um in the middle of the cove at 19 we had the crater gave us a great gift of this herring coming back to for the first time in decades to our waters right here in front of our reservation and our elder here tom and his son were able to get out and harvest some of this herring for traditional use so we're very very happy about being able to have this resource reintroduced in our waters and then we also have a robust traditional plants program where we get out and try to find some of those traditional medicines and foods that have been absent from our diet from many years and we have a tribal member engaged in this where we're going out and harvesting nettles and berries and finding different wild plants and trying to organize opportunities for our people to harvest these in groups and it's been difficult to find these in the quantities needed so we continue to work with uh landowners and uh with the forest service and other landowners uh and trying to give us um opportunities to get out there and find these um important but somewhat scarce resources so we're very concerned about climate change and its impacts on uh on our upland resources as well so i would just like to conclude um with um just saying that uh this image is from our house awakened culture kind of called the new old man house during the canoe journey and you can see the sun setting there on our ancestral waters and the canoes from different tribes that have traveled here during this period during our hosting and very concerned about the future of our coc because it's so important for us to have an opportunity to harvest our marine resources not only for our personal use and subsistence but also from where hosting ceremonies like this one's just so important to our culture and spirituality but also to provide those opportunities for our fishing fleet and our clam diggers to make a living as they always had harvesting these uh god-given creator-given resources that we that we so much have relied upon for our um for our traditional way of life so that i would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak and hope that we can work together to maintain our way of life thank you chairman forsman from protecting shellfish and marine fish habitat to enhancing tribal harvest to gathering good clams for overnight shipment to the chinese market that was a fascinating look at the business of agriculture in indian country so thank you thank you next up we'll have our panel discussion chairman fox ceo sherman and chairman forestman you certainly highlighted the business of agriculture by exploring trends innovations and sustainability in native communities and how indigenous farming practices are reinvigorating the agricultural industry as well as contributing to the economy of tribal communities i'll start with a question for you chairman fox how does the native green grow project utilize and maximize your nation's available resources specifically in regards to water and captured gas from mha's oil and gas operations i appreciate the question uh yes uh very much so um as i indicated before we're heavily involved with the development of two of our primary trust assets and that's oil and gas but when you are in energy development as it stands today oil has so much more value than gas that many of the techniques and many of the production methods right now waste gas they burn it off so that they can maximize the value and the transmission of the the oil so what we've been trying to do is to capture that gas because if you're if you're burning gas into the night like you seen on some of the google earth maps at night uh where we're situated at in western north dakota lighting up the whole countryside when you're burning that much gas you're really wasting a valuable trust asset and so our goal is to capture that and one of the primary ways in which we will capture that and then utilize it is for greenhouses so uh we're going to capture that gas compress it put it in a a status or in a position to be utilized in a major engine that generates heat and power and then also creates carbon dioxide so in that process all those are things that that plants need they need sunlight they need good earth they need water and of course they need carbon dioxide so it's a perfect formula for growing agriculture indoors and now uh if you've never been to north dakota you have to understand it's a it's a natural resource for us too but it gets very darn cold up here and and so it's impossible to grow crops year long there's a short growing season but when we capture the ability to grow indoors that's what we're talking about so gas plays a major role in that quit wasting it people are getting paid if we captured and then on top of that we're protecting the environment and we're making use of a very valuable trust asset so gas is very very critical towards our native green grow project uh indoor uh project for for growing production and so the next thing that we have of course is an abundance of water uh we are because of garrison dam uh lake sakakawea the missouri river we have basically about a 25 million acre foot lake and that's a lot of water but that water is there it's potable clean water and so it's at such availability that uh we'll have no problems with pulling that water in off of our current water systems that serve our domestic production we pull that over to the greenhouse and have plenty of water between a combination of those two things we're going to grow a lot of food we're going to increase our sovereignty enhance our sovereignty and we're going to export goods and begin to move out more and more developing more and more production as we go so those are two primary resources that we have that we think uh fit very well and we're not reinventing the will it's been done elsewhere as uh overseas uh as i've mentioned before holland is just a premier at how to do that and very well thank you mr chairman we will uh have a question for ceo don sherman um the buffalo is central to the story of many people can you share how your business originated from buffalo and what that means to native lands yes thank you carmen i appreciate the question and um buffalo was central and when we talk about buffalo in in south dakota and on the pioneer reservation to our people and across the nation with it being a keystone species in our economy it was just natural that you know buffalo came because that was our source of food and health and clothing and housing and all of that so uh it being part of it was just like i said earlier um it is our sister nation our creation story was of the buffalo it sustained us throughout these years so um re introducing modern food to our people was to bring that buffalo back we need to start eating more of our more of it because they are the life givers so that was really easy um but because it was from a sacred animal um why we brought the community in and brought the leaders and the tribe and the business in there to let them know hey we are going to make a bar out of a traditional recipe and also a sacred animal to us what are your thoughts about it and through ceremony through prayer and everything um the whole we had the support of the whole community and they said excuse me as long as we uh treat the buffalo right and we honor the buffalo like we always have that they would support us so that is the foundation of where we started tonka bar and what that means to our lands is um the the regenerative the indigenous knowledge we're stewards of the land we're stewards of the animals and the four-legged and the birds and um so we have a responsibility to take that and bring that back to the community and let everybody understand that buffalo is keystone to this they the whole ecology they bring back um to the soil health the ecology with the birds and the amphibians and the black foot of ferret they have such a close relationship to that animal we're bringing that animal back onto the lands and then so on and so forth it's just natural when you're bringing a keystone species back they can actually help bring out back those lands so part of that is why it's so important is to get our stu our our people back maintaining those lands the way we know how to maintain them and the animals as stewards absolutely i mean it's it's full circle so chairman forsman in your presentation you mentioned that the suquamish tribe is engaged in efforts to enhance and protect the shellfish in marine fish habitat with regard to those efforts what is the biggest threat you see to the continuation of your nation's traditional sources of food and what is your tribe doing to protect them well i think a biggest threat to our shellfish and marine resources is water quality and uh and climate change and then also alterations to our um to the landscape and to riparian zones and other physical alterations to the ecological systems that support salmon and other species so um we have been working really hard um since uh the first bolt decision in 1974 where we became co-managers of uh salmon uh resource um to realize that um there was a lot of threats to salmon and then after the um the later decision on the graffiti decision which adjudicated the shellfish harvesting um right as well um even made it even more um crucial that we work together to try to address these threats and so not only do we manage the harvest but we also have to manage the protection of that the environment that supports these uh these resources so we engage in a lot of consultation with local and state governments on uh the impacts of their activities one of the big threats of course is growth areas growing and as more people come in the more impacts we see on our environment and on water quality so all that you know the wastewater plants need to grow and also treat uh wastewater as it's released into uh often into the salish sea so we continue to try to get the local governments to upgrade and uh sometimes we have to enter into legal action and sue local governments that aren't complying with federal laws on clean water and we've also had to take the navy to court and other places but we try to avoid doing that that's usually the last last option last ditch effort to do that so we usually are trying to get the agencies to get people to comply so that's a big challenge that we have um in trying to coexist with the growth that's occurring here and the impacts of that growth on our on our waters on our air and then also we have the concern about climate change um how the water um is getting more acidic which can affect shellfish like the clams and gooey duck and crab and then also the issue of culverts which really brought the issue of whether or not a treaty right to fish includes the treaty right to protect the ecology and the environment that supports those fish and animals etc that we've been talking about and the supreme court was tied forward of force so it preserved that ruling that the state of washington does have to remove fish barrier fish barriers from the streams so that the tribes do have a right to a treaty right to protect the uh resources as well thank you chairman forsman chairman fox having traveled to the netherlands in support of the mha nation's food sovereignty initiative what were the biggest takeaways from that trip and did the knowledge you gathered there help you in shaping and honing your vision for the native greengrove project well absolutely i'll just the second part of that it had a big influence you know i'm a firm believer uh in the old adage uh what one person can do so can another and from that perspective um when i read about it and and saw that it was occurring in holland and netherlands i i immediately said to myself while flying in the airplane reading that that we've got all the components to do that all we need to do is have the initiative and have the the drive and have the vision to make this happen we can do that too and and then the light bulb went on so to speak and and so i i began to say we can do that so without reinventing the will why not go to where they're having so much success and ironically you have a native american instead of europeans coming to us to to interact with us for the last two three hundred years there's us crossing the atlantic ocean going the other way and we're saying okay what can you bring to us what what advantages can you provide to us and they did they showed it how it can be done remarkably so the dutch are renowned for their technology and their their uh you know ability to make things uh happen that others can't do and so we learned quite a bit from that and and and now it gave us hope that this is a realistic project and and now i'm all excited because i know it's going to happen absolutely i'm excited too uh let's go to uh dawn um why was it so important to you and the founders to maintain native ownership of tonka bar um why it was so important is one is when you when you're looking at the food industry in general and where we're sitting on the shelves and how we're selling the product is get not only getting it to our community but nationwide you have a lot of big corporations that you got to deal with and this the industry is pretty um dominant with you know the big five um and then it it goes from there so but what we have that's different from everybody else even our competitors is who we are and our connection to the land um into our animal and to the product itself so we have the authentic unique story we had all the recipes for success and it was really important as part of who we are in our core vision and our core values was we build a community around us of people that want us to see to succeed um it wasn't to just sell the company and flip it and make you know all this money i mean that would be easy right and then drive that back into the community but we wanted to maintain this and give our give everybody saying hey i know tonka bar i you know i eat this you know this came from the pine ridge reservation this came from a traditional i know this and so it's really important to maintain that um as we go so finding the right partners when we announced our investment this year to bring back our innovation bring new products uh bring new leadership myself um and and the team was to they believed in that so a lot all the partners that have came involved are committed to the mission and maintaining that ownership and bringing the money back into the employees and down into the community so that it that's one reason why it took so long um when you read about the story of our investment it did take quite a bit was because it was a model in the food industry you've never seen before was making sure that the investors that come in did not take a large portion and then wanted to flip it and change the mission so they really stuck to that and it's just an amazing amazing story and that's why it was so important is because we are unique we have that connection um it is our story and um we definitely did not want that strip away absolutely at that um it is our story and um you know that's so important so that's a powerful powerful story uh chairman forestman do you envision growing your gooey duck clam harvesting export business beyond china is there a strong enough available resource of clams in your tribal waters to maintain supply chain sustainability beyond providing them to only one international marketplace well the one international marketplace of china is pretty vast so um we have a lot of demand there so we have tried to look for other markets um just because of the concern we have over the state often of u.s china relations

and then also issues you know surrounding covet 19 for example the market was shut down in the early days of that and had to be reopened later so it's somewhat fragile both in a lot of different a lot of economic and then also and it's i guess you must you have to say political ways um but uh for the most part that's our primary market there's a smaller domestic market in the united states doesn't have the um the demand that we have in china but we are looking at other other places we can do that what is interesting a lot of uh non-tribal harvesters have started aquaculture where they grow gooey duck in a aquaculture setting like a gooey duck farm and that helps them control the market we haven't entered that yet because we're still committed to our wild harvest although we've had some discussions about that but we are concerned about um sustainability just because of the pressure that the gui deck population gets because as you know it's a 50 50 split between us and the state of washington so i'm trying to maintain that harvest on a on a when you have state and tribal divers both competing to fill that market we're a little concerned about that but we hope to find ways to make the resource more sustainable awesome thank you as we are wrapping up today's program i just want to ask each of you um any for any closing thoughts closing remarks that you would like to share us chairman fox i'll go to you i appreciate that very much the closing thought i would have is because we're talking about agriculture and and how it relates to the sovereignty of our tribal nations and i would argue and and put this out very vehemently that you can build infrastructure uh you can export goods you can you can you can do a number of things out there generate your own power those are what sovereigns do but one of the primary things that a sovereign does is it knows how to feed itself and we lost that somewhere along the way and and for our own tribal nation for thousands of years that's what we did as part of our economy so when you can not only feed yourself and get healthier and everything else now you're you're you're getting an opportunity to export goods this is reducing federal dependency and that's what a true sovereign is really all about you don't depend on anybody anymore you feed yourself and you're also selling it to all outside people as well so that's very critical to sovereign development absolutely thank you uh ceo sherman any closing remarks um yes thank you carmen i definitely appreciate the opportunity here to speak about tonka and um with the the other with chairman fox and uh chairman enforcement it's been great um the closing remarks that i always close with is mataki oyase we're all related um and i challenge everybody you know to with this movement of food sovereignty and food um getting rid of food insecurity as i challenge everybody to look and know where your food comes understand where your food comes eating seasonally and being responsible as we move forward as a group and as tribes that's definitely what we need to do and the movement is amazing so i just joined the movement be a voice be an advocate stand strong i see you all i say your guys's name and thank you i appreciate it thank you and chairman forsman your closing remarks oh thank you it's an honor to be on this panel with the steam leaders here and just very excited to hear all of your uh initiatives um i i believe that uh i have a saying that um i don't know if i was the originator of it but i always felt like clean water is good for the economy and i i think that sometimes people feel that the protection of our environment or habitat is a job killer but actually you know there's investments we can make in uh in preserving our uh habitat and uh you know being accountable to our value systems that are good for everybody in the long term so it's a long-term investment having traditional foods available for us now and in the future helps everybody and i really hope that we can come together to do that as nations thank you well i feel empowered and inspired thank you all for those insightful answers and for to participating in this important discussion today and that concludes today's program but before we close i would like to thank our panelists for their powerful presentations and for all of you who joined us thank you for finding time and viewing today's program i hope you've learned something valuable about building an agricultural business in indian country and developing self self sufficient and sustainable food systems to support our people and our future generations thank you all you

2021-09-04 10:32

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