UW–Madison, Tribal partners launch collaborative effort to support Native American foodways in Great Lakes region 

University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers and a group of Tribal partners are launching a new project to support Native American food traditions and food sovereignty for Great Lakes Tribal Nations.

The project will focus on expanding traditional Tribal food production practices – practices that have been climate-smart and sustainable for generations – by building on ongoing work to scale up production, processing, storage, and distribution systems. It also aims to enhance the education and extension programs needed to support integrated crop-livestock systems, cover crops, and rotationally grazed cattle and pastured chickens. 

“We’re taking a broad transdisciplinary, partnership-based approach to supporting the expansion of intertribal food systems. It’s a participatory process, guided by the needs and priorities of the Tribes that are involved, and utilizing the expertise of Tribal scientists and other Tribal partners,” says project leader Erin Silva, professor and extension specialist in the UW–Madison Department of Plant Pathology, director of the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems and Clif Bar Endowed Chair in Organic Agriculture and Outreach. 

The new project is supported through a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. More specifically, the funding was awarded through the Sustainable Agricultural Systems program area of NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, the nation’s leading and largest competitive grants program for agricultural sciences. 

Key collaborators on the project include the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Advisory Council. 

“We’ve had several opportunities now to work with the University of Wisconsin on projects to support the increased production and distribution considerations of our culturally-important foods in ways that align with our community’s values and priorities,” says Gary Besaw, an enrolled member of the Menominee Tribe and director of the Tribe’s Department of Agriculture and Food Systems. “The fact that the Tribal nations in Wisconsin have a world-renowned partner that’s committed to assisting us – based on our prerequisites – in sustainably growing this historic food sovereignty movement, that’s incredibly important to us.” 

One focus of the new USDA-funded project will be to partner with the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition and help support the group’s Tribal Elder Food Box Program, expanding it into new areas. The food box program, launched in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic with grant funding from the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, was developed to increase access to nutritious, culturally important foods for Tribal elders. In 2023, 30,000 boxes — with around 60% of their contents from various Tribal producers — were distributed, helping elders while supporting intertribal food systems. 

UW–Madison and Tribal collaborators aim to build on this program’s success and explore ways to expand intertribal food systems, including working with Tribal farms and producers to support and expand production of traditional foods, and assessing and evaluating options to get Tribal-grown foods into schools and casinos across Wisconsin. 

“Scalability is a huge piece of this project. How do we expand production in a way that is honoring, respecting and influenced by historic traditional practices?” says Dan Cornelius, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation, and an outreach program manager with the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems and the UW Law School’s Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center. “For instance, on the cropping systems side of things, we’ll need to look at what technology is appropriate, what techniques are important, and how to do things in a way that promotes soil health.” 

Another major focus of the new USDA project will be on training the next generation of food systems leaders, producers and workers. The new grant includes funding to support the training of UW–Madison graduate students in this area, as well as the engagement and support of Native students across campus. There is also financial support to ramp up an existing agricultural apprenticeship program run by the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Advisory Council. 

“The Tribes sometimes struggle to get seasonal workers for the harvest or when they’re needed,” says Jeff Mears, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation and executive director of WTCAC. “Our apprenticeship program provides seed money for Tribes to hire people and train them. Apprentices don’t have to be young people. They can be people looking to make a career change, or at any phase of life. This program is an opportunity to change lives, as well as a way to help Tribal agriculture departments to grow.” 

Other activities of the new project include developing a map of the existing assets of Indigenous food systems in the Great Lakes region; researching production methods used in Tribal crop-livestock systems while evaluating their impacts on soil health and carbon sequestration; plus ramping up nutrition education to Tribal members, including emphasizing the concept that food is medicine – that healthy food is important for well-being. 

“Despite centuries of historical oppression and diet-related health disparities, this grant will build the foundation and systems for reclaiming Native American traditional food education, pathways, and practices towards improving Tribal health and well-being. Building upon this collective synergy, the ‘Food is Medicine’ component reaffirms the connection between traditional high-quality nourishment and well-being from both a Tribal and Medicaid lens,” says Carolee Dodge Francis, an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation, chair of the UW–Madison Department of Civil Society and Community Studies and the Leola R. Culver Professor in Nonprofits and Philanthropy. 

The UW–Madison project was one of seven projects selected to share $70 million in USDA NIFA funding based on their potential to transform the U.S. food and agricultural system and sustainably increase agricultural production while also reducing its environmental footprint. 

“These research investments support exciting projects that integrate innovative systems-based thinking, methods and technologies to establish robust, resilient, and climate-smart food and agricultural systems,” said NIFA Director Manjit Misra in the USDA announcement. “These visionary projects will improve the local and regional supply of affordable, safe, nutritious and accessible food and agricultural products, while fostering economic development and rural prosperity in America.” 

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-Nicole Miller, nicole.miller@wisc.edu, (608) 262-3636