Longmont, Colorado, Oct. 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) today announced it has received a two-year grant of $297,506 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to assist Native American farmers and ranchers in Arizona. First Nations will match part of the grant amount from other sources, bringing the total project budget to $371,883.
The goal of the “Business Development with Native American Beginning Farmers and Ranchers in Arizona” project is to provide training and technical assistance, as well as networking opportunities, to three groups of Native American farmers and ranchers, so as to build their business capacity and help them expand and improve the management of their ranching operations on Native American reservations. The project will culminate in August 2019. Through a previous grant from the Walmart Foundation, First Nations has already worked with these farmers and ranchers, and the new NIFA grant will allow additional training and development of their enterprises and individual skills.
Priority topics to be addressed under the new project include basic livestock, land-management and crop-farming practices; entrepreneurship and business training; natural resource management and planning; diversification and marketing strategies; basic food safety; and other items that are relevant to recent or beginning farmers and ranchers.
First Nations will work with Grasshopper Livestock Association (serving the White Mountain Apache Tribe); 14-R Ranch, Inc. (serving the Navajo Nation); and Point of Pines Livestock Association (serving the San Carlos Apache Tribe). During 2015 and 2016, First Nations worked with these partners under the Walmart Foundation grant and made significant progress. The new NIFA grant will expand and continue the training and technical assistance into additional areas.
Training in natural resource management and business development has not been widely available in Native communities. Many of the formal business education programs offered in Native communities do not provide training that is applicable to entrepreneurship development and small business start-ups. Assisting Native ranchers (and by association the local food system and the success of larger, related agricultural practices) has significant implications for eliminating Native food insecurity, building the health of communities and community members, and, most critically, as a mechanism for entrepreneurship and economic development. Residents of all three of the Native communities partnering in this project experience poverty disproportionate to the rest of the United States, highlighting the opportunity to positively and directly affect the lives of Native individuals and families by supporting Native ranching operations.
About First Nations Development Institute
For 37 years, using a three-pronged strategy of educating grassroots practitioners, advocating for systemic change, and capitalizing Indian communities, First Nations has been working to restore Native American control and culturally-compatible stewardship of the assets they own – be they land, human potential, cultural heritage, or natural resources – and to establish new assets for ensuring the long-term vitality of Native American communities. First Nations serves Native American communities throughout the United States. For more information, visit www.firstnations.org.