South Dakota - Tatanka Ki Owetu

In November, the team assisted Little Wound School in Kyle, SD, in applying for and receiving a Team Nutrition Grant and applying for the EQIP cost-share program through USDA-NRCS towards getting a high-tunnel set up at the school for their farm-to-school program. However, will be an AgrAbility farm-to-school program designed to work with youth, ages 17-19, living with disabilities, who are about to graduate from high-school and are looking to start a career in agriculture or in an ag-support related field. Thirteen individuals with behavioral, developmental, or mental health related disabilities will be participating. The program will also work with the high-school's special-needs students and their families.

The team's partnership with the Oglala Sioux Tribal Land Office and USDA-NRCS Tribal Liaison's office and their EQIP program successfully secured funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) towards getting an additional 10 high tunnels to go up across the reservation starting next spring. The team is assisting the tribe and NRCS in training people at these ten sites to set up these high tunnels to be accessible for tribal members with disabilities so that these new farmers will be able to age in place on their small farms. To date, the AgrAbility team and its partnering organizations have successfully assisted tribal members and organizations secure funding and design and set up 10 high tunnels for production; so these next ten will mean 20 new high-tunnels producing on Pine Ridge Reservation.

The team is also nearing completion of a "Tribal New Farmers Resource Guide." This guide includes lots of information on programs and funding sources from federal, state, tribal, nonprofit foundations, and assistive technology providers, and is designed specifically to assist disabled tribal members in starting up and expanding their farm operations.

The AgrAbility team also officially moved into their newly built office at 536, BIA 23, Porcupine, SD, on one of the two incubator-hub sites that they partner with. This new office will be the main assistive technology center on Pine Ridge Reservation and sits on 160 acres that the team and their partners will be developing as a tribal disabled farmers' incubator farm for tribal members without land-access of their own to start their operations. This large central site will be joined by Rebel Earth Farms Incubator in providing land access for free, as well as high tunnel access and experience alongside educational beginning farmer education. Both sites will allow staff to work with disabled landless tribal members on the ground to do needs assessments and to develop AT directly on site. Clients with their own land can also travel to this site for educational workshops or to try out AT developed on site.

South Dakota's AgrAbility team recently presented on AgrAbility at the Annual South Dakota Local Foods Conference in Pierre, SD, and assisted in a second Mental Health First Aid certification training in Brookings, SD, for their Extension colleagues at the Annual SDSU Extension Fall Conference. SDSU (the land-grant university and Extension) have both adopted Mental Health First Aid training into the farm stress management program.

Submitted by Jason Schoch