'Uplift an entire community': Indigenous Ag Summit returns to Agribition

For the 11th year, the Indigenous Ag Summit has returned to the Canadian Western Agribition. The two-day summit featured speakers who shared their personal experiences in the industry.

Additionally, many organizations were featured in order to highlight the resources available for those navigating the world of Indigenous agriculture.

Derrick Gould serves as the environment manager for Manitoba Uske and is a farmer who attended the summit.

He spoke on the fact that Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities have a long-standing history of learning from one another – a practice Gould hopes to see continue.

“Of course, generational effects that have taken place through our history but now we got to come back to the land and start that healing process, and it's nice to have non-Indigenous communities here with the Indigenous communities to collaborate, to see what we can do together and move forward in the future,” he explained.

"We need to keep that way of life going, that our treaties have stated in the past – that farming was a treaty right. We need to learn from our ancestors, and how they have survived all these years."

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Janice Thompson emceed the event, and she was particularly passionate about this year's theme of “Nourishing Nations and Empowering Generations.”

"Building partnerships, restoring community knowledge. Looking at the calls to action, for example, with response to economic development that lead into the sciences like biodiversity and other opportunities that include training at university or [the] post-secondary level and also taking a priority around for future generations when it comes to reconciliation,” she explained.

Thompson went on to express that the summit directly correlates with certain calls to action.

"It really does get down to the grass roots of what it is that we've been doing all along, but also looking at partners and ways of networking so that the calls to action around economic reconciliation and the diversity and the networking that goes along with that can be built upon,” she said.

“So that we can come here and celebrate our successes and also look at what opportunities are going to be coming down the line."

Adam Subject is the lands director for Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, and he returned to the summit after making several connections last year which helped jumpstart community projects he was a part of.

"That's how important these summits are. It puts Indigenous people, the faces of those organizations, in direct contact with potential funders that could literally uplift an entire community,” Subject said.

“When others see that they want to jump on board too."

Subject went on to express that events such as the summit are crucial when it comes to empowering Indigenous people of all ages.

"You really allow them to have the self-determination to truly lead their people,” he added.

“I think that starts with summits like this that allow them to grow initiatives, for food sovereignty and security."

The summit concluded with a grand exit. Additionally, Wednesday's evening rodeo has been deemed 'Indigenous Night' and will feature a grand entry.