2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Gardens provide fresh healthy food for families and communities, helping alleviate the persistent food shortages of the very low-income areas of our northern plains indigenous peoples. Since the formation of the reservations, Native Americans in the Great Plains have been urged to garden, with mixed success. The culture of the tribes in the 1800’s in South Dakota was based on hunting and gathering, well-suited to the short-grass prairies with sparse and unpredictable rainfall. However, many tribal members remember reservation-era grandparents growing vegetables to feed their families, a practice that few of their children continued. Interest in growing food has increased more recently, driven by a desire to increase control over the reservation food systems, as well as health issues. South Dakota reservation counties have high rates of obesity (>40%) and diabetes (up to 19%), partially due to the poor availability and/or high cost of healthy foods in remote areas.

Numerous gardening projects on SD reservations have been sponsored by many NGOs, as well as tribal organizations and universities. Many are discontinued after a few years because of changes in personnel, funding, or organizational focus. Those that persist usually have dedicated, paid gardeners. A few families have developed private large gardens providing vegetables for extended family and friends, and sometimes for sale.

South Dakota State University Extension offers gardening education to support these efforts. We have tried a number of approaches over the years. Because of the widely scattered population and the transportation challenges (poor roads and often unreliable vehicles), as well as competing demands of an extended family cultural base, it can be difficult for participants to attend a series of meetings. Therefore, we've evolved a more flexible approach of creating demonstration gardens, a series of workshops offered at different times/places for those who are "scaling up" from personal to larger-scale production, and cooking/preserving classes. This year, we will work with private and public partners to place high tunnels and root cellars at strategically selected sites, and provide training on growing food in high tunnels. Our methods must be applicable for very low resource growers, who may live hours away from the nearest hardware store, so local low-cost or free materials are used when possible. Projects are vetted by tribal members for cultural appropriateness and programs are designed in concert with tribal members to address needs that they have identified.