Sitting Bull College, a land-grant college is collaborating with the USDA Agriculture Research Service and two land-grant universities to create more sustainable methods of raising cattle on the Standing Rock Lakota Reservation in the mid-grass lands of north-central South Dakota. The four collaborating institutions and agencies are partnering in the development of secure concepts of a safe and healthy food production system for the local reservation community. The project is located in Mahto, SD consisting of an 1800-hectare ranch. It is currently in the baseline data collection and analysis phase of the operation. Methods are being developed that will enable local ranchers to raise calves from birth to butcher weight on the ranch. Finishing will be completed on the ranch with high protein forages. Butchering will take place in a local slaughter unit manned by local community people. The meat then will be sold and consumed locally. This presentation elaborates on benefits that will accrue to the current economically-depressed reservation community in terms of both economic and food security, food quality and quantity, enhanced marketing and employment opportunities for local ranchers and community members. It provides a vision of what tomorrow's grassland community food systems may look like in the context of the grassroots reservation community.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.