The Indigenous presence at Agribition is getting a lot bigger.
For the first time, the show features a two-day Indigenous agriculture summit.
Speakers from across North America are sharing their success stories and encouraging other First Nations to look to agriculture for economic development.
The chair of the summit has been pushing for such an event for years and was almost ready to give up.
Elmer Eashappie has been a director at Canadian Western Agribition for 12 years.
His dream has been to make the Indigenous summit a key part of the show.
Eashappie says the journey to realizing this dream has been a long and frustrating one but he decided to give it one more shot with new CEO Marty Seymour.
“So I went and met with him, and wow,” he says. “I was expecting a no but he said let’s do it. My goal was always to start with the education of the culture, mainstream and First Nations, learning and working together.”
He says the summit will address the need for Indigenous communities to come together and benefit from shared knowledge.
As an example, the Ochapawace band, near Esterhazy, has been running a very successful 9,000-acre grain farm.
“I am hoping their story will inspire other bands to say, wow if they can do it, we can do it. And there is going to be a lot more speakers engaging in the same direction, saying you guys can do it.”
Speakers range from a professor of Indian Resource Development in New Mexico to First Nations academics from the University of Regina.
Shauneen Pete, a professor of Indigenous Studies at the U of R, provided a historical perspective on why First Nations people have struggled to get a foothold in agriculture.
“Historically, there was an attempt by First Nations to be actively involved in agriculture in Saskatchewan but through a series of reforms a number of approaches were taken to really hobble First Nations success and participation in agriculture,” she says.
The indigenous agriculture summit is the first conference of its kind in Canada. Eashappie expects it will be even bigger next year.