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Vice President, Organizational and Food Systems Equity
Jamese Kwele presents at the USDA Regional Equity Convening for the Pacific Northwest.
On June 18, Jamese Kwele participated in the USDA Regional Equity Convening for the Pacific Northwest, held at Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. She shared insights from Ecotrust’s work developing equitable regional food economies in a conversation with Toni Stanger-McLaughlin, CEO of Native American Agricultural Fund and USDA Equity Commission member.
Ecotrust’s work is place-based. Our strategies are reflective of the places where we work and responsive to the people of those lands. Working in each of these places is made possible by the on-the-ground staff who are from, live in, and contribute their deep, community-based connections to our efforts. Successful partnerships are built on trust. Showing up and being present for conversations and work goes a long way to solidifying trust. In Alaska, this is particularly important. Our partners in Alaska have a good understanding of what it takes to be authentically engaged in communities, so when we show up, it has an impact on relationships and shows a commitment to the work.
The Alaska team’s projects in the Chilkat Valley are focused on developing a just and equitable local food economy. The disparate nature of Southeast Alaska communities makes each of them vulnerable to disruptions in the food system supply chain. The COVID-19 pandemic was extremely difficult for a lot of communities, and recovery has been slow but is turning a corner. Alaska’s infrastructure and economy were designed and built to extract value and products from the state. This has resulted in a limited regional economy, especially in Southeast Alaska food systems.
Our work in Alaska is focused on regionalizing the food system through import replacement. To support this, the Alaska team works to enable access to lands and waters, develop an engaged and informed workforce, and facilitate the deployment of capital tailored to regional needs. In addition, there is a dramatic contrast between the total area of Alaska’s land mass and the amount of arable land. In Southeast Alaska, this is even more acute. The minimal areas that can be farmed are currently underutilized, so Ecotrust’s efforts are focused on repurposing underutilized fields and increasing yield as much as possible.
The Biden-Harris Administration is making significant and historic investments in the regional food supply chain, including key investments needed to shore up infrastructure for small and midsize producers, including meat processing, local, scale-appropriate cold storage, and aggregation and distribution solutions. These investments enable producers to move their food into new or growing regional markets safely, efficiently, and economically. All of which contribute to the resilience of the U.S. food system.
A project of Ecotrust, the Redd on Salmon Street (“the Redd”) serves as a powerful model for what investments in the regional food supply chain can make possible. Located on two blocks in Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District, the Redd was designed to help scale a more restorative, equitable, and regional food economy across the Pacific Northwest. The Redd offers production space for food-based businesses, warehousing, cold storage, and distribution to local restaurants and other wholesale accounts, including last-mile logistics and distribution for food and ag products from across the region.
With over 20,000 square feet of warehouse space, offices, and more than 3,000+ square feet of kitchen production space, the Redd hosts 7 tenant businesses and 158 subtenant businesses, all working to create a thriving regional food economy. B-Line Urban Delivery, the Redd’s anchor tenant, supports local producers by offering one efficient drop-off location for their products, providing an alternative to the time and resource intensive work of self-distributing to dozens of accounts across the Portland Metro region. Facilitated by B-Line, the Redd provides direct-to-consumer farmers, ranchers, and fishermen a place to pack and distribute their Community Supported Agriculture and Community Supported Fisheries orders with ease. Food entrepreneurs at the Redd use its production facilities for processing, co-packing, and value-added product development. The Redd Access Program works in partnership with local producers to provide infrastructure, financial assistance, and business planning to enable their success within the Redd ecosystem. A food chain infrastructure resource, the Redd strengthens supply chain connections, supporting producers in accessing markets and scaling their operations.
Come Thru Market is a Black- and Indigenous-centered farmers market that has occurred annually at the Redd campus since it launched in 2020. Photo credit: Noah Thomas
A B-Line trike departs from the Redd campus. Photo credit: FLI Social
The small- and mid-scale farmers, ranchers, and fishers who produce our food play a vital role in keeping our communities fed and powering the economic engines of rural communities. Yet, when it comes to establishing successful agricultural operations, farmers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) face unique barriers, including inequitable access to USDA programs. Congressional reports, USDA studies, and court actions going back to the 1960s have extensively documented how racial and other forms of discrimination negatively impact access to and utilization of USDA programs and services. For example, an NPR analysis looking at 2022 data from the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) showed the agency granted only 36 percent of Black farmer direct loan applications, compared to the 72 percent approval rate for white farmer direct loan applications. The disparate access to USDA programs and services has resulted in cumulative impacts that limit farm size, wealth accumulation, and quality of life for farmers of color.
Through a variety of network building, systems change, and programmatic strategies, Ecotrust is mobilizing resources to ensure equitable access to land, capital, and USDA programs and services. Through partnerships with American Farmland Trust, USDA Farm Service Agency, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative, Ecotrust is working to improve the sustainability and long-term viability of BIPOC-owned and operated agricultural and food enterprise businesses across the Pacific Northwest.
Olivia Rebanal, Chief Impact Officer, speaks at the launch event for a cooperative agreement that Ecotrust and Black Food Sovereignty Coalition have secured with the USDA Farm Service Agency. Photo credit: Dreshad Williams and Ben Anang via FLI Social
Across the bioregion, we’re rebuilding equitable regional food economies in recognition that thriving, regional food economies existed in these lands prior to colonization. And today, Northwest tribes and Indigenous leaders are at the forefront of some of the region’s most innovative food system efforts. Throughout the region, there are many examples of Native-led businesses and organizations leading the way, including:
Michelle Week (Sinixt) is owner and head farmer at x̌ast sq̓it (Good Rain Farm), which strives towards the goals of food sovereignty, empowerment, concern for the community, and honorable stewardship of the land. Michelle was a recipient of the 2022 Indigenous Leadership Awards.
William Spoonhunter (Yakama) and Christina White (Caddo) are building a business model based on ancestral connections to salmon, a regionally critical keystone species;
Lukas Angus (Nez Perce) is a farmer, fisher, chef, and skipper with the 7 Waters Canoe Family. He operates 7 Waters Farm on Wapato Island and is working to establish an Indigenous fish processing center at the Redd.
Buck Jones, who is Cayuse and a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, is the Salmon Marketing Specialist at Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC). CRITFC manages fishery resources to protect treaty rights and provide technical services for the Yakama Nation: Confederated Tribes and Bands, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and Nez Perce Tribes. Buck’s work focuses on salmon and food sovereignty, and he represents CRITFC as a member of the Native Farm Bill Coalition, which is advocating for policies that support tribal self-determination in the 2024 Farm Bill.
Maria Givens (Coeur d’Alene) and Valerie Segrest (Muckleshoot) co-founded Tahoma Peak Solutions, which provides strategic communications, educational training, and consulting services on food sovereignty and native plant ways of the Northwest.
Louise Brady (Lingít) co-founded Herring Protectors, which supports Indigenous harvesters and promotes Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the connection to traditional Tlingit ceremony in Southeast Alaska. She is also a 2023 Indigenous Leadership Awards recipient.
William Spoonhunter. Photo courtesy of William Spoonhunter and Christina White.
Louise Brady shares her acceptance remarks during the 2023 Indigenous Leadership Awards. Photo credit: Jason Hill
Partnerships are a critically important component of our work. Effective partnerships are based on trust built over time, and are explicitly mutually consensual. They require focused attention and resources to develop. Launched in 2018, the Native American Agricultural Fund (NAAF) is the largest philanthropic organization devoted solely to serving the Native American farming and ranching community. In recent years, NAAF has supported our partnership with the Hoopa Valley Tribe in their efforts toward culturally responsive, climate-resilient forest management, which includes reducing wildfire risk while considering the production of first foods that are reliant on healthy forest ecosystems. A flexible, adaptable community-centered approach lies at the foundation of our partnership with the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
Check out this blog to read more about our evolving partnership and see a video to hear directly from our colleagues with Hoopa Valley Tribal Forestry about why community connection is so integral to their success.
Zack Masten, an employee of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Forestry department, uses a chainsaw to remove understory as part of a CalFire forest treatment project on the Hoopa Valley Reservation. Photo credit: Sean Gutierrez
It was an honor to be a part of the USDA Pacific Northwest Regional Equity Convening. The gathering highlighted the importance of partnerships to overcome barriers and improve access to federal programs and resources, providing an opportunity to discuss and co-create solutions for supporting economic development in communities that thrive off connection to their land.
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