Completing the Narrative: Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s Policy Change Promotes Expansion of Native Agriculture Producers

By Raven McMullin Since the inception of the Native Lands Advocacy Project (NLAP), we have been committed to compiling publicly available datasets for the purpose of gaining a fuller understanding of Native American agriculture nationwide—and, more importantly, to compile a comprehensive data source for Native communities to utilize in the protection of their homelands.  In […]

Use of Chemicals for Croplands on Native Lands by Non-Natives Considerably More Than Use by Natives

By Evelyn Red Lodge Sicangu Lakota (Rosebud Sioux Tribe Member) Given history, it is not surprising that non-Natives collect 87% of the agricultural revenue from federally recognized Native reservation lands. What is surprising is that even though Natives operate 49.29% of cropland farms on these reservation lands, 92% of all chemicals purchased for reservation cropland operations were […]

USDA Census of Agriculture for American Indian Reservations

About this Dashboard This data dashboard presents data from the 2007, 2012 and 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture for American Indian Reservations, the most current and most complete data on reservation agriculture within the coterminous United States. Number of Variables 0 Native Land Areas 0 Years of Coverage 0 Data Visualizations 0 Possible Visualizations 0 m About […]

Interest Paid on Debt by Race for Agriculture Producers on Native Lands

About this Dashboard This data dashboard, developed by the Native Lands Advocacy Project summarizes Interests on Farm Debt paid by Agricultural Producers on Native Land by Race and plots it on agricultural revenue to determine exactly how much lending impacts revenue. Data comes from 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture for American Indian Reservations for 75 unique […]

How Much Discriminatory Lending Practices Impact Agricultural Revenue on US Native Land

By Aude K. Chesnais Introduction: Lending and Debt on US Native Land In 2018, the Keepseagle settlement shed light on widespread lending discrimination across the native agricultural landscape. Native Americans sued the US Department of Agriculture in an attempt to settle historical lending discrimination, which resulted in a 720 million dollar settlement, split between individual […]

Sustainable Food Systems for US Native Lands: A Story Untold

The myth of an “empty land” where Natives lived idly without making good use of their natural resources is persistent and served as the primary base to justify taking lands away from tribes. Contrary to stereotypes, Native Agriculture was diverse and flourishing prior to settler colonialism.

Non-Natives Control Majority of Harvested Cropland on Native American Reservations

According to the most recent 2017 data from the USDA Census of Agriculture for American Indian Reservations 86.33% of harvested cropland on American Indian Reservations is operated by non-natives. In total, this amounts to 3.3 million acres of land operated by non-natives compared to only 532 thousand acres operated by Native Americans (see chart below). […]

The General Allotment Act of 1887 Crippled Native Agriculture for Generations

Today, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) holds 66 million acres of lands in trust for various Indian tribes and individuals. Approximately 46 million acres (69%) of this land is used for farming and grazing by livestock and game animals. However, Native Americans are not the primary beneficiaries of agriculture on their lands. According to the […]

Women’s Representation in Agriculture Greater Among Native Americans

Increasing the proportion of women in agriculture has been a longstanding goal of agencies like USDA, FSA and programs like 4H but these programs may be able to learn a thing or two from Indian Country which has nearly equal participation among men and women. This is according to data collected in the 2017 USDA […]