![WEBSITE CREATES ONLINE MARKET FOR INDIGENOUS ENTREPRENEURS WEBSITE CREATES ONLINE MARKET FOR INDIGENOUS ENTREPRENEURS](https://swiftmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/mountain.swiftcom.com/images/sites/13/2024/06/12162119/20240612-turtleisland.jpg)
Lincoln, Nebraska, June 12, 2024 — The Institute of Agriculture and Pure Sources and Native American Coalition, each housed on the College of Nebraska–Lincoln, have launched a brand new web site offering enterprise growth assist for Indigenous entrepreneurs. The Turtle Island Commerce Coalition web site supplies assist and assets for Native meals producers focused on increasing their buyer base and the attain of their enterprise, and free membership functions are presently open.
“The unique thought for the commerce coalition was to reestablish intertribal buying and selling,” mentioned Timothy Thielen, the web site’s program coordinator. “Quite a lot of tribal teams are pretty remoted from one another, so we offer members with something they could want to begin creating their enterprise — advertising and marketing points, logistics, insurance coverage, something. The primary level is to offer them a spot to share their story, their merchandise and their journey, and join them with different individuals who have those self same passions.”
Funded by means of the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s $25 million Regional Meals Enterprise Heart grant, awarded to the college’s Rural Prosperity Nebraska initiative in 2023, the web site has two distinct functions. First, it affords Indigenous entrepreneurs enterprise growth assets, assist for submitting grant functions, data on organising on-line promoting websites, producer guides and session with this system coordinator. Second, it serves as a public-facing platform the place entrepreneurs and enterprise house owners can create profiles to showcase and promote their companies and merchandise.
Ted Hibbeler, an Extension educator with Rural Prosperity Nebraska and director of the Native American Coalition, who created the Turtle Island Commerce Coalition, mentioned the web site will act as a central hub for Native companies.
Thielen took the analogy one step additional, connecting the thought to the idea of a conventional drugs wheel. The web site just isn’t meant to be a one-time go to. The assets, consultations, workshops and conferences out there to members are supposed to construct on one another, creating an upward cycle of development.
Relating to the supplies out there to Native entrepreneurs, Thielen mentioned: “We make use of extra of a round considering relatively than linear considering, as a result of that’s how numerous Indigenous of us view their relationship to the world. Individuals suppose in a different way based mostly upon their cultural background, so we’ve to exit of our strategy to ensure that their beliefs and concepts are revered and that we’re capable of present supplies for them which can be in step with their views and their beliefs.”
Along with turning into a central hub for meals producers, the Turtle Island Commerce Coalition can also be meant to behave as a hyperlink between conventional Native meals manufacturing and the digital market.
“There are various Indigenous meals producers on the market, however discovering an Indigenous meals producer is like making an attempt to search for a needle in a haystack,” Hibbeler mentioned. “This [website] is a technique of speaking to not solely the tribal nations, however particular person tribal members. Let’s get again to our conventional methods of meals manufacturing. Let’s create a pathway to begin buying and selling with our conventional companions. We’re making an attempt to attach the 2 worlds — the trendy market system with our conventional tribal meals manufacturing.”
Hibbeler mentioned Native folks have struggled to keep up their conventional entry to and manufacturing of meals. For example, right this moment, solely about 15% of the Omaha Reservation land in Thurston County is farmed by Native producers. Each Hibbeler and Thielen see the web site as a step in overcoming generations of wrestle with Indigenous meals sovereignty.
The title “Turtle Island” stems from a standard Indigenous time period for the North American continent. Hibbeler and Thielen hope that, ultimately, the web site additionally will embody members from Canada and Mexico.
“Quite a lot of the problems going through our present lack of resilience in our meals system will be addressed by offering assets and schooling to Indigenous peoples, to proceed to observe their conventional methods of residing,” Thielen mentioned.
To assist share these assets, the Turtle Island Commerce Coalition is internet hosting an in-person workshop, “Empowering Indigenous Entrepreneurs,” from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 15 within the Arbor Suite of the Nebraska East Union. Registration is free right here. -College of Nebraska -Lincoln