Kainai Ag Fair offers options for students
Farming many not be the first career many on the Kainai Nation first think of when they chart their way forward into their future working lives, but the Kainai Agriculture Career Fair, held Tuesday, was hoping to change a few minds.
“The Kainai High School has been doing an initiative with their students to encourage them to pursue careers in agriculture,” said Whitney Van Dasselaar, who coorganized the event on behalf of Career Transitions. “So starting with the elementary students, it is just having them walk around and see what there is out there for agriculture, and seeing what some of the options are. It gets them thinking about a possible career in agriculture from a young age. Agriculture is a very broad and diverse sector. What we are trying to do with this event is show some of those options.”
J.R. Weasel Fat, co-ordinator of Red Crow Community College’s Indigenous Agriculture Program, said he hoped events like the career fair might eventually light a brighter farming spark in all of the Kainai Nation.
“The current scenario sees a lot of non-native farmers and ranchers on the reserve,” he stated. “I want to see more students coming back and farming. I hope these kids go home and start asking questions, and from there I hope they think of agriculture as something they can do. I want them to go home and think: ‘I can be a part of it.’”
Secure Your Food program director Derek Melting Tallow agreed in some respects with Weasel Fat, but felt there was an enormous potential for all types of local agriculture. That might mean more large-scale agriculture, or it might mean the more sustainable greenhouse production and urban agriculture he was advocating for.
“I think a fair like this is very important,” said Melting Tallow, “because two generations ago everybody was growing their own foods. And then we had transportation and distribution systems that resulted in food being produced overseas in another country cheaper than what we could do here. But things are coming to the point where the trends are showing growing vegetables is a more economical option for us to do ourselves. We are looking to provide people in this community with resources to do just that.”
For Grade 3 student Jayden Yellow Face it was a lot to take in, but he did know one thing coming out of it: farming is kind of cool.
“I am thinking about being a farmer one day,” he said. “I want to take care of animals.”