'Cultural heritage is an asset': U.S. agriculture deputy secretary visits SIPI to tout federal funding

Farming in the United States is struggling.

But investing in programs that teach people their cultural heritage can guide their futures in agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small says, is an important part of the solution.

As part of a nationwide tour, Torres Small visited Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, or SIPI, on Tuesday to learn about the return on federal investments in the college and to tout the importance of funding local agriculture programs.

She specifically cited concerns about a dwindling number of farms and a rising average age of farmers throughout the country, and how that impacts Native American farming communities in New Mexico.

“Visiting here at SIPI, it also makes me think about what that means when we’re losing cultural heritage, when we’re losing tribal farms, and how a fundamental part of the solution there is investing in tribal students investing in tribal universities,” said Torres Small, the former 2nd Congressional District representative for New Mexico.

The number of farms throughout the country has been in slow decline, according to the agriculture department, which recently reported there were around 1.89 million farms around the country in 2023, down from the 2.04 million counted in the 2017 Census of Agriculture.

Since 2018, Torres Small’s office said, the agriculture department has invested $4 million in SIPI, a federally funded college near Coors and Paseo del Norte NW geared toward STEM education and other vocational or technical programs.

Those dollars have gone to such things as bolstering the college’s culinary arts programs or installing a “FarmBot,” an automated robot system used for gardening.

“It shows how this applied knowledge and applied training can truly excite students, show them how cultural heritage is an asset in terms of their future opportunities for growth, and also hopefully help define the future of agriculture,” Torres Small said.

The school’s garden, which natural resources instructor Angeline Sells said she helped start, has given students hands-on experience in gardening. That includes adopting raised beds for gardening, growing Navajo corn and learning recipes with squash blossoms.