$1.6 M for agriculture training for Native Hawaiian, underrepresented college students
Three University of Hawaii Projects have totaled more than $ 1.6 million in grants to support food and agricultural sciences for underrepresented students. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture recently provided total funding of $ 3 million to facilities serving Hawaiians and Alaskan Indians. These are the UH scholarships with their descriptions:
Hawaii-One-Ag: Developing New Paths in Agricultural Education and Future Career Growth, $ 1 Million
“The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that the state Hawaii must create more sustainable agriculture to support local food production and diverse agriculture. Hawaii-One-Ag is an eight member consortium dedicated to creating agricultural education opportunities for students and pathways for career opportunities and professional growth. Native Hawaiians (NH) are underrepresented in higher education due to access to articulated classes and programs, perceived labor demand, and the perceived benefits of agricultural education. The UH system is well placed to support NH and underserved students from across the state (country to city) and from a variety of educational foundations (high school to doctorate), and to provide all student situations with advice, mentoring, and student resources support. The Hawaii-One-Ag Consortium will offer a variety of educational offerings to meet the needs of our community, our colleges, and our islands, from K-12 mentoring with a special focus on high school students to undergraduate and graduate degrees, including special diplomas for qualification in the UH system. Our programs are aimed at high school students, college students, farm workers looking to develop their professional and technical skills, and job seekers displaced by COVID-19 looking for jobs in the food and agriculture sectors. “
GoFarm Hawaii (GFH): Training new farmers and growing agricultural business in Hawaii, $ 450,000
“This integrated expansion and education project aims to HawaiiIncrease reliance on imported food, increase food sustainability, develop the local workforce, and support the state’s pandemic economic recovery through an affordable program for adult learners to pursue careers and businesses in food production. GoFarm Hawaii (GFH) prepares students for careers in the fields of nutrition, agriculture and natural resources through a certificate-based training program for farmers and supports existing farmers through education and business consulting. The project will enhance GFH’s program and capacity to develop and support native Hawaiian (NH) and underrepresented (UR) farmers, building on previous successes and experiences, and integrating feedback from industry and participants. The project will improve the quality of education in food, agriculture and natural resources Hawaii with the latest scientific and business knowledge, through practical implementation and experience-oriented learning, in order to be able to apply the lessons in the field (production) and in the company (marketing product, corporate planning). Working with extension experts and community partners will strengthen the quality and capacity of the project. The project supports multiple areas of need, including improved curricula, classroom offerings, faculty development, informal experiential learning, and targeted exposure and engagement to improve science-based agricultural education literacy and equity for NH, UR and young populations and the next generation of Hawaii‘s farmers. “
UH West O’ahu: Undergraduate Pathways Bridging Excellence in Agriculture and Tradition (UP-BEAT), $ 207,687
Albie Miles, left, and Daniel Lipe
“This project recognized the need to take immediate steps to diversify Hawaiis Boost the economy, increase local food production and build greater resilience to climate change to improve food security; It also identified indigenous knowledge and traditional diets as key to transitioning the food system towards sustainability, health and community resilience. The proposed Undergraduate Pathways to Bridging Excellence in Agriculture and Tradition (UP-BEAT) project, led by the faculty and staff of UH West O’ahu The Sustainable Community Foods Systems program will educate and train a new generation of food, agriculture, natural resources and human sciences professionals to think across traditional disciplinary and cultural boundaries to address the many current challenges in the agri-food system of. tackle and tackle Hawaii and beyond. The proposed UP-BEAT project enables students to understand and integrate indigenous knowledge with science and social science content to build a sustainable food system, and it emphasizes problem-based and experiential learning to develop food system experts who are able to solving real problems and transition Hawaiis food system towards more ecological sustainability, social justice, human health and resilience to climate change. “
