Goats, Mosquitoes and Research

 By Andrea Dsouza, 2nd year MDP student

Hello, my name is Andrea Dsouza. I was born and raised in Bangalore, India. In 2020 I completed an undergraduate degree in Indigenous Studies from the University of British Columbia. I am a second-year student in the MDP Program and am doing my field placement with the Anishinaabeg Agriculture Institute (AAI).

AAI is a community organization from the White Earth reservation with extensive farming experience, and a desire to diversify farming enterprises. Together with the East African and Middle Eastern community of Minnesota, their project aims to build a collaborative agriculture enterprise based on good land stewardship and cultural survival through food and land access. The project I am working on touches the following aspects: youth training, regional economy development, land back, and cross-cultural collaboration and restoration of traditional varieties of our food. What drew me to working with AAI is the integrated and intersectional nature of their work.

My task this summer is to answer the following questions: How do the food systems of the Anishinaabe and growing migrant & refugee populations overlap in needs? How can developing an Anishinaabe food system collaborate with these communities to meet their product demands? What are the practical considerations of developing a market value chain based on goats?

Developing the market includes experimenting and developing successful raw and value-added chains for goat and goat by-products including meat processing, and milk products. We also work closely with our Amish neighbors in the North, partnering with them to access their goat herds and farm infrastructure. Much of the work I have focussed on so far is hands on development of the Farm property, and program development for the young-farmer training in goat husbandry.

So far, I have really enjoyed working in a team environment alongside other master’s students from the University of Minnesota. We all come from different backgrounds and have different sets of expertise, which makes working together challenging, exciting and fun. After a year of doing online school it is also really nice to be in person with folks and to be able to connect with the land and water on a daily basis. Below are some photos from my time.