Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Financing Native Food Sovereignty with Skya Ducheneaux
205 Plays1 month ago
On this show, we’ve talked a lot about how traditional banking and financial systems make it tough for new farmers or those without direct land ownership to get a fair shot. But those challenges run even deeper for agricultural producers in Indian Country.
Enter Skya Ducheneaux, who’s tackling these barriers head-on as the leader of Akiptan—the first Native CDFI dedicated to serving agricultural producers all across Indian Country. Skya brings fresh eyes to lending, challenging old-school banking practices that just don’t work for farmers without big land holdings or a long financial track record. Instead, Akiptan focuses on sweat equity, work ethic, hands-on support, and long-term solutions - and yield tremendous outcomes as a result.
In this episode, Skya shares:
- Her journey from growing up on a cattle ranch to leading a groundbreaking financial institution.
- Why extractive capital leads to extractive practices—and how patient, thoughtful capital can support regenerative agriculture.
- The unique ways Akiptan removes barriers and empowers Native ag producers.
- Remarkable success stories from the communities Akiptan serves.
- Why Native CDFIs have an opportunity to step up investment in agriculture.
- And how outside investors can better align with the long-term needs of Native farmers.
- And much more…
More about Skya and Akiptan:
Skya Ducheneaux is the Executive Director of Akiptan and is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. She spent her first 18 years of life on a cattle ranch on the CRST Reservation in South Dakota. She then pursued a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Business Administration while working at a county FSA office and buffalo meat processing plant. After returning home to work for the Intertribal Agriculture Council, she was tasked with creating the first Native CDFI dedicated to serving Native Agriculture producers all across Indian Country. Akiptan began lending in January of 2019 and has grown rapidly over the years.
In addition to Akiptan, Skya has served on many advisory committees and is currently the Board Chair of the Mountain Plains CDC. In her role as Executive Director, she is a part of several CDFI coalitions, advocates locally and federally and presents at conferences to share the mission of Akiptan.
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.
Recommended
Transcript
Long-term Investment in Climate Regenerative Aid
00:00:02
Speaker
If you want long-term systemic changes, long-term changes for the climate regenerative aid, you need to make sure you have long-term investment into these organizations who are doing the work and making the changes happen.
Introduction to Agrarian Futures Podcast
00:00:26
Speaker
You are listening to Agrarian Futures, a podcast exploring a future centered around land, community, and connection to place. I'm Emma Ratcliffe. And I'm Austin Unruh. And on the show, we chat with farmers, philosophers, and entrepreneurs reimagining our relationship to the land and to each other to showcase real hope and solutions for the future.
Meet Skya, Executive Director of Akiptan
00:00:57
Speaker
Skya, welcome to Agrarian Futures. Thank you so much for being here with us today. So you are currently executive director of Akiptan, a native CFI located in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, with the mission of transforming native agriculture and food economies by delivering creative capital, leading paradigm changes, and enhancing producer prosperity across Indian country. You guys are also the only nationwide agricultural lender for native agriculture.
00:01:24
Speaker
So to get us started, we'd love to hear a little bit about your experience pre-akiptan.
Skya's Upbringing and Education
00:01:30
Speaker
From my understanding, you spent 18 years working on a cattle ranch on the CRST reservation. Yeah, tell us a little bit about how you got into that and your experience there.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, super happy to be here. So I grew up on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe reservation where I'm born, raised, and an enrolled member. I grew up on a cattle ranch on the east end of my reservation and I turned 18 and I said I never wanted to work that hard again a day in my life. Being in agriculture is very, very hard work.
00:02:04
Speaker
I mean, I was like, you know what? I'm going to go to school. I'm going to get a business degree because business and agriculture have nothing to do with each other. or you know So me and all of my 18-year-old wisdom fought anyways. So I was going to go and get a business degree. I don't know if I necessarily wanted to work in the corporate America, but I was not going to be on the ranch.
First Internship Experience
00:02:28
Speaker
and So when I graduated before college started, I took the first internship offered to me and that was with the Intertribal Agriculture Council. It was an agricultural organization, but it got me out of the hay field, which is the only thing that was important to me at the time was to not be on the ranch um and to have a job and the job that paid me.
00:02:52
Speaker
like a biweekly salary. Working for my dad did not and yield a paycheck in the normal sense. and So I worked for IAC for a couple summers while I was doing my undergrad. I ended up going to school online, having to work full time. And so I worked for the Farm Service Agency for nine, 10 months. And then I worked for a Buffalo processing company for like a year and a half.
00:03:22
Speaker
And then as life would have it, I started dating a rancher from back home on my res. And that required me to move back home um because his range unit is here and and he can't leave. you So that meant I had to move back home and live on a ranch and do everything that I said I would never do again. um But I was very grateful to move back home this time. I had started missing the people in agriculture, that the industry and the community that we had had in agriculture. So I was actually very excited.
00:04:01
Speaker
to be able to move back home, but I needed
Journey into Financial Management
00:04:04
Speaker
a job. So the Intertribal Agriculture Council caught wind that I was ready to move home. And I must have did something right in my office my internship because they offered me the position of CDFI project manager.
Founding Akiptan and Addressing Financial Challenges
00:04:21
Speaker
And jobs back home were very hard to come by. And I knew IAC was a good company. So they were like, hey, do you want this position? And I was like, yup, I'll take it. And then they started talking. And I was like, hey, what's ah what's a CDFI? What am I going to be doing? awesome So I really came into it totally blind, but just very optimistic.
00:04:44
Speaker
And I spent all of 2018 going to conferences and trainings and working with my board of directors. And then we be officially began lending in January of 2019. And it's just been off to the races since then. But yeah, so now I live back home where I said I was never going to be living on a ranch.
00:05:10
Speaker
working replacement heifers yesterday, just doing all the things that I said I would never do, but very, very happy about it. And I get the best of both worlds, right? So I still get to ranch and keep my boots dirty, but I get to come to the office and on those days where it's like 110 degrees,
00:05:31
Speaker
or negative 20 blowing 40 miles an hour. Like I'm very happy to have my climate-controlled office for eight hours of the day and and stuff like that. You know it was very interesting how I got this position. Life has a funny way of working out but I'm so was so grateful that I took this job that I knew nothing about and was just willing to learn all the things. So grateful for my mentors in the early days and yeah so that's kind of how how I ended up here. We'll get into the details of a CDFI, but can you give us a little bit of a sketch of why IAC was interested in developing a CDFI or developing some kind of a tool to bring finance to native producers? What was the landscape like before Akiptan was developed?
Challenges with Traditional Banking in Indian Country
00:06:25
Speaker
Yes, I love this question. A couple of my mentors, Zach and Ross, they were at IAC at the time. So IAC has been around since 1987. So they've seen like the landscape of native agriculture through the farm financial crisis in the 80s. And that's kind of where IAC came from. through Cube Segal, the discrimination lawsuit against the USDA and and all the things. And so it's been a long time coming, I guess. So Zach and Ross, you know they were really frustrated with how the traditional
00:07:01
Speaker
financial industry meaning like local banks and in even the FSA were not like structured and they were not set up and created with the realities of Indian country in mind meaning like trust land and having to lease land from the tribe and and by and large because of certain systemic things we don't get to own a lot of land so if you don't have land on your balance sheet you don't have a lot of leveraging power at the bank and so that meant that in Indian country and there's other systemic issues but that's like very much the largest one either furnished institutions wouldn't extend you credit or if they would it was because you were riskier because you didn't have the leveraging power you risk rated higher
00:07:46
Speaker
they would extend you credit at like higher interest rate with lower repayment terms, meaning like your payment was very large and you were kind of just stuck in this cycle of sort of barely surviving and scraping by year to year and never getting the right to thrive and think about long-term goals. And so knowing that this was the environment that a lot of producers were working in, Zach and Ross,
00:08:14
Speaker
I had just been really, really frustrated with it and you know they said, you know, enough is enough. We're going to put our money where our mouth is and we're going to create a native CDFI to bridge that gap and to work with our producers and to understand these large frustrations that our producers had had. And so through those frustrations is how aukipton came to fruition.
00:08:38
Speaker
And so they had had the idea for it, but they didn't quite have the time. And so that's when they caught, the time to make it happen and to stand it up. And so that's when they caught wind that I was getting ready to move home. and And they reached out to me. The only thing that were like set in stone when I came on board was our founding board of directors, and then the name occupied him.
00:09:03
Speaker
So Acuton is the Lakota word for doing something together in a joint effort, like cooperatively doing something, which is really reflective of our lending philosophy and like our partnership approach. So those are the two things that were set in stone. And then the rest of it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears and phone calls to my mentors. That's great.
00:09:25
Speaker
So I want to go back to what you had said there about one of the the biggest challenges to lending in Indian country was that in many cases, and I'll just say what I heard, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that in many cases, folks are not owning the land. They don't have ownership of the land in their family, but rather is owned by the tribe. And in in that case, they need to lease that land from the tribe. And so if they were to go to a financial institution and look for a loan for like an operating loan, for instance, ah they don't have land, the value of that land to lend against. And a ah financial institution could not take lien of that land. It's much more challenging for a financial institution to have collateral to back up a loan. Is that correct? Yes. But I feel like you're making excuses for the financial institution. Just because it's challenging doesn't mean it's impossible.
00:10:20
Speaker
Perfect. So you tell me more, and and how do you then get around those challenges? So there's the lease lands and then the trust land issue. So you you're correct. Like when you lease land, you're not able to leverage that on your balance. ah Leverage that at your bank for livestock, equipment, infrastructure, you know, and in operating. And so if you really want to invest in your operation, you don't have that extra leverage power. And a lot of times financial institutions, they need at least like 100% collateral ratio. Sometimes it's like 125% up to like 150%. And a lot of people in Indian country don't have 150% in solid collateral, meaning like Trevor, he went to the FSA um and he's a young beginning rancher and he needed
00:11:10
Speaker
along I think it was for extra cows and so the cows would have been 100% of the collateral but the FSA wanted 150% and he had some equity in his house the house that we lived in so the FSA took a second mortgage on his house just even though they had their minimum of 100% they wanted that 150% and he didn't have land, so they took a second mortgage on the house that we're living in, which just wasn't necessary. They had had their 100%, but they wanted more, and they found equity in in the house that we were living in. There's things like that because you lease land. But if you don't have a house with a little bit of equity in it, or some weird way to find some extra collateral after they discount all your assets, they just won't, or it'll be, like I said, at that.
00:11:57
Speaker
not like less than ideal terms, the the few that are lucky to own land. And a lot of times when you do own land in Indian country, you own it in trust. And that just means that this is a little bit of a soapbox. But so through Indian lands like 101 and all this history, so we get to own land in trust, which just means that it's held in trust by the federal government.
00:12:20
Speaker
for the benefit of the non-competent Indian. And when I say non-competent Indian, like I am using the federal government's words, not mine. That is the language that they chose. But because it's held in trust by the federal government, a lot of banks and other financial institutions won't mortgage against it. They think that they can't. like There's this myth out there that they can't lend and like leverage trust land. And which is a lie. It's a total lie. CDFIs have been doing it for years. We've mortgaged trust land to help some of our producers by trust land. You just also have to clear it with the BIA. So it's like one extra hoop to jump through, but banks refuse to do it. So even if you have something you can leverage, they refuse
00:13:06
Speaker
to do it. And so it's just really
Akiptan's Innovative Lending Approach
00:13:08
Speaker
frustrating. So like again, like leveraging power, those are the two, land being your largest asset. And then if you're never able to leverage your largest asset, it's really hard. I went to a national ed credit conference that the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City held. And this was a few years ago, and I was just sitting in and taking in all of their reports. And their producers, I'm going to get the numbers wrong, but you'll get the gist of what I'm saying. they were sharing about their portfolios like balance sheet trends and their producers balance sheets were like one million, two million and stuff like that. and And I was like, wow, like that does not happen in Indian country. I'm happy when our producers reach a couple hundred thousand dollars in in assets and stuff like that. But the difference is is they get to leverage their land and we don't create these vast differences.
00:14:00
Speaker
And when your financial system was not created with like those realities of Indian and country in mind, you're going to leave Indian country behind and in in stuff. And so at OccuPont, we're aware of these different systemic issues. We get creative with our collateral. As long as it's 100%, we don't need to get greedy and take extra and in different things like that. so That's what we do around the collateral. We're also in our risk rating, we're a little bit different. So as a financial institution, you have to like risk rate your clients, and it can be like an ABCDF loan. And then typically, if you're an A loan, you get like the lowest interest rates and the longest repayment terms. And then if you're a lower-rated loan, you either won't get it, or that's where your interest rate gets higher. And it's called a risk rating because the bank is taking a risk by lending to you because this spreadsheet said you're risky, and as their favorite youth, even borrowing it to you, it's going to cost you more money. When I was setting up Occutant, I took a risk rating from other financial institutions. I took their template, and I kind of modified it for agriculture.
00:15:13
Speaker
because no one does just agriculture. So there's was's like for housing, credit building, stuff like that. So I kind of modified it and I was running some just examples through it to see what things would look like. Beginning producers, beginning farmer ranchers, because they were young, they didn't have credit or just not well-established credit. So their credit score was low. They had nominal balance sheets because they were operating with their parents or their grandparents. And so they really didn't own anything yet.
00:15:43
Speaker
and their cash flow was tight and and just different things like that, they actually risk rate really, really bad. like They're really, really risky, so they would be like a D loan. If you put that D loan in the traditional risk rating, you would give them a higher interest rate.
00:15:59
Speaker
So like us as the financial institution are giving them a higher payment, actually making it harder for them to succeed. Like us as the financial institution is giving them a barrier to success. And that's not what we're here for, right?
00:16:15
Speaker
I kind of dwelled on this for a little bit. And I was like, this isn't right. So there's the five C's of credit. And that's usually what your your risk rating is based on. But we do really heavy on the sweat equity and the character. And these people are scoring really high on work ethic and sweat equity, but they just didn't quite have the financial management skills for the rest of it. And I was like, well, that's just crazy because I can teach someone how to read a balance sheet. I can, you know,
00:16:44
Speaker
empower them to make good financial decisions with just like a little bit of financial coaching. I can't teach them how to work hard. like I can't teach them sweat equity and work ethic. As far as I'm concerned, this is just wrong. We risk great all of our clients because we have to to be certified with the CDFI fund.
00:17:03
Speaker
but we have a flat interest rate across the board. I don't care if you're an A plus loan or a D minus loan based on your circumstances, like you're getting the same interest rate and we're going to keep it flat across the board so that we are not giving extra barriers to success. That would just seem like irresponsible lending.
00:17:20
Speaker
And to us, but some old dude 500 years ago said, hey, we're going to risk rate. And this is how it's going to work. And we're all still doing it. And and so there's little nuances like that that we do at Auketown on the lending side. But then we have a whole like programming department, financial literacy side, where we work to build the borrower up so that they can be empowered to make their decisions. In Indian country, everything is very relationship based. So we take intentional steps to build a solid relationship with our producers. We focus on the relational side of lending just as much as a transactional side. And it's been very, very successful for us. We've committed or like $30 million dollars in loans in the last
00:18:09
Speaker
five and a half years, whatever, almost six. We've only ever lost like our write off of $5,300 with the $30 million dollars commitment, which is, that's my favorite statistic to say in a room full of anchors to tell them like, you do not have to keep doing things that way. Like there are other approaches that are really, really successful. But yeah, so when I, when I got this job, I, you know, I didn't have 30 years in the lending industry or even five years as a banker, which I kind of thought was to my detriment at the time because I had such a huge learning curve to ag lending. But it was actually to my benefit because I got to take, I don't want to call it like a common sense approach, but a more producer lens
00:18:56
Speaker
to lending and maybe like a more practical approach in some sense because I didn't have anyone on board in me saying this is the way you do lending. I can just remember growing up and my dad complaining about his banker, the bank this, the bank that, and then Trevor complaining about you know the FSA or what he's going through and and then just being a producer and being able to take like that very producer-oriented lens on lending. That's incredible. You i mean you said $30 million dollars in loan and you've had $5,300 in default using completely different underwriting methods and risk assessment. i mean that's like That's incredible. i mean i think
00:19:39
Speaker
that should sink into people and such a testament of how you can do things differently. With the traditional financial system, if they're looking at a beginning farmer, for example, they're basically assessing them as more risky. like They don't have the same experience. There's not as much data to look at their like past track record. Therefore, they're deciding we will charge them a higher interest rate because it's riskier. And there's there's a certain internal logic there from the bank's perspective.
00:20:09
Speaker
But it's also kind of counterproductive to the goal, which should be, how do we resource farmers with what they need to be successful? And if you're a beginning farmer, yeah i mean you actually need ideally, you need better terms or terms that are like coming with a lot of technical technical assistance. So it's really flipping the purpose of the financial system on its head, taking it from one where it's about the bank maximizing its risk return to the bank serving the purpose of moving capital to where it's needed. Yeah, exactly. I like flipping banks on their heads, so we're a banker with morals. like That's all and so we are, and that's what clicks the most in in people's heads. Totally different business model, very, very successful.
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, we were talking with Charlie from Walden Mutual. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's like a new kind of mutual bank, but focused on specifically supporting kind of agriculture. But he was talking about how, and of course, there's still the whole history of marginalization of native communities and all of that. But even in mainstream US economy, you go back 100 years and people had this understanding that banks were almost like quasi utilities. They had a kind of public function and that that's something that we've forgotten.
00:21:28
Speaker
forgotten the ways in which it maybe shouldn't be like a profit maximizing entity ever. Yes. And you can equally balance lender security and borrower prosperity. Like you don't have to put lender security way above. And if you focus on that relational side and the producer prosperity side, like that increases your security. That relationship allows us to be more proactive versus reactive when something happens. You know, our producers, they come to us and They're like, oh my gosh, like you know we had a spring storm and it was really done of detrimental. I have a payment due in six months. like How can we work through this? You know what I mean? that They come to us to be more proactive versus reactive. And then there's a handful of our clients who are at a bank and at Okeetown.
00:22:15
Speaker
And, you know, they do something or whatever. And they're like, well, I didn't tell Joe Banker across the street that I did this, but I'm telling you guys because I trust you. You know what I mean? And so we get like a certain level of honesty because they know that we want them to succeed. Their success is our success. So we're doing everything we can to make sure that they succeed and to equally balance under security and barber prosperity. It does not need to be out of balance. It can be equally balanced and be successful. And I think that one of the things that makes ah CDFI is so successful is the fact that, like you guys, they tend to be very entrenched in the community that they're serving.
Representation and Community Understanding
00:22:54
Speaker
And so they're able to, like you mentioned, be nimble, flexible, adjust to the context in a way that larger banks are not able to.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yes, yeah my my boots are still very much dirty and all of my client facing staff are producers themselves and they're involved in agriculture. So they very much represent the communities they serve. I think my finance officer is maybe the only one that didn't grow up on a cattle ranch, but
Success Stories: Sakari Farms
00:23:25
Speaker
that's okay. I need her to understand QuickBooks, not cattle markets.
00:23:30
Speaker
but So, but yeah, we we are very representative of our producers and I think that's also what makes us so relatable because we represent our community down to a T. And I was wondering if you could maybe flesh out what you guys do with a few case studies that really highlight the ways in which you guys are working differently and maybe a case study of like ah a rancher that really would not have gotten access to capital without you guys.
00:23:58
Speaker
We began lending in January of 19, and I did not hire my first staff person until August of 19. So I was in all the trenches for a while. I was the executive director, the custodian, and everything in between for quite a while. But one of my very first loans that I did was with Sakari Farms, and we have a success story of her on our website, and I feel like we need to do.
00:24:24
Speaker
like an update for everyone to see how awesome she's doing. So Spring with Sakari Farms, ah she had had a few acres in Bend, Oregon, where she was growing vegetables and traditional foods, and then she would sell them at their local farmer's market. She would donate a lot of food to the Warm Springs reservation.
00:24:47
Speaker
ah She's originally Alaska native, but she lives by the Warm Springs Reservation. And then she would do some value added products. It wasn't like a huge value added line in her cash flow. She was wanting to do a loan for a greenhouse. She's in the high desert plains, so to be able to extend her growing season was really going to make an impact on her. And then she also wanted to get a deer fence around her property to help her produce.
00:25:16
Speaker
Something about the FSA wouldn't do it. I think the FSA is doing really amazing things now, but they haven't always been super helpful to Indian country. Anyways, so she was one of my very first loans. It was a very small loan, all things considered. And we did a dear friends. And then we also did her first greenhouse. And the really cool thing about Acuton is we've got these like two repayment structures.
00:25:44
Speaker
One is up to five years interest only, and then we switch to like seven years blended. Or you can just start out um doing blended payments right away, just principal and interest. But we go up to five years interest only so that you can take all of your profits, reinvest them back into your operation, and grow your capacity, you grow your efficiency, grow your effectiveness before switching to those principal and interest payments that are larger.
00:26:10
Speaker
But it's all about capacity growth and and helping our producers get started up off the ground. and So she chose to do the up to five years interest only route and it totally made sense for her. And so she got her first greenhouse and then in the last almost six years now that she's had a loan with us.
00:26:30
Speaker
I think she's got like three or four greenhouses. She came back to us for a commercial kitchen. This, I don't even want to call it like a garden. Her agribusiness, which was a part-time job for her, and then she works part-time off the farm, is now a full-time job for her, her husband, and then a couple other people. And then they have a lot of seasonal health. And they've got so many greenhouses. They have, we, she came back to for it to get a loan.
00:26:55
Speaker
for a commercial kitchen because her value-added line has just expanded like crazy. She has the very best hot sauces. I will die on that hill. Like her hot sauce is great. um I'll also give her a plug. You can go to her website and she ships. She still donates so much food to the Warm Springs community. She teaches classes about seed saving. She grows traditional foods for different seed keepers and to be able to give to other native entrepreneurs and agribusinesses. And it's just so crazy that a very small loan that the FSA wouldn't do was like my third loan ever. And then to see like, she took our model of building relationships and investing all your profits back into yourself and just ah flourished and just so, so proud of spring and Those like very first clients, I love all of our clients and all of our producers, but those first few where I was very much like trying to get my footing, I have a special place in my heart and Spring signed a media release so I get to talk about her. Not everyone has a media release. Confidentiality binds me on a lot of producers. but
00:28:07
Speaker
I get to talk about her and so I'm just so so proud of her and and she took the opportunity and ran with it and has just been kicking butt ever since and so I just love to see her win. It's been so so excited but everybody go buy her hot sauces ah um and she's got a lot of she does like smoked salts and a bunch of a bunch of other things too. So that was one that we did right off the bat and I'm so proud of her and just as like a true testament to what relationship based lending and a couple of years interest only what it can really do when you're able to reinvest in yourself versus is the bank just extracting all your capital from the get-go. You know what I mean? You got to got to give people time to be successful. You can't just be successful overnight knowing that agriculture runs on
00:28:55
Speaker
on annual production cycles. And then as far as ranching, oh gosh, there's so many. One of our success stories is one of our youth clients. So she first came to us when she was in high school and got a loan, like one of our youth loans and and got some cows. And then she graduated, wanted to stay on the ranch. She came back to us for more cows.
00:29:22
Speaker
some infrastructure and stuff like that. And then now she's just out there ranching and she's up on the Blackfeet Reservation and she's up there ranching and being successful and just out there doing the damn thing. But it started with a small youth loan and that really helped to get her started. Like the FSA has a youth loan product, but banks don't really do youth loans. And then again, as a startup, they would have been very, very extractive. So that's really frustrating. Yeah, we did a couple of fisheries last year. In addition to all of our ranchers, we did our pig farm. Our pig farm was really, really cool. I hope to get a media release on her soon.
00:30:01
Speaker
because now she's doing a lot of farm to school stuff and feeding her community directly. And I love that for her. Yeah, there's a lot of our ag producers, even well established ones. I'm just so very, very proud of you know, we've at one producer comes to mind and he's a cattle rancher.
00:30:19
Speaker
And he's here on my res. And he was 45, I think, at the time when he came to us. And he was actually one of the better off producers, you know, he was not a financially in a bind. He leveraged everything he could. and And he was like one of the more financially strong producers that I'd had. had that i had come across my desk and seen their financials. But he was telling my in-laws that Occutant really changed his life and gave him a lot of opportunities to really prosper and and stuff like that. And we actually hear a lot of those stories like secondhand from our community members. Word of mouth has been really beneficial. But I love all of my producer stories and I wish I had a media release on them all. But we've got to do some very cool, very exciting, very unique things.
00:31:08
Speaker
And I would say that we learn from our producers just as much as as they learn from us. They're so innovative and they're pure determination to be successful and to get things done. I bet on them every day. And I used to say that a lot, like, I'll bet on my producers every day. I'll bet on them and their sweat equity. But then I got to thinking and I'm like, no, we really are betting on them every day. We're investing a lot of money with our producers. and investing that into their success. So like we're putting our money where our mouth is and we're investing in these guys all day, every day and wouldn't change it for the world.
00:31:43
Speaker
What are some things that you would like to see come about, whether that's new CDFIs that we had talked about? You said that we need 300 CDFIs, native focused CDFIs. What other changes would you like to see in order to move native ag in the in the right direction? Maybe you can help me to find where the right direction might be. We've shared a little bit about how so much of of ag in Indian country is is cattle focused, is livestock focused. people ah have traditionally not had access to to funding, to financing. So where would you like to see Native Ag move in the in the years and the decades ahead? And what are some of those things that are needed in ah in order to overcome bottlenecks and barriers moving forward?
00:32:28
Speaker
The first thing is more CDFIs need to get to doing agriculture. I would say the one thing that holds a lot of them back is agriculture is a very expensive industry and fundraising is hard. So there's there's that, but more CDFIs need to be doing agriculture. Agriculture is an underutilized economic driver in Indian country. I firmly, firmly believe that if actually, I don't even want to believe there is a study out there in the Native American Ag Funds, Reimagining Native Food Economies, I believe is the title of something like that. If
00:33:07
Speaker
native agriculture had the same level of investment as Indian gaming did as casinos our casinos had that agriculture would actually be a larger industry than Indian gaming like the potential is there and I feel like agriculture is what's going to bring us out of, you know, this generational poverty and and help us be more food sovereign and really help our economies grow. So at Native City Fries you need to be doing more agriculture. They need to get into agriculture if they're not already in agriculture and they need to do more agriculture if they're just dabbling in it.
00:33:39
Speaker
The second thing is is that we need more investment into the second link of the food chain, and that's processing. And it wasn't just Indian country, but during COVID, the pandemic really exposed the high concentration in bottlenecks that we have in our food system. So on my reservation, there is about 70,000 cows, and about depending on the time of year, of course,
00:34:09
Speaker
And about half of those are native owned on my res. During the pandemic, if you went to the grocery store, a lot of the times there was no hamburger at the grocery store here in Eagle Butte. And if there was, it was very limited to one one pound package per family per day, which is crazy because I can hit 100 cows on my way to the grocery store, but I can't buy some hamburger.
00:34:35
Speaker
And so the whole concept was wild. Now, I'm very lucky that my Christmas present from my dad is a home-raised butchered steer because I've got that direct access to livestock like that. for um But not everyone has that. And so I think all across Indian country and rural America, like that reality scared a lot of people. So there has been this sort of like food renaissance into food sovereignty where everyone's like, holy crap, like we cannot do this. Indian country is really great at production, but we need to do better about processing. And so there is a lot of movement to make that happen, food sovereignty, food security, being able to feed our own people.
00:35:19
Speaker
So I've seen a lot of really cool and exciting things move that way. However, egg production takes a lot of money, costs a lot of money. Egg processing costs even more money. So we need more investment to make those dreams a reality so that we can have food security. Why is all the amazing beef specifically that we're producing here on Shine River going elsewhere it just doesn't make sense from a logistical standpoint from a climate smart standpoint when you have all that shipping and stuff and and from a health standpoint knowing that we have some of the best most regeneratively raised
00:36:00
Speaker
beef here on our res and then we're not eating it. You know what I mean? And any stuff. So yeah, that's what I'm excited for. That's what I think needs to happen. I think those are the two big overarching goals, but I think we need to invest in this next generation of people. Indian country was the original land stewards and there's with that food sovereignty,
00:36:25
Speaker
Renaissance coming back. We need to make sure that we're investing in this next generation of leaders and land stewards so that they can be successful and youth always have a special place in my heart knowing that I got my job based off of a couple internships and people took the time to invest in me. So we need to make sure that we're still investing in our youth and leaving good opportunities for them so that they can take this next generation of leadership and movement and make it happen.
00:36:52
Speaker
And I'd be curious to hear as a as a lender in the space, are you able and seen infrastructure projects that you're able to fund? Yeah, there's been a few on the smaller side of things. We get asked all the time about larger projects and we can do participation loans. ah We can do like a little gap financing here and there, but there's not things that we can take on that are large because we're just limited with our loan limits and our level of investment.
Advocating for Native-Focused CDFIs
00:37:21
Speaker
But there's a couple other organizations out there that are like more suited for that and some of the further up the chain more expensive things. So we will refer them to like
00:37:34
Speaker
Native American bank or Indian land capital company and then there's a new fund that I don't know if it's quite rolled out yet but another one coming up that's specific for food and agriculture in Indian country and so just super excited for those resources to be able to be at the helm to make things happen.
00:37:55
Speaker
And Sky, my understanding is that I keep down services nationally, correct? Like you'll service native ag businesses anywhere in the country. And I'm imagining that you're wanting more CDFIs to develop that are really, really focused on their local communities, right?
00:38:13
Speaker
And then, presumably then, you wouldn't have near as much business to do in those local communities, but you would know that those are covered by their own CDFIs that know them more closely, that have those closer relationships and ties with their own producers. Is that what you envision in the next number of years as those 300 Ag-focused CDFIs come online?
00:38:35
Speaker
Yes. And then maybe Ocupine switches into a place where more of an intermediary for Ag CDFIs, where we lend money to those CDFIs to then go out into their communities. You know, I think there is a place for both. Our market study indicated that there's $43 billion of need, and that's mostly just in production. Billion with a B, and so I don't think I can work myself out of a job in my lifetime. But if we can bring everyone to the table, and there's been several CDFIs who our lending has influenced is one CDFI that we work with out there that they didn't do agriculture at all. And then I know at one point in time, a couple years ago, a year and a half ago, maybe now, like 70% of their portfolio was agriculture because it was needed in their community.
00:39:24
Speaker
And we had done loans on their reservation, but I don't really think we've gotten any new ones on their res since their CDFI started doing agriculture, which is awesome. That is great. like I love to see that. And then there's another CDFI who has been around. It's like the second, their oldest native CDFI. And they've been doing agriculture, but now they go up to two years interest only for their ag loans to be able to make an impact where they just did blended before.
00:39:53
Speaker
But they were like, oh, occupant is having success with five years. Let's split it into two years and get our our board of directors on board and and go from there. And so we've definitely been having influence into these different models and bringing everyone to the table to help meet this agriculture demand. And and I love to see it. There's so much need and so much demand that it's not competition. It's all collaboration and teamwork.
00:40:19
Speaker
I feel like your insight is so valuable and I've been loving what you're saying. So maybe just to finish this off, like what is something you wish, you know, maybe people that are not intricately familiar with either native agriculture or agriculture in general, like what is something you wish like was on more people's mind or that people realized better?
00:40:40
Speaker
The first thing that comes to mind is all about regenerative egg, climate from smart egg, and in that whole lens that's been coming towards agriculture, knowing all the money that's out there. It used to get me really like riled up and and pissed off, but then I came to learn agriculture in Indian country is very different than agriculture outside of Indian country as far as like norms go in Indian country in in the way that I grew up ranching because there's the narrative out there that cows are.
00:41:18
Speaker
very bad for the environment and blah, bla blah, blah, blah. And that's true to an extent cows are a tool that can be used, right? But I grew up on a cattle ranch and I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, okay, so now I'm getting fired up right here at the end. and In Indian country, there's just this like very innate belief that if you take care of the land, the land is going to take care of you.
00:41:43
Speaker
And that's just something that I've seen across Indian country. It goes without saying, and it just is. So there's this innate belief all across Indian country that to take care of the land. When you lease land from the tribe, the tribe actually puts minimum prudent standards on you to make sure that you're not overgrazing and over-extracting from that land. And they make you get you know a grazing management plan, and they make sure that you're being a good steward to the land.
00:42:12
Speaker
And then third, our producers are all frequent fliers at the and NRCS office, the National Resource Conservation Service under USDA. Our producers are all frequent fliers there. They all want to get into all the programs to take care of their land to the best. And so there's those three those three kind of components that we have in Indian Country. And those are not necessarily as upfront outside of Indian country and then extractive financing.
00:42:43
Speaker
leads to extractive practices. Bare minimum, if you don't have the tribe putting minimum prudent standards on you, it's just your bank governing how you operate. And so you're going to do what you have to do. And like I said, extractive capital leads to extractive practices. and And so anyways, I really that framework to say that agriculture in Indian country looks very different because of just indigenous values,
00:43:10
Speaker
leasing land from the tribe and then just our producers' desires to do better. And it became really prevalent to me during these last few years. We've been in a drought in in my region and on my res. In Indian Country, because of those three layers, it had been a three year long drought. And so our grass is not as great as it should be, but we're still fine. We're still operating and we are still fine.
00:43:42
Speaker
When you leave the res, when you hit the border, you could instantly see that wasn't necessarily the same everywhere you went. and There was a lot of over-grazed things because you've got bankers saying, you got to make a payment. You you know you can't sell cows to reduce your grazing burden. like You have to make a payment and blah, blahh blah, blah, blah. This is your family life legacy livelihood on the on the table here. so when you have bankers being very extractive and and you're not already set up to withstand these climate, like these like just crazy climate crises that we're having, when something does happen, you're down the stream without a paddle, right? So when you would hit our reservation border, you could see the difference and move the quality of grass.
00:44:30
Speaker
which was just very crazy to see that to me and I guess we like understanding like the different norms of operating in Indian country and outside of Indian country and what kind of norms are established and and different things like that. So I feel like with Climate Smart Agriculture, people need to know that Indian Country is already doing it. We're the original land stewards. We've been doing it and we are a solid investment. And I think we also need to create a really good environment for those others who want to come along but don't know where to start and you know that want to do better. But they're realizing that their bank kind of has them stuck in one way of operating. No producer wants to over graze, over extract from low end. But when your banker is telling you to make your payments, you're going to do what you have to to get to the next year and hope it's right. And you know so off the reservation, there was people doing complete dispersions of their herd, which just means selling our hold whole herd or selling half their herd just to make it by because they didn't have those practices in place in the land to be able to withstand that drought by an Indian country because we had that solid foundation and so it was really cool to see that for Indian country but it made me really sad for the rest of the people in the drought knowing that things are just different there and
00:45:51
Speaker
and wanting to be able to show them different ways of operating. And how we do things um on the res is very, very different. Everything has a grazing management plan. Everything is in regretive regenerative grazing practices. And however, I will never, ever, ever go to one of my producers and say, you know, how is how's that Climate Smart Ag practice going on? Because that's not the language they speak. That's not a specific lens they have on, it just is a way of life. So I always thought that little bit of context was really fun to share with people, to help people understand the differences in the norms in Indian country. And I just also can't stress enough that we if you want long-term systemic changes, long-term changes for the climate regenerative aid, you need to make sure you have long-term investment.
00:46:43
Speaker
into these organizations who are doing the work and making the changes happen. I get a lot of people, you know, I want to invest in Okeaton and I'm like, well, we practice patient capital and low interest rates and and all these things. And they're like, oh yeah, us too. And then they want like a 5% interest from me, which means I have to still mark it up for our producers and and in five years for payment terms. And I'm like, that's,
00:47:10
Speaker
Agriculture operates on annual production cycles five years. Isn't it enough? That's not patient. Thank you for reaching out, but we are not interested. Like extractive capital leads to extractive practices. And so I'm really cognizant of the capital that we take at OccuTone because I will not take capital that does not work for our producers and for us as an organization. I'm probably going to stop there before we're on the call for the next four hours.
00:47:36
Speaker
I love that example because it highlights just how, like you said, extractive financial institutions lead to extractive management and practices on the land. Finance can be abstract, right? it's It's tough to really wrap your mind around and it's not something that you can hold or see. And so it it can be challenging to understand how exactly finance relates to agriculture. But that was a great example of how of the relationship between the type of finance that is available and whether a bank is good to work with or not. And if they're understanding of the situation that you're in and will work with you and provide technical assistance. And if they don't.
00:48:19
Speaker
then you are going to be pushed to be able to make ends meet and be able to make a loan payment. And if that degrades the quality of the land and the stewardship of the land over time, the bank really doesn't care. And so it's great to see that there are more and more financial institutions maybe a better way to say it was is that there are more and more nonprofit ah mission-focused groups that are using finance not as a means
Promoting Sustainable Agricultural Practices
00:48:49
Speaker
to get wealthy, but as a means to serve their community so that their community becomes stronger and more resilient and has resources
00:48:59
Speaker
that are aligned with them and their mission that they can work with and and organizations that they can partner with rather than having to partner with a financial institution that really is only after their own bottom line. Yes. And back to the risk grading thing that we talked about in the beginning of the the podcast, why financial institutions don't Like while they're not implementing climate smart ag practices into their risk rating analysis is another thing that I just don't understand because your 800 point credit score is not going to get you through a drought. But the practices that you put on your land is what's going to make being in that drought survivable. So i that's like another thing that risk rating being so number driven versus like outcome
00:49:48
Speaker
driven is beyond me because I'm like cool your 800 point credit score like that is impressive and that is important but that's not gonna make your payment in a drought that's not gonna make your payment in any sort of extreme adverse weather condition or or whatever may happen like if but if you have these practices implemented and ready to go you're gonna be able to weather that storm pun intended a little bit better you know what I mean we do not have to keep doing things Like we, meaning us as financial institutions, we do not have to keep doing things the way that they did it a couple hundred years ago. We can change, we can do better, we can be better. and So it's just very near and dear to my heart.
00:50:30
Speaker
Well, Sky, thank you so much for sharing your your time with us and taking this time to give us a window of insight into what you do in your work and say thank you for for all the blood, sweat and tears and sweat equity that you've put into this and to making this available and accessible and then providing leadership so that other groups can come on and do the same thing.
Engagement with Akiptan's Community
00:50:51
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, I don't do it alone. I have ah an amazing, dedicated team of like, I think we're 16 staff now with one or two interns always hanging around. So I'm not solo anymore. I have an amazing team that also helped make this work possible and impactful. Shout out to the Acuptown team. They're equally as great. Perfect. And where can folks go to learn more about Acuptown?
00:51:15
Speaker
Akipton.org is our website. You can sign up for our newsletter and we send out a lot of really cool and exciting updates there. um We're also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or I guess X. um We're on LinkedIn and all the different channels. We have a YouTube channel where we've got some really cool financial videos that we share with our producers and some other like really cool videos.
00:51:40
Speaker
So we're just a little bit everywhere. Yeah, very easy to find us. But yeah, get signed up for our newsletter. That's where we always have, you know, um RFPs, client success stories, blog posts, new product launches. That's probably the easiest way to stay up to date with Ocudon. Okay. Thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you, guys.
00:52:01
Speaker
Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexander Miller, who also wrote our theme song. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe and leave us a comment on your podcast app of choice. As a new podcast, it's crucial for helping us reach more people. You can visit agrarianfuturespod dot.com to join our email list for a heads up on upcoming episodes and bonus content.