Emma Cole recognized nationally for Ag essay

What started as a 1,133-word essay penned by Emma Cole, Dodson High School freshman, in her spare time, resulted in a trip to Las Vegas, Nev., and a spot at the largest American Indian Food Growers conference in the country.

As the months waned in 2019, a call went out for high school students to submit essays on Agriculture and at the behest of her mother, Jennifer Perez Cole, Emma spent an evening researching and writing a paper titled "The New Old Crop of Agriculture" - an essay on Native American use of hemp printed below this story - and finished in the Top 10 of all entries and earned her way to the 2019 Indian Agriculture Council's (IAC) 2019 Annual Conference held at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas for three days in mid-December.

"I spent about three hours writing it and when I was done, I was pretty proud of it," Emma said.

Emma and her parents, Jennifer and Skip Cole of Dodson, headed to Las Vegas where she and other student leaders from across the country dis-cussed and received education on such topics as; natural resources, agricul-ture, indigenous food systems, tribal governance, national policy and more.

Emma, who is 14, said each day she woke up at 7:30 a.m. and attended sem-inars and discussions for the duration of the IAC convention.

"We were broken out by region and I was the only youth in my region to at-tend," she said. "We talked a lot about what is going on in agriculture where we each live."

Aside from the education and discussion side of the trip, Emma said she en-joyed her time with her family in Las Vegas, especially her time at the Mir-acle Mile shopping mall inside the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.

"I ate at Gordon Ramsey's restaurant and I had a cheeseburger," she said. "We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel ...we saw all kinds of stuff including the suit Tupac wore when he got shot."

Emma said she will enter the essay contest again next year in hopes of at-tending the conference again.

The New Old Crop of Agriculture

Indigenous people graced this land long before modern laws. Prior to the European colonization of what is now the United States of America, tribal people thrived. We were independent and free. Free from government regulation and control. Looking at agriculture today, tribes nations and people are looking at ways to improve the quality of life using our greatest resources - people and land. Looking beyond livestock, hay and specialty crops, industrial hemp is the new "old" crop that many agriculturalists are excited about.

Hemp is easy to grow, strong, hardy and ecological friendly and can be found in more than 25,000 products. It can be used for paper, textiles, clothing, biofuel, animal feed and many other industrial uses. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa. Due to the similar leaf shape; hemp is frequently confused with marjiuana. Both plants are from the cannabis plant but hemp does not contain the mind altering effect found in marjiuana.

The politicians blamed hemp's similarity to marjijuana as a reason the United States made it illegal in 1937. That is how one of the most useful crops on our planet became illegal in the United States. Many believe the underlying reason it was banned because it took too much business away from the powerful paper and cotton industries. The United States slowly made efforts to bring it back. The 2014 Farm Bill allowed state agriculture departments and institutions of higher learning to grow hemp under a pilot

program. With Montana as one of those states. There were more than 200 hemp growers in Montana when hemp was legalized in December 2018 through the Farm Bill.

In researching hemp, I learned many interesting facts. It used to be illegal to not grow hemp. That's right, in 1619, farmers could actually be fined or jailed for not growing hemp. According to healthfreedoms.org it was legal to pay taxes with hemp from 1631 to August 12, 1981. The USA's Founding Fathers grew hemp. Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross's flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution were made from hemp. In the 1880s all of school books were made from hemp or flax paper.

With a $100,000 investment, it would be used to help implement a tribal hemp code on my reservation in Fort Belknap in northern Montana home to the Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) and Assiniboine (Nakoda) Tribes. This summer, the Tribal Council submitted a tribal hemp code proposal to the United States Department of Agriculture. The tribe is waiting for approval or disapproval of the plan. If it's approved, my tribe will be responsible for regulating the production of industrial hemp within our reservation. USDA will still oversee to make sure everyone is following the same rules.

To make this happen, the tribe needs to hire a Tribal Hemp Coordinator who can manage government compliance and who can help bring training and technical assistance to landowners and growers who want to make a living and profit off this new crop that not many people are accustomed to. The Tribal Hemp Coordinator would be a

liaison between the Tribal Council and Government, interested landowners and growers, the Tribal Community, and outside entities involved in the hemp industry.

The $100,000 budget would fund a one year $70,000 salary for a full-time Tribal Hemp Coordinator, $25,000 for professional service training and consultation on hemp production and best practices, business plan templates and marketing services and

$5,000 for travel and office expenses. This money will be administered by the Tribe with the Tribal Council serving as oversight over the position.

Hemp production can help provide many jobs on my reservation (Fort Belknap) that has 8.5 percent unemployment rate of 4.2. The U.S. average is 3.9. Fort Belknap has seen the job market decreased by -1.1 over the last year, according to bestplaces.net. Tribal leaders believe the reservation unemployment rates are much higher than reported by the state. Hemp production and the direct and indirect jobs that it can bring can improve the economy at not only my reservation but the others in Montana and the United States. Hemp is very profitable.

The Hemp Business Journal estimates that the retail value of hemp products sold in the United States jumped from nearly $700 million in 2016 a projected $2 billion by 2020 that include hemp food, body care and CBD-based projects.

Industrial hemp can be used to make lots of things. It also can be used to replace pill medicines that are controlled by the pharmaceutical industry. Those pills are always filled with many side effects that can be harmful. Hemp is organic, natural, and not

made in labs. Getting back to our natural ways is important because our people have been colonized.

There are many needs that exist in my community. The most pressing being the high rate of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse that have resulted in broken families. We need to create more jobs for the population that may not thrive well in an office setting but could while working outside. Introducing hemp back into our communities can create many jobs for this niche population including all levels of hemp production and side businesses that could potentially be created.

This industry won't just last years it could last decades if not forever. Adding onto that, hemp is so good for the environment. It replaces trees as a source for wood and paper. Trees take years to grow while hemp crop can be grown in a few months. One acre of hemp would require four acres of trees. Hemp can save our environment and is the wave of our future.

Food wise, hemp provides both nutritional and medical benefits. You can go into a grocery store and buy hemp seeds, hemp seed oil, hemp milk, hemp tea, and hemp infused drinks. Some of the benefits from hemp tea are reduced anxiety, stress, and depression. It reduces chronic pain and helps with insomnia. On top of all the industrial benefits, growing hemp is profitable. The growing demand for hemp products compared to other crops that we have relied on can help us survive.

The intertribal partners that we would partner with include Intertribal Agriculture Council, Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative, USDA, Montana Department of

Agriculture and other tribes in Montana, the United States and region. We will share and exchange best practices and resources to help more Tribes and communities benefit from using tribal regulation to advance hemp production on tribal lands. Hemp is our future. We may not have been able to control our history but we can do our diligence to control our future and make life better for our children and future generations to come.

Sources:Modern Farmer

cannibisnow.com/hemp-history HempHelps.com

USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture