Supporting the next generation of Native Agriculture

Akiptan is excited to bring you Part Two of our blog series of our 2025 Summer interns. This year Akiptan, partnered with three agricultural organizations from across the country where interns were able to gain hands-on skills with businesses working within food systems in their communities while also learning the key components of finance with our Senior Program Officer. The outcomes of this work have always been to work intentionally with the participants to deepen their understanding of how an agriculture business is developed. Akiptan is grateful to have developed relationships with a total of 16 Native agriculture organizations and businesses to support the future stewards of food systems across Indian country since the inception of this initiative. 

In last week’s Part One of the blog, we heard from Akiptan’s 2025 intern, Kinzee Peterson, and this week we are tuning in with Benjamin Butler, who worked in the garden with the Center for Popular Research, Education and Policy, Wind River Food Sovereignty Project. The Center for Popular Research, Education, and Policy Doing business as Wind River Food Sovereignty Project’s mission is to increase the supply of local, healthy, affordable food on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming by supporting Reservation-based food production. Their vision includes seeing a vibrant food system on the Wind River Reservation designed by its community members. They hope to increase the number of local farmers, ranchers, and specialty food producers within the Wind River Reservation; to create successful new market channels for local producers; and to establish food-based learning programs and career opportunities for Native youth on the Wind River Reservation. Each summer, and the internship program ends in August and we are excited to hear that Benjamin was offered the opportunity to stay on in his position after the internship closed. 

Benjamin Butler was born in Virginia and moved to the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2015. He is a member of the Northern Arapaho tribe. His Northern Arapaho name is Red Hawk. 

Benjamin currently works in the farmers market in his community and he has a plan to grow squash, watermelons, pumpkin patch, beets, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes on his family's land and is making plans to sell the produce at the market. He has a lot of projects happening right now and is looking forward to making his plans come to life. 

What encouraged you to apply for the Akiptan Summer Internship Initiative?

I wanted to get some whole world indigenous experience in agriculture, I wanted to build my resume, and explore what it would be like to work on an indigenous farm. 

What was one of the most important things you learned during your internship this summer? 

We spent a good amount of time planning and building an industrial-size, large 90-foot green house that will be a central resource for the food sovereignty project and I felt like that was very important to build one of those. I led the design for the boxes for the greenhouse, and we were all given the opportunity to build a design, we voted on all of the designs and they picked my design to go with. 

What is the biggest challenge you faced in learning more about Native agriculture? 

I would say the biggest challenge facing ag today is land access and land sovereignty. That's something that we have been fighting for as an indigenous community for a long time, and a lot of the land around here is not being properly used for agriculture. Most of it is being used for cattle or hay, and if it's not being used for that, it's being sold off.  It's hard to get farmable land around here. 

How will the skills that you learned in this internship help you in your future career? 

I will use the skills that I learned to help me build a farm on the reservation, I have 80 acres that I plan to turn into a self sustainable farm, where I can sell my produce at the local farmers market and I hope for that will be my primary job and the goal is to pay all my bills through the farm and use all the resources I've gathered from this internship to achieve that goal. 

What would you tell other students who would like to apply for this internship? 

You’re going to learn a lot of valuable skills that you will use for the rest of your life, and that it’s pretty much as good as a college course in business. 

Is there anything else you would like to add that I didn’t ask?

It’s been an amazing internship, I really learned a lot, I got good experience, I learned how to drive the tractors, that was pretty fun, I also learned how to use the riding lawn mowers and I had a whole lot of fun, I’m still going to be a part of their team, after this internship, which is pretty damn cool. 

We would like to thank our funders, partners, and interns who make this work possible each year. Youth Initiatives like the Internship program at Akiptan continues to help the organization stay grounded and committed to building and supporting the next generation of agriculture producers across Indian country. To learn more about Akiptan’s summer internship initiative please email Dawn E. LeBeau, Senior Program Officer at dawn@akiptan.org. 

Akiptan’s youth internship initiative is made possible with the support of the Native American Agricultural Fund.