Abstract: Colleges and Universities including tribal colleges want to increase the graduation rates and research knowledge of Native American students. Staff from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) will present about two grant programs- the New Beginning for Tribal Students (NBTS) program and the Tribal College Research Grant Program. The NBTS program is intended to increase the retention, graduation, and success rates of Tribal students. In the fiscal year of 2020, 558 students were supported by the NBTS program. Of these 167 students have graduated; the remaining are still in college. The goal of the Tribal College Research Grant Program is to increase students’ knowledge of research. In our presentation, we will discuss about these two programs, the impacts, and outcomes of the funded projects at the 1994 institutions. Additionally, NIFA will present on programs from the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)- Foundational and Applied Science program. The main goals of the AFRI programs are to focus on fundamental and applied sciences that are important to future ecological aspects in agriculture. NIFA’s portfolio of research and student experience programs in environmental science include projects on indigenous traditional ecological knowledge. Through all these programs NIFA has supported culturally relevant ecological projects for tribal students and institutions.
