Indigenous agriculture brings together Indigenous knowledges, practices, and cosmologies in food production. Climate change is heralding major changes and challenges to all types of agricultural practices, including Indigenous farming. In response, the NCAR Crop/Community Land Model is being developed to help begin answering questions about changes in food, energy, and water resources in response to changes in climate, environmental conditions, and land use within the Community Earth System Model framework. 

This research project will place Indigenous agriculturalists and developers of the NCAR Crop model in conversation to grow collaborations that may lead to improvements to the model as well as improved usability of the model among Indigenous agriculturalists. The project does not involve sharing any specific Indigenous knowledges or practices but focuses instead on conversations about priorities and key issues for Indigenous agriculturalists and how climate models can be useful. 

The best practices of the CARE and FAIR Indigenous data governance principles will be incorporated into the Growing Collaborations project and will serve as a demonstration project for the conversations happening in connection with the partner Indigenous Data Sovereignty project

The outcome of the two-year project will be a conceptual framework for engaging Indigenous knowledges and climate change modeling, specifically in the context of Indigenous agriculture and the NCAR Crop model and following the best practices for Indigenous data governance.