Editor’s Note: The following piece is a new column by College of the Muscogee Nation Land Grant Extension Services Grant Coordinator Chris Azbell.
When I used to ask my great grandpa what he was doing under that shade tree, oftentimes he would simply say, “I am just sitting here chewing the cud.” For those of you unfamiliar with this adage, it simply means pondering or ruminating over a topic. This could be an individual thinking about a personal issue or perhaps a group of people discussing current events. It is a reference from bovines or ruminants that literally chew a “cud” as part of their digestive process. Today, I am introducing this new monthly article from the College of the Muscogee Nation Extension Program that will focus on programmatic endeavors related to food sovereignty, food security, youth development, agriculture, and expansion of traditional ecological knowledge.
Before I get ahead of myself, I need to introduce you to our new CMN Extension Program. The College of the Muscogee Nation is a 1994 Land Grant College with institutional requirements to focus on Education, Research, and Extension. This may sound familiar because we have two other land grant colleges in Oklahoma – Langston as a HBCU authorized under the Morrill Act of 1890 and Oklahoma State University under the Morrill Act of 1862. Interestingly, we are the only state in the union with three Land Grant institutions.
For us, our new CMN Extension Program is funded under a National Institute of Food and Agriculture capacity grant for Tribal College Extension Programs. We started organizing a few months ago and are currently in the middle of the strategic planning process that will eventually produce a five-year strategic plan. With that said, our program is your program. We are developing CMN Extension in a way that will focus on customer service, reconnecting citizens to the land, nutrition enhancement, and cultural perpetuation.
Each month, I will provide an update on agricultural happenings as well as lay out opportunities for you to get involved. Everyone has different interests and we want to give you opportunities to tap into your own creativity. Are you interested in bee keeping? Raised-bed gardening? Canning? Sewing? Gathering of wild onions? These are just a few of the programs that are on the horizon for Mvskoke citizens. If you are interested in any of these items or have ideas on how our new Extension Program can make a positive impact, please reach out to me at extension@cmn.edu. We are just getting started, so stay tuned with “Chewing the Cud with CMN Extension.”
