Meet Porter Holder

Photo of Porter Holder and other Tribal Advisory Committee (TAC) members during a 2024 TAC Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Meeting in the stone halls of the USDA building, not far from the Capitol, the USDA Tribal Advisory Committee (TAC) met for its inaugural event in May 2025. TAC was formed from a provision in the 2018 Farm Bill and provides advice and guidance on Tribal and Indian

affairs to the Secretary of Agriculture and Congress.

This committee plays a crucial role in ensuring that the voices of Indian Country are heard at the highest levels of government.

“There’s only so much that we can ever consider to be a permanent fix. We need to always be monitoring,” said Kelsey Scott, IAC Chief Strategy Officer and a committee member on TAC. “So, having an advisory body that is specifically expected to be able to

communicate about on-the-ground impact and utilization of programs or barriers to programs will be really meaningful to continuing to advance our efforts as an organization.”

TAC is charged with helping to inform solutions-oriented recommendations that advance USDA programs to better support Tribal producers and Tribes in stewarding their lands.

According to Porter Holder, a rancher from Oklahoma and a plaintiff in the Keepseagle vs Vilsack case, “It’s a very powerful committee that Native farmers and ranchers out there need to know about— they are an express lane to get changes done at USDA.”

Throughout 2025, TAC held four public meetings to seek input from federal partners, stakeholders, agricultural producers and others. Two of the four public meetings were held virtually, and two were in-person, one in Washington, D.C. and one in Las Vegas, coinciding with the IAC Annual Conference.

In 2026, the USDA reopened nominations to fill three Secretarial appointments to the committee, with the nomination window closing on March 31, 2026, though no new appointments have been publicly announced. As TAC enters its second full year of work, many Tribal leaders and producers view the committee as both a pathway for policy reform and a lasting mechanism for Tribal voices to help shape the future of agriculture and conservation at the national level.