Resource Guide for Supporting Indigenous Food Sovereignty

Guide
Written By Hannah Fuller
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Several months ago we put together a collection of resources that we called the Resource Guide for Anti-Racism Food Systems Work.This guide is a living document of resources aimed toward dismantling white supremacy in the food system and promoting food justice and food sovereignty. As we were putting those resources together, we also reflected on the unique position of the American Indian Tribal Nations and their descendants in the United States, and the urgent need to highlight and uplift the voices of Indigenous led organizations working towards food sovereignty as well. Indigenous communities are leading the way to tribal sovereignty, food sovereignty, and the cultivation of traditional foodways—the cultural, social, and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food. There is so much to learn about the history of Indigenous food gathering, cultivation, and traditions, and so many ways for us to support these efforts. 

We hope you’ll use this collection of resources as a starting point for learning about Indigenous food and tribal sovereignty, and engage deeply with organizations in your local area and the land where you reside. This is a living document, and we hope that you will continue to send us resources to add over time. 

Books & Movies: 

  • Gather Film: Gather is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide. 

  • Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health, by Devon A. Mihesuah (Editor), Elizabeth Hoover (Editor), Winona LaDuke (Foreword) 
    “Centuries of colonization and other factors have disrupted indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food systems. This volume explores the meaning and importance of food sovereignty for Native peoples in the United States, and asks whether and how it might be achieved and sustained. Unprecedented in its focus and scope, this collection addresses nearly every aspect of indigenous food sovereignty, from revitalizing ancestral gardens and traditional ways of hunting, gathering, and seed saving to the difficult realities of racism, treaty abrogation, tribal sociopolitical factionalism, and the entrenched beliefs that processed foods are superior to traditional tribal fare. The contributors include scholar-activists in the fields of ethnobotany, history, anthropology, nutrition, insect ecology, biology, marine environmentalism, and federal Indian law, as well as indigenous seed savers and keepers, cooks, farmers, spearfishers, and community activists. After identifying the challenges involved in revitalizing and maintaining traditional food systems, these writers offer advice and encouragement to those concerned about tribal health, environmental destruction, loss of species habitat, and governmental food control.”

  • Land Justice: Re-imagining Land, Food and the Commons in the United States By Justine M. Williams and Eric Holt-Gimenez
    “Land Justice stands in contrast with so many food movement books that never question the basic premise that with a few adjustments, we can correct the excesses of the capitalist marketplace. Eric Holt-Gimenez lays out the book’s basic premise: “Racial injustice and the stark inequities in property and wealth in the US countryside aren’t just a quirk of history, but a structural feature of capitalist agriculture. This means that in order to succeed in building an alternative agrarian future, today’s social movements will have to dismantle those structures. It is the relationships in the food system, and how we govern them, that really matter.”

  • Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
    “Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.” 
    Grounded Grub side-note: This is Hannah’s favorite book of all time! Can’t recommend enough!

Organizations to support

Much of this list was compiled (organizations and accompanying descriptions) by FoodTank. In this collection of resources we decided to focus on American Indian organizations, but we hope you will explore their list and other organizations working on issues of food sovereignty around the globe.  

  • Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance
    “Advocating for and supporting all levels of food security and food sovereignty in local, tribal, regional, national and international arenas” The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA) is a 501 c3 non-profit organization that was officially incorporated in 2014 following two years of efforts to develop an organization and mission with input from hundreds of Native food producers and organizations.”

  • Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
    “The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) is an interdisciplinary, international membership-based organization, comprised of scholars working in the fields of Native American and Indigenous Studies.”

  • AgroEcology Fund
    The AgroEcology Fund (AEF) galvanizes global leaders and experts to fund biodiverse and regenerative agriculture projects worldwide. Projects funded by AEF have included Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives, agroecology training institutions, and women’s market access networks on every continent. With the support of governments and financial institutions, AEF hopes that agroecology will become the standard model for food production worldwide within thirty years.

  • Cheyenne River Youth Project
    The Cheyenne River Youth Project has served Lakota youth for more than 30 years. Its Native Food Sovereignty initiative offers public workshops on Three Sisters gardening of corn, beans, and squash. They also offer classes on Indigenous plants, gardening, and cooking. Their Winyan Tokay Win (Leading Lady) Garden serves as an outdoor classroom to reacquaint Lakota children with the earth. Their other programs use food grown in the garden for meals and snacks. 

  • Dream of Wild Health
    Dream of Wild Health runs a 10-acre farm just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their Indigenous Food Share CSA program and farmer’s market booths sell produce and value-added products grown by Native Americans. They host the Indigenous Food Network (IFN), a collective of Indigenous partners who advocate for local and regional policy changes. The IFN also hosts community food tasting events featuring prominent Indigenous chefs and education programs for children in the summer.

  • First Peoples Worldwide
    First Peoples Worldwide was founded by Cherokee social entrepreneur Rebecca Adamson to help businesses to align with First Peoples’ rights. Now a part of the University of Colorado’s Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility, First Peoples Worldwide continues to ensure that Indigenous voices are at the forefront of decision-making processes affecting their own self-determination. The organization works with businesses and institutions to assess their investments and guide them in incorporating Indigenous Peoples’ rights and interests into their business decisions.

  • Indigikitchen
    Mariah Gladstone’s Indigikitchen uses Native foods as resistance. Her cooking videos offer healthy, creative ways to eat pre-contact, Indigenous foods. The recipes abstain from highly-processed grains, dairy, and sugar, ingredients that did not become standard in diets of the Americas until European colonization. Indigikitchen hopes that its recipes inspire Indigenous cooks to connect with Native foods.

  • Indigenous Food Systems Network
    The Indigenous Food Systems Network (IFSN) is a convener of Indigenous food producers, researchers, and policymakers across the 98 Indigenous nations of Canada. IFSN supports research, policy reform, and direct action that builds food sovereignty in Indigenous communities. The organization’s Indigenous Food Sovereignty email listserv offers its subscribers everything from stories and legends to recipes and policy reform tools.

  • Intertribal Agriculture Council
    The American Indian Food Program by the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) helps Native American and Alaskan Native agribusinesses and food entrepreneurs expand their market reach. The Made/Produced by American Indians Trademark promoted by the IAC identifies certified American Indian products and is used by over 500 businesses. IAC’s other major American Indian Food Program, Native Food Connection, helps market Native American foods and food producers across the United States. IAC also offers technical and natural resource assistance to connect Native businesses with U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and conservation stewardship resources.

  • Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska
    Through its Alaskan Inuit Food Sovereignty Initiative, the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska is convening Inuit community leaders from across Alaska. The Initiative seeks to unify Inuit throughout the state to advocate for land and wildlife management sovereignty. The Initiative also strives for international cooperation to promote food sovereignty across Inuit Nunaat.

  • Native American Agriculture Fund
    The Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF) is the largest philanthropic supporter of Native American agriculture offering grants to Tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions. In 2020, NAAF offered US$1 million in grant funds specifically for youth initiatives and young farmers and ranchers. NAAF is also centralizing COVID-19 relief information for Native farmers, ranchers, fishers, and Tribal governments.

  • Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance
    The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA) brings together Indigenous farmers, wild-crafters, fishers, hunters, ranchers, and eaters in the fight to restore Indigenous food systems and self-determination. NAFSA’s primary initiatives center around the reclamation of Indigenous seeds and food: the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network, the Food and Culinary Mentorship Program, and their Native Food Sovereignty Events. 

  • Native Seed/SEARCH
    Native Seed/SEARCH preserves and proliferates indigenous seeds through their Native Access programs. Their Native American Seed Request program offers free seed packets to Native Americans living in or originating from the Greater Southwestern Region. The Bulk Seed Exchange allows growers to pay it forward by returning 1.5 times the seeds they receive to be put towards future Native American Seed Request packs. While Native Seed/SEARCH sells an assortment of popular seeds to the general public, its collection of indigenous seeds are only available to Native farmers and families. 

  • Navajo Ethno-Agriculture
    Navajo Ethno-Agriculture works to sustain Navajo culture through traditional farming lessons. Their seasonal courses focus on land, water, and food as students cultivate, harvest, and prepare heritage crops. During COVID-19, Navajo Ethno-Agriculture suspended teaching and focused on supplying neighboring farms with heritage seeds and farm equipment and offering food processing and packaging services to protect and rejuvenate soil.

  • North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems 
    Founded by the chefs of The Sioux Chef, North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems is reimagining the North American food system as a generator of wealth and good health for Native communities. The organization seeks to reverse the effects of forced assimilation and colonization through food entrepreneurship and a reclamation of ancestral education. They are establishing an Indigenous Food Lab in Minneapolis as a training center and restaurant for Native chefs and food, with plans to eventually spread this model across North America.

  • Oyate Teca Project 
    In response to dire food access on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, the Oyate Teca Project offers year-long classes in gardening, food entrepreneurship, and traditional food preservation techniques. Oyate Teca supports local food availability in the community by selling produce from their half-acre garden at farmers markets. 

  • Sierra Seeds
    Rowan White and her organization, Sierra Seeds, are dedicated to the next generation of farmers, gardeners, and food justice activists. Her flagship program, Seed Seva, offers a multi-layered education on seed stewardship and Indigenous permaculture, offered online—making her wisdom available for all of us! Additionally, Sierra Seeds has the leadership incubator, Seeding Change, where emerging food justice leaders meet virtually to support one another while developing individual projects.

  • Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation
    “The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (CDC) is a grassroots Lakota organization building food sovereignty on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota. Their reservation-wide Food Sovereignty Coalition is dedicated to reconstructing a healthy local food system. They have greatly increased food production on the reservation and train residents and students on Oglala food histories, current local foods, gardening, and food preservation.”

  • Zuni Youth Enrichment Project 
    “Our mission is to promote resilience among Zuni youth, so that they will grow into strong and healthy adults who are connected with Zuni traditions. We pursue our mission by offering empowering and enriching activities that encourage youth to grow into strong and healthy adults who are connected with Zuni traditions. We believe that every child should be able to reach his or her full potential.”

  • Indigenous Environmental Network 
    “Established in 1990, IEN was formed by grassroots Indigenous peoples and individuals to address environmental and economic justice issues (EJ). IEN’s activities include building the capacity of Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities. IEN accomplishes this by maintaining an informational clearinghouse, organizing campaigns, direct actions and public awareness, building the capacity of community and tribes to address EJ issues, development of initiatives to impact policy, and building alliances among Indigenous communities, tribes, inter-tribal and Indigenous organizations, people-of-color/ethnic organizations, faith-based and women groups, youth, labor, environmental organizations and others.”

  • First Nations 
    First Nations Development institute focuses on increasing the accessibility of nutritious foods for Native American children and families by supporting tribes and Native communities in their efforts to develop sustainable food systems that improve health, establish food security, and strengthen their control over Native agricultural systems. This support is provided through financial and technical means to active projects addressing agriculture and food systems in Native communities.



Media Articles

“The thing is, we do not need the poisonous “pilgrims and Indians” narrative. We do not need that illusion of past unity to actually unite people today. Instead, we can focus simply on values that apply to everybody: togetherness, generosity and gratitude. And we can make the day about what everybody wants to talk and think about anyway: the food. People may not realize it, but what every person in this country shares, and the very history of this nation, has been in front of us the whole time. Most of our Thanksgiving recipes are made with indigenous foods: turkey, corn, beans, pumpkins, maple, wild rice and the like. We should embrace this.” 
— The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell Is a Harmful Lie. As a Native American, I’ve Found a Better Way to Celebrate the Holiday by Sean Sherman

“To this day, Native American food remains one of the most undervalued and underrepresented genres in America’s culinary landscape despite being--quite literally--the country's first cuisine. If you were to ask the average American to describe its flavors and ingredients, most wouldn't know where to start. But with the shift in focus to health and natural foods, chefs from coast to coast are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of indigenous culture and its roots—not only to the story of American cuisine but to the well-being of the country as a whole.”
— An Interview with Native American Chef Brian Yazzie

Podcasts

  • All My Relations
    Photographer Matika Wilbur, who is Swinomish and Tulalip, and academic Adrienne Keene, from the Cherokee Nation, discuss what it means to be Indigenous in 2019, from the POV of two American Indigenous feminists. Recording from the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington, they invite a roster of super-smart and relatable experts to join them on topics like native mascots, Indigenous food and feeding the spirit, sexuality, and whether DNA test results should be linked to identity.

  • New Fire
    Indigenous youth are at the forefront of Lisa Charleyboy’s podcast, where she gets frank on topics about music, identity and sex. Each episode, she moderates the conversation with a different group of millennials.

  • The Henceforward
    Mutually respectful conversations about the relationship between Indigenous and Black people in Canada, touching on topics like reparations, Black Lives Matter, reconciliation, and gentrification.

  • Red Man Laughing
    Hosted, created and produced by Anishinaabe comedian Ryan McMahon. Ryan’s storytelling comedy style is fast paced, loose & irreverent as he explores the good, the bad & the ugly between Indian Country & the mainstream on RML. RML dedicated its fifth season entirely to the theme of reconciliation, with conversations about the land, youth, education, the Indian Act, and more. Many episodes contain interviews with notable Indigenous personalities, and generally hilarious rants from Ryan.

Actions to take: 

Sources for Additional Resources: 

Social Media Accounts to Follow:

  • @seedingsovereignty

  • @foodsovereignty

  • @indigenousrising

  • @indigenouspeoplesmovement

  • @redhouseseries

  • @_illuminatives

  • @ndncollective

  • @indigenousclimateaction

  • @iiycfamily

  • @indigenousfoodlab

  • @natifs_org

  • @the_sioux_chef

  • @nativefoodalliance

  • @indigenousfoodsovereignty_pdx

  • @sakarifarm

  • @sylvanaquafarms

  • @north_circle_seeds




Hannah Fuller
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