“Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture system.” – La Vía Campesina
Food Sovereignty is a term that describes our inherent right as Native people to gather, grow, hunt, and harvest the healthy and traditional foods that our communities have always had but have been continuously stripped of. It is a framework that advocates for placing the power back into the hands of indigenous peoples and returning to us control over our own health, culture, community and environment. This also makes it a vital ingredient of Tribal Sovereignty and a really important concept for understanding food justice work in Indian Country.
That said, Food Sovereignty can sometimes use alienating terminology that puts it at risk of being lost to academic discussions and political theorizing. We must remember that the true power of Food Sovereignty comes not from the theories it supports but from the action it inspires, and so it is crucial that we ultimately define the movement with our actions more than our words; that we show others what Food Sovereignty looks like instead of describing what it is.
So, what does Food Sovereignty actually look like?
That is the question that Ndee Bikiyaa, The People’s Farm, set out to answer by holding their first annual K’edilzeehí Yídágoł’aa (Learning to Plant) Summer Camp on the White Mountain Apache Reservation this summer. The camp brought 35 middle school-aged Apache youth to the farm for a week-long celebration of Apache food traditions and an activity-filled introduction to the concept of Food Sovereignty. Though we did have a lesson in which we discussed the definition of Food Sovereignty, the ultimate goal was to provide the students with a deep-rooted understanding of what Food Sovereignty means by showing them what it looks like, what it tastes like, what it feels like.
We are very honored to have shared this experience with our youth, our Elders, and our community members, and we are very proud to share the following images with you.
This is what Food Sovereignty looks like:
Students spent lots of time in the garden, planting, weeding, harvesting, and eating the fresh, organically-grown produce.
Farmer Clayton Harvey guided the students through the farming activities, emphasizing the role that Apaches have always played as stewards of the natural world.
A new generation of Apaches learned about where their food comes from and the value of eating with the seasons. Here, students excitedly snack on fresh strawberries.
Throughout the week, students were led by our dedicated youth leaders, a group of young locals who are passionate about keeping Apache food traditions alive and thriving.
A big thank you to Native Seeds/SEARCH, a nonprofit based in Tucson, who came out to teach the kids about seed saving, heritage seed varieties, and the vital importance of seeds to tribes of the Southwest.
Cheryl Pailzote, the Director of the Tribe’s Water Resources Department, and I led a lesson on Food Sovereignty and Water Rights. Together, the students brainstormed and answered questions like “What are different ways that we can practice Food Sovereignty?” and “How can we use our water to preserve our tribal water rights?”
One of the kids’ answers to both of those questions: Farming! Historically, White Mountain Apaches were hunters, gatherers, and farmers, relying on both wild and cultivated foods each season. Fields like this one have been used by Apaches for hundreds of years and during camp, students continued this important farming tradition by re-planting this historic corn field under the guidance of Elders.
Community Elders, speaking only Apache, led the students in a blessing of the field and the planting of blue corn, beans, squash, and sugar cane.
Also essential to maintaining our Food Sovereignty: hunting and butchering our own game.
A cow butchering workshop, led by community members and Elders, helped the students to understand not only where our meat comes from but also the importance of animals in Apache stories, ceremonies, and traditional foodways.
Andrea, a local Elder, guided the women and girls through cleaning the internal organs, a job traditionally reserved for Apache women. She shared stories and explained the traditional use of each part of the cow as the girls helped to clean out the intestines.
Every part of the cow, including the hide, hooves, meat, and organs, were used or eaten. Students helped process the meat into sections, some of which was used immediately after the butchering for a lunch of beef burritos.
Twila Cassadore, an Elder from San Carlos, and Seth Pilsk, an ethnobotanist, work to revive the traditional Western Apache diet through the reclamation of wild foods. We are grateful for their generosity in sharing their knowledge with our group as they guided a wild foods gathering trip.
Students collected wild plants, like wild mustard seed and psyllium, and learned about the different uses for juniper berries. Many were amazed that the plants they usually walk by were actually food and they carefully worked to fill their bags up with seeds.
We also gathered beautiful yucca blossoms, also known as wild cabbage.
At the farm, the students worked together to process the wild foods that we brought back from our gathering trips and prep it for cooking.
After several days of experiencing farm work and related activities, the students listened to Teresa Honga from the Intertribal Agriculture Council as she spoke about the many different types of agricultural jobs that are available to them. Our goal was to not just introduce the students to agriculture but also to open their minds to the world of opportunity that exists in Native farming and beyond.
On our last day of camp, Nephi Craig, the celebrated White Mountain Apache chef, came to talk to the students about Western Apache Foodways and Ancestral Memory. He used the wild foods and produce that we had harvested throughout the week in his cooking lesson.
He also used the meat from the cow we had butchered the day before…
As well as a salmon, which was slow-roasted over cedar planks.
Using the foods that we had harvested, gathered, and butchered over the week, the students worked with Nephi and his team, the ‘Apaches in the Kitchen’ at Sunrise Park Resort, to prepare a meal for their families. Pictured here is the beef, which was slow roasted in an adobe oven and tossed with yucca blossoms, acorn, and chili flakes. (Photo credit: Nephi Craig)
In our camp’s concluding practice of Food Sovereignty, the students shared the knowledge they had collected and the food they had gathered with their loved ones.
Our food has always been at the center of our culture and at the core of our community. Pictured here: Our students, youth leaders, and their family members.
To learn more about the amazing work that Ndee Bikiyaa, The People’s Farm, is doing, please visit their website and Facebook.
Maya Harjo is Quapaw/Muscogee and grew up in Los Angeles, CA. She is currently serving with the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation where she teaches nutrition & gardening lessons at a local elementary school and collaborates with Ndee Bikiyaa to bring farm-grown produce to cafeterias and farm-based education to students. After FoodCorps, she hopes to continue working in community-based food production and garden education for Native youth.
Maya Harjo is Quapaw/Muscogee and grew up in Los Angeles, CA. She is currently serving with the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation where she teaches nutrition & gardening lessons at a local elementary school and collaborates with Ndee Bikiyaa to bring farm-grown produce to cafeterias and farm-based education to students. After FoodCorps, she hopes to continue working in community-based food production and garden education for Native youth. 