Anishinaabe Traditional Food Restoration for Local and Market Consumption

Problem

In the 1800s, 120 distinct Anishinaabe agriculture varieties grew in our territory. Many of these varieties have disappeared and many are difficult to find, some are located in the GRIN USDA seed bank , and some with individual Native people, organizations and families. “In Canada, three-quarters of all the crop varieties that existed before the 20th century are extinct. And, of the remaining quarter, only 10 percent are available commercially from Canadian seed companies (the remainder are held by gardeners and families). Those varieties were the basis for not only our own foods but also the basis for a premium market to the non-native people. . As Mary Winyerd would write in her book, North Country, “Dakota and Ojibwe women were deep into commercial enterprise.... They ...peddled sugar, wild rice, pumpkins, corn, squash and other agricultural products to the traders and the military. With virtually no food produced for the market by whites in Minnesota country in the l840s, and fresh produce in high demand, Native women entrepreneurs, could set premium price on their small surplus harvests.....” Like many Indigenous peoples, our wealth was the source of our poverty; our lands taken, the prairies , cut, plowed into farm land There are many traditional foods the American Indian no long have. In particular the Ojibwa have lost access to a variety of foods do to the establishment of Reservation lifestyle. The displacement of Tribal people from our their traditional growing areas and the restriction placed on Tribal people by the Government has limited any rebuilding of this former agricultural wealth. Today, one third of our people have diabetes, largely a result of an introduced diet and forced lifestyle. And, we import eighty percent of our foods from off reservation. This is a significant drain to our tribal people.

Solution

1) To re-establish perennial and annual Indigenous varieties for consumption by our community and by gourmet Indigenous chefs on two farms- one in Mille Lacs reservation territory and one on White Earth reservation .

2) To utilize traditional agriculture and reduced petroleum agriculture processes to care for and produce these foods- including fish fertilizer, inter-cropping, horse and limited tractor equipment.

3) Over the next three years to create the basis for organic certified gourmet Indigenous crop varieties, and to determine the possibility of creating a tribal organic/fair trade certification program.

4) To have a teaching field, for the benefit of tribal school children on the White Earth reservation.

5) To create a product for gourmet Indigenous chefs in the region.

What We Will Grow:

Jerusalem Artichokes (perennial) - A’skibwan’

Heritage potato varieties - opin or bawajipin

Heritage bean varieties - mushkodiisimin

Heritage Squash varieties - na’bdwogwis’simadin Heritage flint corn varieties for hominy and flour corn, and pop corn. - mandaamin

Bergamot, Milkweed and pollinator habitat.– bibi’gwunukuk’ wabino’wuck; ini’niwunj’

Hog peanuts – bugwudj’miskodi’simin

Juneberries and Chokecherries. – guzigwa’kominaga’wunj; a’sisuwe’minaga’wunj Flowers - waabigwan

These test plots would be developed on an 80 acre parcel of land on the White Earth reservation and a 40 acre parcel near the Mille Lacs reservation.

1. Re-establish perennial and annual Indigenous varieties for consumption by our community and by gourmet Indigenous chefs on two farms- one in Mille Lacs reservation territory and one on White Earth reservation
2. Utilize traditional agriculture and reduced petroleum agriculture processes to care for and produce these foods- including fish fertilizer, inter-cropping, horse and limited tractor equipment.
3. Create the basis for organic certified gourmet Indigenous crop varieties, and to determine the possibility of creating a tribal organic/fair trade certification program.
4. Create a teaching field for the benefit of tribal school children on the White Earth reservation.
5. Create a product for gourmet Indigenous chefs in the region.