Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Keepers of the Seeds
Winona LaDuke: How Native farmers and gardeners are working to preserve their 
agricultural heritage.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/winona-laduke-keepers-of-the-seeds

For 14 years, Caroline Chartrand, a Metis woman who recently traveled from 
Winnipeg, Canada, to the 8th annual Great Lakes Indigenous Farming 
Conference, has been looking for the heritage seeds of her people. It is 
believed that in the 1800s, the Metis grew some 120 distinct seed varieties 
in the Red River area of Canada. Of those, Caroline says, “We ended up 
finding about 20 so far.”

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). Over 64 percent of the commercially held seeds 
are offered by only one company; if those varieties are dropped, the seeds 
may be lost.

That’s the reason Caroline and about 100 other indigenous farmers and 
gardeners—along with students and community members—gathered in March on the 
White Earth reservation in Northern Minnesota to share knowledge, stories, 
and, of course, seeds.

A recent article by a prominent Canadian writer suggested that agriculture in 
Canada began with the arrival of Europeans. Caroline had to ask her, “What 
about all that agriculture before then?” Caroline is a committed grower in 
the effort to recover northern Ojibwe corn varieties that once grew l00 miles 
north of Winnipeg—the northernmost known corn crop in the world. “That’s some 
adaptable corn,” said one of the conference participants said. “And,” added 
Betsy McDougall of Turtle Mountain, “We Ojibwes, Metis, and Crees must have 
been really good farmers.”

Indigenous farmers from the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska shared their 
struggles with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) encroaching on their 
fields, threatening to alter and potentially sterilize open-pollinated corn. 
While native corn varieties are richer in protein and much more resilient to 
climate change, they are not immune to GMO contamination. The advice shared 
amongst farmers was to eat from the edges and save seed from the middle, 
where corn is least likely to be affected by cross-pollination.
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Stories that Light Up the DarkStories that Light Up the Dark
The experiences of our ancestors offer us wisdom for surviving today's crises.
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Despite the challenges, native farmers are having success in preserving the 
resilient crops that sustained their ancestors.

“Those seeds are the old ways. They gave our ancestors life for all those 
years,” said Frank Alegria, Sr. The son of migrant farm workers, Frank has 
been gardening since he could walk and farming on the Menominee reservation 
in Wisconsin since he was sixteen. Now an elder, he continues to grow native 
varieties, including an 850-year-old squash variety found in an 
archaeological dig near the Wisconsin border.

Deb Echohawk told the story of the sacred corn seeds of the Pawnee. By 
combining efforts with the descendants of settlers who live in the 
traditional Pawnee homelands in Nebraska, the Pawnee are recovering varieties 
thought to be lost forever. Deb and others have been formally recognized as 
keepers of the seeds.

John Torgrimson, executive director of Seed Savers Exchange, the nation’s 
largest non-governmental seed bank, talked about the organization’s humble 
beginning as a campout by a small group of committed individuals in Decorah, 
Iowa. More than 35 years later, they now preserve and grow out over 25,000 
varieties of unique vegetables, fruits, grasses, and even a heritage cow 
breed at their 890 acre Heritage Farm.

Likewise, the White Earth Land Recovery Project, together with North Dakota 
State University, is working with a number of tribal members and local 
farmers to grow out five or six corn varieties adapted for the region, 
including white, pink, and black varieties. One farmer chuckled as he 
mentioned seeing animals strut past the more abundant GMO corn to feast on 
the native variety.

One of the outcomes of the conference was a working group that will plan a 
regional seed library. At the table were tribal members from White Earth, Red 
Lake, Leech Lake, Bad River, Menominee, Standing Rock Lakota, the Winnebago 
of Nebraska, and other reservations, as well as the Pawnee tribe’s keeper of 
seeds and the executive directors of Seed Savers Exchange and Seeds of 
Diversity (Canada). Many others joined the discussion, including a Midwest 
coordinator for USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education 
Program, local allied growers, representatives from University of Minnesota, 
and various tribal colleges.
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Winona LaDukeWinona LaDuke wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, 
nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical 
actions. A contributing editor to YES! Magazine, Winona is an author and 
activist who writes extensively on native and environmental issues. Her most 
recent book is Recovering the Sacred. She is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) 
enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on 
the White Earth Reservations.