With the nation’s recognition and celebration of Native American heritage just last month, we have all sorts of reasons to think deeply about food, our history, and our shared stories and future.
So many of us in the United States have a limited understanding — or even exposure — to the history of the people who were here on our shores before so many of our shared ancestors arrived. Each contributor to this blog has shared experiences being spokespersons for Native agriculture and Native anti-hunger efforts. Each of us holds law degrees that have facilitated a greater understanding of our nation’s shared history and the rule of law that is so important to our nation’s present and future. Each of us has traveled around the country (or the globe) garnering experiences standing on people’s farms and ranches or going out on their boats, and doing our part to help them thrive as agriculture producers or fishers within their communities. Because some Native communities tend to be more isolated, it is sometimes easier for us to see the connections between food and people.
Along with knowledge gaps in our shared history, so many people in the U.S. are not aware of how prevalent agriculture is (and always has been) in Indian Country. Nearly 60 million acres of the land comprising Indian Country are involved in agriculture or food production in some way or another. Many Tribal governments have incredibly knowledgeable and active health care programs and work on the front lines of hunger and food access challenges, acutely aware of the important community-level connections between food that is grown or raised and the humans who need that food. Many Tribal governments are the backbone of economic development for their communities and the broader communities within which they live, providing a frontline perch to see how food access is critical to our shared futures.
Because of the rural and remote location of many Tribal lands, and conversely, because over half of all Native people live and work in urban settings, Indian Country can also testify to the problems associated with disconnecting food production from the people who need to be fed. Many decades ago, this important alliance between food producers and those who are hungry was created within the Farm Bill. The bonds between those who grow or raise our shared food sources and those who struggle with food access are real and should never be separated. To do so would mean disaster and a loss of attention and focus on food that the nation would struggle to recover from. We ignore each other at our peril.
Native peoples understand the importance of knowing your own history in relation to food —knowing your communities’ current engagement in food — knowing how much food comes in or goes out of your communities — and knowing that you have the power to craft your own future in food and agriculture. Without food knowledge, understanding, and a ceaseless walk toward “food sovereignty,” we tend, as human beings, to take food for granted. That is, of course, until we do not have it. Then, we will do whatever is necessary to find and provide food for our families. Food is easy to take for granted until your cupboards are bare.
Despite a rise in global hunger and an ever-increasing need for greater food yields, it is so easy for people to disparage or even demonize those who struggle with access to food, and even more so, access to healthy food. So many people come from families who live in places where there simply are not enough jobs to go around. They come from families who have no one that has been trained for the jobs that might be available; from locations where there is not a livable wage tied to any available job; from places where there are no grocery stores or food outlets that are feasible to reach; or from countless other situations demonstrating the socio-economic or geographical barriers present in Indian Country. But these examples of disconnection and distance are not unique to Indian Country — these disconnections exist around the country in remote, rural, and urban areas alike.
As we all gather with family or friends — or even just holed up with a good book and a new puppy over the holidays — we must spend some time being thankful for the food filling our plates, if we are lucky enough to have it. Further, we need to find ways to help those around us solve their food problems, through donations of time or money to those who are less fortunate than we are. For every hungry person in our midst, we weaken ourselves as families, communities, states, Tribes, and as a nation. And each of us writing this blog would argue that for every farmer, rancher, or fisher we ignore or take for granted, we also become weaker.
“Food sovereignty” is a phrase that is being thrown around quite a bit these days. Some people even say there needs to be a new “movement” about food sovereignty. But for Native people, those two words have a particularly deep meaning. When an individual, a family, a community, or a nation becomes “food challenged,” then their stability as countries, families, communities, and even as individuals is challenged. Food sovereignty can mean a lot of things, but for Native people, the lack of food sovereignty means that you, as a person, can be torn apart. When that happens, it puts us and our communities, Tribes, states, and the nation at risk. This knowledge is something that all of us, as U.S. citizens, should take a moment to understand more deeply.
The three of us all share the conviction that what we all need to do is to act — not necessarily to build a newly christened “movement” accompanied by gatekeepers deciding who among us gets to be in the movement. Rather, we all need to step up and quit taking food — and the people who grow and raise it — for granted. We collectively must decide to quit making food so complicated for people to access. We either are helping one another or we are not. It truly is that simple.
Without prioritizing food, we all lose. Without prioritizing food, those who struggle with food access are further harmed, or worse yet, left behind. Without prioritizing food, we put the people who grow and raise our food at risk. And for every person we leave behind, we weaken ourselves as a nation. Ask a Tribal government or Native community about food sovereignty, and they will tell you that food is critical to who we are as people and as communities. We must start treating food with the reverence, care, and respect it deserves and we must recommit ourselves to support those who make food available to us — farmers, ranchers, or fishers in our midst, or any of the other links in the chains that give us access to food.