The largest public health crisis in a century, widespread uprising for social justice, devastating wildfires, and massive political upheaval. These are among the events that have defined the long, exhausting year from which we have just emerged, with intensifying hunger and food insecurity at the forefront. Thus far, the brand new year has only highlighted the divisiveness at the heart of so much that is wrong with our country.

But there are reasons to be hopeful, including the vaccines that could bring an end to the pandemic along with the ushering in of a new, more inclusive presidential administration. In that spirit, a few of Stone Pier Press’s News Fellows sat down with a sampling of the leaders fighting to create a more equitable and just food system. From indigenous activists striving for tribal food sovereignty to an organization returning farmland to the communities where it belongs, these are the people who are rewriting the story of food. We hope they leave you feeling as inspired as they did us. ~Jared Kent

A plan for seven generations of food sovereignty

Matthew Wilson is a chef and the director of the Sicangu Food Sovereignty Initiative (SFSI), one of four initiatives under the Sicangu Community Development Corporation (SCDC) on the Rosebud Lakota Indian Reservation in Mission, South Dakota. Over the past year, the SFSI put together the 7Gen Food System Vision, a comprehensive plan to achieve food sovereignty on the reservation by 2050, and set up the next seven generations of Sicangu people for a prosperous future. The 7Gen Food System Vision was recently awarded The Rockefeller Foundation’s Food System Vision Prize of $200,000, which drew applications from more than 1,300 organizations across the world.

In the great plains of central South Dakota, there is an area nearly twice the size of Rhode Island that is home to the Rosebud Indian Reservation, the land of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate people. Among the many challenges facing the Rosebud reservation is an estimated 83 percent unemployment rate, high rates of diet-related illnesses, and a scarcity of access to nutritional foods. Just three grocery stores service the entire reservation.

The Sicangu Food Sovereignty Initiative (SFSI), led by director Matthew Wilson, is seeking to address these challenges through the 7Gen Food System Vision, which lays out an ambitious range of goals to help the tribe achieve total food sovereignty by 2050, among them setting up a year round farmer’s market and teaching children how to grow food in schools. Wilson dreams of a day when Sicangu chefs like him can be featured cooking the food of their ancestors at a thriving annual Lakota food summit, and leave behind the present reality of food shortages and insecurity. 

Wilson knows that achieving these goals will be an uphill battle. For many on the reservation, the struggles around food are so deeply embedded that it’s hard to even imagine a better food system. “The whole concept of food sovereignty is something we’re still trying to get across to our community,” says Wilson. But the 7Gen Vision has strategies to meet these difficulties and bring the vision of a better food system to fruition. 

Much of the vision is centered around supporting the younger members of the tribe. Wilson talks about how he never had fresh vegetables until he was a teenager and was amazed by the salad bar in his high school cafeteria. He wants better for today’s kids. That’s why key components of the 7Gen Vision are educational opportunities like food entrepreneurial classes, farming internships, courses reconnecting community members with their tribal identity, and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, which aims to grow at least 19 independent tribal food producers within the next two years.

By cultivating these food leaders, the tribe can help incentivize local markets to produce and sell healthy, sustainable food, increase food access for all, and reduce the 57 percent of farms on the reservation that receive subsidies to grow commodity crops rather than healthier, more diverse crops, like vegetables.

Another crucial aspect of the plan is the Wolakota Buffalo Project, a program that will stock a 28,000 acre-range in the southeast corner of the reservation with the largest native-managed buffalo herd in the world. This project will not only help provide the tribe with sustainable, local buffalo meat, but rely on regenerative grazing methods that strengthen the soil to better withstand the flooding and droughts brought on by climate change.

To address issues of food insecurity, the SFSI is using greenhouses and hoop houses to grow food year-round. It’s also pushing for policies that give subsidies to local growers so community members can buy healthy foods and break their dependence on federal food programs like SNAP. “In order to be a sovereign nation, you have to be able to grow your own food,” says Wilson.

The tribe is also hopeful its initiatives might get support from a new presidential administration that values indigenous food sovereignty. A number of tribal members participated in discussions with the Biden transition team and the community was elated by the nomination of New Mexico representative Deb Haaland for Secretary of Interior, the first native American ever nominated to a cabinet position.

Many of the plans laid out in the 7Gen vision, such as farming internships, growing food in greenhouses, and the establishment of the Lakota Harvest market, (the third largest farmer’s market in South Dakota) are already underway. With the grant secured from the Rockefeller foundation, the SFSI can continue to build momentum and work towards a better food system.

Trying to build a sovereign, regenerative food system in one of the most historically marginalized communities in America is a momentous task. But by living the native American principle of always thinking about the next seven generations, Wilson and the Sicangu people hope to provide a blueprint for what the future can and must look like.

The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of our food system more starkly than ever, and Wilson believes that this time is an opportunity to turn to indigenous leaders for guidance in how to rethink our relationship with food. “The time for food sovereignty is now,” he says. ~Jared Kent

To learn more about the Sicangu Food Sovereignty Initiative, visit sicangucdc.org and visit the 7Gen Food System to read the entire vision plan.

a new way to make farmland available to new farmers

The Agrarian Trust is a nonprofit that supports expanding land access for the next generation of farmers. In May 2020 the Trust launched its Agrarian Commons, a network of community-level subsidiaries that hold farmland in perpetuity and offer it to farmers through affordable and equitable leases for the purpose of “chemical-free, regenerative, and ecologically sustainable” agriculture. Each Agrarian Commons transfers local farmland into the hands of the community and farmers who tend it. Currently, the Trust oversees 12 Agrarian Commons in 10 states. Ian McSweeney is its Organizational Director.

Over the next 20 years, 400 million acres of farmland are expected to be put on the market. However, for the countless young farmers dreaming of cultivating a more sustainable food system, much of this land will remain out of reach for one simple reason: it’s too expensive. In fact, the value farmers can expect to earn from their land today is significantly less than what the land would sell for.

The cost of land is the number one barrier to farmers looking to get started or sustain their business, according to Ian McSweeney of the Agrarian Trust. “We need affordability,” he says. “We need equity. We need secure tenure on that land. Simply making land available does not achieve the results we need.”

The core mission of the Agrarian Trust is to support land access for the next generation of farmers, and it is accomplishing this by using a unique, yet centuries- old approach that involves placing land in community ownership. Through the newly established Agrarian Commons, which is currently made up of 12 subsidiaries, farmers can secure equitable and affordable leases while the community benefits from healthy, local agriculture. In exchange, farmers must agree to adopt “chemical-free, regenerative, and ecologically sustainable” agriculture.

The Agrarian Commons share similarities with conventional land trusts but there are key differences, including requiring farmers to be part of the governing structure. “[Land trusts] are dealing with ownership at the time of a transaction, but not ownership long term,” McSweeney explains. “So, it doesn't change who owns it, who has access to it, or how equity is determined on the land.” Agrarian Commons centers on affordability, ownership, and requires that one third of each board consists of lease holders.

The Trust’s model has already been adopted in 10 states where it’s proving to be a valuable resource in underserved areas. “Being purposeful around where we work and who we work with is important to us,” McSweeney says. He cites an example from Maine where a Somali Bantu community had been struggling to achieve land security. With the land it has obtained through the Commons, the community was able to create Liberation Farms, a farming program focused on supporting land access for new Americans.

“[The Agrarian Commons] is one path of many that should be made available to address the primary issues of land tenure, land access, and land justice,” says McSweeney, who is based in New Hampshire. Along with the rest of the Agrarian Trust, he hopes to turn the Commons into a self-sustaining model that other organizations can follow. Currently, it’s working with Vermont Law School to finalize a toolkit that would help guide similar projects.

Although the Agrarian Trust doesn’t engage in advocacy, McSweeney hopes the model will help support policy in the future. “We're at a point now where many people, including the USDA, are stating their value for land-based justice and human equity,” he says. “And yet if the programs are not funding ownership, tenure and equity, they’re built on an unjust foundation.” 

Over the next five years, McSweeney hopes that the 12 existing Commons will become fully established and self-sustaining entities. “The more that we can transform the structure of how equity is held, the better,” he says. “And that's really our long-term goal: to manifest new ways of connecting to land.” ~Emily Anderson

To learn more about the Agrarian Trust and Agrarian Commons, visit their websites or check their FAQ page. You can get involved by signing up for its newsletter and donating. Currently, it’s fundraising to buy an 82-acre Whitlock Farm in West Virginia.

Bringing Native food back with the White Earth Land Recovery Project

The White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota is home to the Ojibwe people, a Native American group within the Anishinaabe Nation. Inside the reservation is the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP), an organization created to serve the Ojibwe community by providing healthy food, teaching members how to grow their own produce, and preserving the Ojibwe culture and land. 

When I sat down with Maggie Rousu, the executive director of WELRP, she was in the midst of distributing more than 120 meal baskets to reservation families in need. Throughout the pandemic, the organization has gone into overdrive, addressing heightened food insecurity. “That’s one of our major things here, is making sure our families are well,” she says. “Wellness is huge, and part of that comes with food.”

The White Earth Reservation is considered a food desert, a region that has few or no grocery stores. This severely limits its inhabitants’ access to fresh, healthy food. The main grocery store on the reservation is locally owned, expensive, and located about a half hour’s drive away from the center of the reservation—not exactly convenient for a large part of the population. Not everyone can make this trip, or even afford it when they get there. The only other alternative is Wal-Mart, a whopping forty-five minutes away, off the reservation. Because of this, many people rely on convenience store food and USDA commodities, which are a far cry from the healthy diet the Ojibwe enjoyed before colonization.

“We’ve lost our food,” Rousu says. “We were people that were nomadic. We moved with our food. So during the season that the wild rice was ripe, we were on the lake shores and river shores. During the different times a year that the berries ripen, we were within the woods where those berries grew. Then you have your wild meats. You’ve got venison, you’ve got rabbit, you’ve got turtle. And because they knew how to dry meat, they had it year round- good, lean venison. But our food has changed. So with colonization and placement on reservations, people became dependent on the US government. That dependency went to commodities.” This meant a forced change in diet to cheap, fatty, government-issued food.  

Cut to the present, in which the Ojibwe community is plagued by diabetes and heart disease, two afflictions that are both serious and food-related. “I think so many of our underlying health conditions relate right to food. The European nations had enriched flour and dairy. and they weren’t brought here until colonization, and I think our bodies still haven’t gotten to the point where we can process them properly, and that’s where you get diabetes, you get heart issues. I think sometimes even cancer.” 

Enter WELRP. Founded in 1989, the organization has three divisions: WELRP, the portion under which much of their food security projects are done, Native Harvest, a store, which sells traditional Ojibwe foods like wild rice, maple syrup, and hominy, and contributes to the general operation of WELRP, and a radio station, Niijii Radio (pronounced nee-jee). This radio station is owned by WELRP itself, independent of the Ojibwe tribe. This is unusual, since most tribal radio stations are owned by the reservation business committee, and this independence gives WELRP the freedom to “share information that’s unbiased and important to our community. We put out [announcements] about these food baskets we’re doing now, and we have never seen them fill so fast,” says Rousu.

One of WELRP’s most successful projects is White Earth Grows, in which they teach the community to grow its own food. Last year, the program distributed 21 raised bed gardens to families within the community, taught them how to plant, and how to save seeds.

“We’re working really hard on building self sustainability and self reliance,” says. Rousu. “When you give a family that ability, you’ve changed their world.” Not only do they have the ability to grow healthy food to sustain themselves, but the food can also be used to barter. “We can trade our fresh produce for canned food that people have canned on their own, so it feeds the economy as well, and gives families the ability to set aside money to pay their regular bills.” Money that would otherwise have been spent on the unhealthy convenience store food. 

The meal kit program is also very successful, and provides a connection to the traditional Ojibwe diet. WELRP has its own farm, which provides much of the food that goes into the kits, like squash and corn, but foraged foods go in as well. “We make it a priority to make sure we’re putting in our original foods, at least one in every basket. Last summer, we went out and gathered purslane, an original wild food. It’s got a really distinct taste that’s better than lettuce.” A pamphlet on the history of the food, how it was prepared, and its nutritional value is put in each meal kit as well. Wild rice, the main staple of the traditional Ojibwe diet, is frequently used. “That was the grain that almost every meal had. You ate wild rice from infancy to death.”

This crucial food staple and connection to the Ojibwe’s cultural history has been under threat recently because of an oil pipeline, much like the infamous Dakota Access Pipeline. The Line 3 Pipeline has been planned by Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company responsible for the biggest inland oil spill in America. It now wants to build a new pipeline corridor straight through the wild wetlands on the reservation, land promised by treaty to the Anishinaabe peoples, and also where the Ojibwe’s wild rice grows.

“We’re working on pushing it into the Court of Appeals to try and stop it,” Rousu says. “We have water protectors, women warriors out there doing a good job. They’ve got wigwams built. We’ve got sweat lodges built. That’s a spiritual act, a spiritual ceremony that we take part in. But all the permits were granted.” 

Why this staggering injustice is not all over the media eludes me, but the Ojibwe are fighting for their food and their culture. Honor the Earth, a partner of WELRP, is on the front lines of this fight, supporting people in the field and working to legally push back.

But right now, Rousu is hopeful. “Every grow-year, we have a ton of people coming in saying ‘we want to plant a garden, can you help?’ We tilled about 30 gardens last year, and this year we’re looking to do 35. That might not seem like a lot. But when you look at our rural, remote area we live in, that’s a lot of gardens.” There is also a volunteer program to help with this work through Xperitas, planting orchards in communities across the reservation.

“I just love what I’m doing,” says Rousu. “I watch the benefits that the community reaps and I watch people evolve. I watch them go back to these original foods and find out that we can be okay without having to go to Walmart. It gives me a sense of satisfaction that I’ve never felt in any other job.” ~Ariana Lipsman

To learn more about WELRP and how to donate or get involved, visit WELRP.org. To help in their fight against the Line 3 Pipeline, visit their sister organization, Honor the Earth, to donate or volunteer.

Jared Kent, Emily Anderson, and Ariana Lipsman were Stone Pier Press News Fellows in Fall 2020.

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