Food sovereignty has been important to tribal communities like the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, but the pandemic amplified the need for it.
“With the COVID-19, we saw a renewed interest in returning to holistic ways and traditional ways of living and being and part of that is food,” said Lori Nelson, director of agriculture and land grants at NHS College.
And in early February, the college received a two-year $100,000 grant to carry out a food sovereignty virtual education, which they did last year.
The college initiated a program last summer called “Grow Your Own” that encouraged people to start their own backyard gardens or join the college’s community garden.
“We have a lot of knowledge that our people have carried for a long time and we have this opportunity to use this funding to bring some of that forward, to preserve that, and perpetuate that and to strengthen our communities,” she said.
And the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network, a national program that is part of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, is working on a seed keeping initiative to achieve food sovereignty through their work with communities, local growers and families.
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