Watercress

Raspberries

Mint

Yum yum, dandelion greens

Oregano

Melissa officinalis, lemon balm

just found this: https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/conservation-reserve-program/

Floating gardens

E102: Lyla June on Returning to Native American Agricultural Traditions

12/15/20 by Hosted by Kelly Brownell

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/117084628
Episode: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/leading-voices-in-food/Lyla-June-Returning_to_Native_American_Agricultural_Foodways.mp3?dest-id=860036

https://leading-voices-in-food.libsyn.com/e102-lyla-june-on-returning-to-native-american-agricultural-traditions

What if we cultivated our environment instead of intensive crop planting and animal farming, and in turn created an abundance of food to meet our needs? Is this what First Nations people did here in the Americas? This concept is the focus of doctoral research of today's guest, Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer, Lyla June. June is an Indigenous woman of Dine (Navajo), Tsetsehestahese (Cheyenne) and European lineage. She's pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. And she's fascinated by the intersection of Indigenous food systems and Indigenous land management. Interview Summary So can you begin by explaining how you came to be passionate about food as an Indigenous woman? And tell us some about your doctoral work. Sure, so as you may know, a lot of Native people are struggling with diabetes and other food-related illnesses and are having a hard time accessing foods. And a lot of us live in what they call food deserts.

A lot of our food systems were destroyed in the process of the creation of America. Everything from decimating buffalo populations to burning down orchards and cornfields to ruining the salmon runs by putting dams in all the rivers; and destroying the beavers for the fur trade, which destroyed all the ponds which supported a lot of food systems. So our ways of life, as you can imagine, have been deeply altered, and that has its ramifications on our health. I think you can't help but be very attuned to food systems as an Indigenous person. I think what sparked my doctoral research is how tribes have, before Columbus and still do today these genius practices of taking care of the land that actually enhance the natural food-bearing capacity of the land. And what really sparked my interest in that was an elder who said to me, "Native people control enough land "to change the way the world thinks about food and water." And that really inspired me because that made me feel like, you know, even though we've lost most of our land base, it doesn't take a very large model to start a revolution in the way people think about things. So I've been going around traveling as part of my doctoral research, recently reading a ton, but a lot of times just working face-to-face with Native people and seeing the ways in which they take care of the land. That's really how I got into it. This belief that Native people could not only create thriving life for their own communities through the revitalization of our food systems—but that we could actually become leaders once again to help not just our communities, but to help the rest of the world. Although industrial agriculture seems like it's working right now, it's only a matter of time until it collapses. We are on the precipice of a very, I don't think there's any way to sugarcoat it, a very tragic famine. I think there's a way around that with our current food system. And so I would like to work with a number, dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of Indigenous peoples who are preparing for that, and ready to share our medicine and our knowledge with the world. If it's okay, I'd like to share just a few vignettes of how Indigenous peoples are exemplifying this way of working with the Earth. I'd very much like that. And what you're saying sounds very concerning and very hopeful at the same time. I feel that every day, a very strong mixture of urgency and hope all at once, and it's exciting work. And I very much feel guided by the ancestors 'cause the things I'm learning and the things I'm coming across are just way too big for coincidence. But for example, there's a group in British Columbia that I talk about very frequently called the Heiltsuk Nation. They live on a little island called Bella Bella, West Coast of Canada. And they actually have these hand-planted kelp forests that they plant along the shoreline of their islands. And at the right time of year, they go out and put this kelp, it's very fast-growing kelp. And this increases the surface area upon which the herring fish, which is a little silver fish, can lay their eggs. And so they just litter the whole place with eggs, millions and millions and millions of eggs. And that provides the basis for the salmon, the killer whales, the sea lions. The humans, of course eat it. It's a huge delicacy. You can sell it for tons of money, but they don't sell it.
https://leading-voices-in-food.libsyn.com/e102-lyla-june-on-returning-to-native-american-agricultural-traditions