Sustainable Communities

Sustainable Communties - Maple Syrup, Strawberries, Raspberries, Heritage Turkey, Wild Rice Processing, and Community Gardening

Winona LaDuke, WELRP Founding Director and Ron Chilton, Sustainable Communties Director (Maple Syrup Harvest 2004)

WELRP’s Sustainable Communities Initiative reflects our mandate to protect the land, which we inherited from our ancestors. This Initiative is about the process of sorting our what is good value from both Anishinaabeg and European society, and restoring our community from this foundation. Ours is both conceptual and on the ground. It is about advocacy, education, and developing the sustainable alternative; Mino bimatisiiwin, the good life.

Traditional Agriculture Restoration

The Creator has given us many gifts, which at the center of these gifts is food, which sustains our bodies and our spirits. Over the past one hundred years, our people have suffered from loss of these foods, and while we continue to garden, hunt, trap, fish, and harvest wild rice, traditional food production has dropped dramatically. In its place we have industrialized food production, at the bottom of which is food for the poor people. Indigenous agriculture has declined sharply, resulting in massive loss of local seed stocks to Native communities – communities from which much of the world’s food stocks originated (i.e. corn, beans, squash, potatoes and tomatoes). From 1981 to 1994 alone, some 84% of all non-hybrid vegetable varieties in the country have been lost.

Our work in our traditional farming program is about the process of restoring our traditional agriculture and nutrition systems. The White Earth Land Recovery Project is one of the largest Anishinaabeg food producers on the continent, producing both for sale (Native Harvest) and for local consumption (Mino-Miijim) for the purpose of addressing health and poverty related issues with regards to access to traditional Indigenous foods. We provide food for l80 elderly diabetic families on the reservation, both from our stocks, and from leveraging food nationally; and we now are working with approximately 80 families to grow more food locally.

The White Earth Land Recovery Project is committed to the bio-diversity of the Anishinaabeg agriculture and recognize that restoring varieties of corn, beans and squash will insure diversity. We began by growing out an Oneida white flint corn, and now have moved to a Bear Island Flint corn. We are growing out these corn varieties on land we both hold as a project, and with the assistance of local farmers on the reservation. We are hoping to not only save these endangered species, but also within the next decade restore the agricultural diversity and wealth of our community with heirloom varieties. These varieties both offer superior nutritional qualities, and, with our partnership with Slow Food, will be highly valuable in our value-added work at Native Harvest.

In 2003 and 2004, we expanded our food related work significantly, convening Indigenous farmers from the northern and central part of the continent to discuss and strategize on models of traditional food system restoration, traditional seed sharing and saving, and strategies for tribal agricultural systems. This work was joined with an initiative at working with non-Indian farmers in the region. In 2004, we hosted the national Family Farm Defenders Conference and were able to allow non-Native farmers in northern Minnesota to be exposed to international farming issues ranging from those faced by Percy Schmeiser (who attended our conference) and has been sued by Monsanto for theft of patented GMO canola seed, to agricultural/economic issues presented by luminaries like John Eckerd and the Land Institute. This work is a part of a larger strategy to transform agriculture in northwestern Minnesota and North Dakota, in which our reservation will play a key role.

Midwest Organic Farming Conference - In February 2004 and 2005, WELRP sent a delegation of staff to the Midwest Organic Growers and Producers Conference in Lacrosse WI to network, and strengthen their knowledge and skills in organic farming. Attendees from WELRP included: Ron Chilton Sustainable Communities Coordinator, Pat Wichern Sustainable Communities Assistant, Justin Dimmel Vista Volunteer, (2004) Bernadette Miller Vista Volunteer, (2004) Kathy Goodwin WELRP Board Chairperson, Toni Vizenor WELRP Board member, Curtis and Darlene Ballard, tribal members, and Winona LaDuke WELRP Founding Director.

Community Education

On July 15 2004, three youth from the community set off from White Earth, and headed toward the warm deserts of New Mexico and the Pueblo Lands, to learn about Traditional Agriculture and Permaculture design. John Bruguier, Michael Bower, and Jared Keezer, accompanied by Diana King, and Sarah Alexander of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, traveled to New Mexico for a 10-day intensive course run by the Traditional Native American Farmers Association. Native Youth from all over the country came to learn about traditional agriculture, and to make, “The Old way new Again,” as Clayton Brascoupe describes it. Clayton along with Louie Hena, of Tesuque Pueblo have been running the Native American Permanent Culture Design Course for the last nine years. The course was started as an attempt to address environmental and health problems within their own community, as well as Native Communities throughout North America.

The White Earth Land Recovery project is hoping to continue to send students to this Permaculture design course, in order to develop youth leaders within the community who will be able to contribute to our work on recovering local food systems.

Maple Syrup - As the weather becomes warmer and the days become just a bit longer, the White Earth Land Recovery Project begins to prepare for the Maple Syrup season, or Iskigamizige-Giizis (Maple Sugar Moon). Each year WELRP's Sustainable Communities staff, along with numerous families from the community, come together in late February (Namebini giizis) to begin the process of tapping the maple trees. For the next two to three weeks, approximately 4000 taps are hand -tapped into selected trees in our pristine sugarbush. Once the trees are tapped, and the sun begins to turn the cool days into warm ones, we anxiously await for the first drops of sap to appear in our buckets.

Maple Syrup Harvest 2004 - We had another excellent Maple Syrup harvest in 2004, with 19,340 gallons of maple sap collected and processed into 448 finished gallons of maple syrup. With any maple syrup harvest, there is much work, and to assist us, we had some amazing volunteer groups assist us once again. Our first group of volunteers consisted of 10 young ladies from Colorado State University. While here, they experienced slippery roads, chilly weather, and spring snowstorm. Many of the comments from them consisted of how much more they appreciate the maple syrup on their pancakes; now that they know how much work it is to make it. As well we had repeat groups from Hamline and St. Thomas Universities. Each spring they look forward to assisting Ron in the sugarbush, and in the Spring of 2004, they assisted Native Harvest’s move to its new facility as well. Our maple syrup operation was completed by April 15th, with clean up ensuing for a couple of more weeks. To complete our round of volunteers, we hosted a group of high school students from Hillside-Murray out of St. Paul. They were excited to see all our wonderful projects and programs at WELRP and were able to observe a traditional Pow-wow during Indian Awareness week.

Maple Syrup Harvest 2005 - After a fairly dry winter, but wet spring, and warmer than usual, we were hoping for a bumper harvest of maple syrup. Unfortunately, the weather turned very cool during harvest time, and out of our two sugar bushes that were in operation this year, we only received 130 finished gallons of maple syrup. Once again we were blessed with help from various colleges, with approximately 40 young college students here to assist with the harvest. Instead of helping in the sugar bush, they were able to assist staff with other projects, such as building of greenhouses, assisting in local schools and numerous other projects. We are always grateful for our volunteers, regardless of what Mother Nature has in store for the maple syrup harvest.

Heritage Turkeys - Heritage Turkeys are here! The White Earth Land Recovery Project has teamed up with local organic farmers Curt and Darlene Ballard to raise varieties of traditional turkeys. Almost all of the turkeys available in grocery stores today are test tube turkeys floating in a shallow gene pool. For fifty years the improved, broad breasted bronze has been the standard. What this means, is that a turkey gets fat so quickly, it can’t even mate naturally, but must be reproduced artificially. We then baste and brine what remains of those poor birds after slaughter, but the joy of eating turkey wasn’t always in the dressing. Generations ago, raising turkeys was a serious business. As with corn, there were different turkeys in different regions, each with its own unique taste, texture and colorful feathers. This past spring, (2004) we began raising twenty Bourbon Red Turkeys, some of which will be available for order this coming winter. We are hoping to begin breeding the birds, and expanding the farming operations of these traditional turkeys.

Community Gardening - In 2004, we obtained a significant supply of traditional seed stock for production by community members and WELRP, and have generated an increased awareness of the benefits of growing and eating more traditional foods, over fast foods, or inexpensive processed foods from the store. There has been an increased interest by the Elderly Nutrition Program to provide traditional foods on their menus for the elderly. We continue to work to locate additional seed stock, as well as donations for fruit and nut tress, as the communities on the reservation have expressed interest in community orchards.

Community Gardening 2005 - Once again, with assistance from the WE RTC and local farmers, we provided garden tilling services to 200 community members. This past weekend (June 10-12) WELRP once again hosted its traditional food stand at the White Earth Pow-wow, and currently has two volunteers, and one intern working to plant and expand our Three Sisters gardens, as well as hosting various workshops on growing traditional seeds. In May, WELRP once again distributed seeds and donations of fruit and nut trees to community gardeners, with increased participation by 25% from last year.