Tag Archives: indigenous food sovereignty

YA BUSINESS MENTORSHIP NETWORK – Amisk Farm

Posted by Melanie Buffel on December 09, 2024

Young Agrarians is celebrating the eleventh year of the Business Mentorship Network (BMN) program in BC and the third year of the program in the Prairies! The BMN offers farm business mentorship to a diverse array of new and young farmers. The mentorship is offered over the course of a year. Through one-on-one mentorship, peer networks and online workshops new farmers develop the skills necessary to operate ecologically sustainable and financially viable farm businesses. Mentee applications for the BC 2025 cohort are now closed. Mentee applications for the AB/SK/MB 2025 cohort will be accepted until the program is full. Mentees Apply … Continue reading YA BUSINESS MENTORSHIP NETWORK – Amisk Farm →

Being open to being changed: Reflections on kinSHIFT’s Elements of Truth workshop

Posted by Melanie Walker on November 27, 2024

This is a guest blog post from Melanie Walker of Many Microbes Soil Lab located on the swiya of the shíshálh people. Melanie shares her experience taking kinSHIFT’s Elements of Truth: Before Reconciliation workshops. We recommend that all farmers take this essential training! As I joined the first session of the kinSHIFT’s Elements of Truth workshop, I was open to learning. I knew it would be a process of change. I think most people who grow food appreciate change: the cycle of a growing season, the transformation from seed to fruit, and of course the many times we have to modify … Continue reading Being open to being changed: Reflections on kinSHIFT’s Elements of Truth workshop →

Discussion Paper on Indigenous Food Sovereignty by Tea Creek

Posted by Michalina Hunter on November 21, 2024

Interested in Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) in BC? This discussion paper by Tea Creek covers the agrarian heritage of First Nations, the importance of IFS and how to scale it up, and showcases 13 Indigenous food projects across the province. Supporting IFS benefits everyone by improving environmental, social, and economic outcomes, as well as fulfilling the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) and other provincial and federal government commitments. Background This discussion paper was prepared by Tea Creek, an Indigenous-led, land-based, culturally-safe Indigenous food sovereignty initiative located in Gitxsan territory near Gitwangak, between the settler communities of … Continue reading Discussion Paper on Indigenous Food Sovereignty by Tea Creek →

Touring Indigenous-Led Farms in BC

Posted by Mary Modeste on November 19, 2024

This blog post is a contribution from Mary Modeste, a participant of Tea Creek’s farming program. “My name us Mary Modeste. I had the opportunity to go up to Kitwanga, BC to experience and learn new tools at Tea Creek. As part of the program this summer, we travelled for a few days to visit several new Indigenous-led farms across the province and learn how they run. In the clip below, Dixon Terbasket of Ntamtqen Community Garden & Food Hub was showing us his gardens and explaining to us that he was in the process of building a food hub … Continue reading Touring Indigenous-Led Farms in BC →

We called it Sum-nuw

Posted by Jared Qwustenuxun Williams on July 17, 2024

There is an island in the Salish Sea that connects to another smaller Island. These two Islands are connected by two long sandy beaches that surround a lagoon that is situated directly between the islands. Not many places on our coast are more appealing for a canoe village site. There are a dozen or so soft sand landing sites all around the smaller island and even in the small lagoon. Hundreds of canoes would have once lined these beaches. Cooking fires would cover the rocky places processing an endless amount of shellfish that would grow on the sandy shoreline. There … Continue reading We called it Sum-nuw →

Treaty Land Sharing Network Launches in the Alberta Side of Treaty Six

Posted by Alex on July 12, 2024

On Saturday July 6th the Treaty Land Sharing Network (TLSN) officially expanded into the western half of Treaty Six territory — also known as central Alberta. Eighty people gathered on Brenda Bohmer’s beautiful 640 acre farm near Bawlf to welcome the TLSN into this region. The TLSN is a grassroots group of farmers, ranchers, and other landholders who have come together to begin the crucial work of honouring Treaties. In the spirit of sharing the land, members provide access for First Nations and Métis people to practice their way of life, such as hunting or gathering plants and medicines, or … Continue reading Treaty Land Sharing Network Launches in the Alberta Side of Treaty Six →

My very first sp’e’qum tu speenhw

Posted by Jared Qwustenuxun Williams on June 17, 2024

Many of us GenX/Millennials were taught in grade school that Indigenous people were basic hunter gatherers, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Speenhw* is great example of Indigenous agriculture, or permaculture, or maybe just culture. See speenhw is grown in p’hwulhp* meadows and grasslands which date back thousands of years. Dendrochronological data, basically the rings found in the p’hwulhp, show annual burning of the grasslands going back generations. Burning that made way for the speenhw to grow. Certain family members would specialize in looking after their family’s fields. By breaking apart the dirt into square mats, and rolling … Continue reading My very first sp’e’qum tu speenhw →

The Salish Apocalypse

Posted by Jared Qwustenuxun Williams on June 03, 2024

It’s hard to fully imagine what happened here, on Turtle Island when the Hwunitum* arrived. But, in order to understand the current state of Indigenous Cultures we must understand, not only where it comes from, but what it went through to survive. Any Indigenous culture that exists under colonialism has had to suffer and endure to still exist in any form today. As if germ warfare, directly stealing land, and gunboat diplomacy weren’t enough. Our cultures further endured over a hundred years of anti Indigenous ‘kill the Indian save the child’ education, a full on multi generational potlatch ban that … Continue reading The Salish Apocalypse →

Holding the Sacred Space and Taking Care of Business

Posted by Michalina Hunter on May 21, 2024

Greenhouse build spring 2024. (Photo credit: Natasha Anderson-Brass) In the summer of 2022 I sat down with Young Agrarians for an interview to talk about my experience in their Business Bootcamp program (you can read that interview here). At that time I was still an intern at Amara Farm with dreams of developing my own community oriented farm business. Fast forward two years and I can hardly believe that, with a lot of help, I am making those dreams come true! Having signed a sub-lease agreement on Amara Farm property, I was able to officially launch Minwaadizi Farm in the … Continue reading Holding the Sacred Space and Taking Care of Business →

JAN 31, 2024: ONLINE – Indigenous Food Sovereignty Panel – Land Back & Land Access

Posted by Michalina Hunter on December 19, 2023 2 Comments

Join Leslie Anne St. Amour of RAVEN, Natasha Anderson of Minwaadizi Farm, and Julian Napoleon of Amisk Farm for a panel discussion on land back and Indigenous food sovereignty. In so-called British Columbia, 95% is “crown land”, and most is unceded; a small amount has been treatied back to Nations through the court system. What does unceded and land back mean? This panel will explore these questions and share ways that Indigenous farmers are accessing and stewarding land towards Indigenous Food Sovereignty (IFS) under the colonial government’s complex system of land title. Listeners will come away with ways to deepen relationships with … Continue reading JAN 31, 2024: ONLINE – Indigenous Food Sovereignty Panel – Land Back & Land Access →