Mvskoke 4-H students take root in the fight for food sovereignty

The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance organized a seed drive to distribute thousands of seeds to 270 different tribes. The indigenous seed exchange led to the creation of an intertribal cooperative to share traditional knowledge and practices as well. It has conducted a seed census in addition to creating a seed sovereignty assessment toolkit for communities.

The Indigenous Science Initiative has created a culturally-responsive, open-source science curriculum—piloted at eight schools over three years—that integrates traditional Indigenous practices with state standards to increase Native student engagement.

A group of women are restoring abandoned chinampas (ancient Aztec floating farms) in and around Mexico City, combining indigenous farming techniques with university research partnerships to clean polluted waterways, protect endangered axolotls, revive sustainable year-round agriculture, and train a new generation of farmers in traditional methods.

The Al Barakeh Wheat Project is working to regain food sovereignty through urban wheat farming in Amman, Jordan, by partnering farmers with families to teach them how to grow and harvest wheat.

The Sankofa Community Farm High School Internship Program in Philadelphia supports 25 students each summer (and 12 during the school year) by teaching them how to farm, bringing these skills back to their communities, and connecting them to college opportunities. The internship program is just one part of Bartram Garden’s network of programs that teach about African heritage and food justice. Through these programs, Bartram distributes over 15,000 pounds of food and teaches over 10,000 students each year - all while keeping the local produce affordable to the surrounding areas.

Generations of oppression and poverty have led to severe food insecurity for many Native Americans, resulting in some of the country's highest obesity and diabetes rates. But a few dedicated individuals on the Blackfeet reservation are striving to reclaim their food system, and their first step is collecting and disseminating traditional knowledge about nutritious, locally-sourced food for their people and ensuring it is accessible.

Community leaders are working together to address the issue of food insecurity in Mansfield, caused not just by lack of access to grocery stores and fresh food sources, but also often by unemployment, high housing costs, low wages, poverty, and health care costs. The North End Local Foods Initiative is installing food gardens in these communities, creating access to fresh produce, to educational opportunities, recreational activity and more.

Heritage Growers, a 200-acre nonprofit native seed farm founded in 2021, is addressing California's critical shortage of locally adapted native seeds by producing 30,000-40,000 pounds annually of seeds. They have already helped restore thousands of acres with native plants, including the San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge (2,500 acres).

Cal Poly Humboldt's Native American Studies Department created an Indigenous food sovereignty research lab through a student-led, community-driven process that now supports Indigenous students' cultural connections, advances traditional ecological knowledge research, and demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge can be valued in higher education.

Native tribes and First Nations in the Great Lakes Region are successfully reviving wild rice, a native crop that is deemed “extremely vulnerable” to climate change and lost much of its wetland habitat. The tribes’ restoration projects involve seeding lakebeds, monitoring water levels and quality, educating others on the importance of the crop, and harvesting it by hand.