traditional diets

New reporting project focuses on Indigenous food sovereignty in the Columbia River Basin

Producer
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Year

There’s no official definition for the term “food sovereignty,” but the Indian Affairs Bureau describes it as “the ability of communities to determine the quantity and quality of the food that they consume by controlling how their food is produced and distributed.”

Portland-based news outlet Underscore recently tackled the topic in a new series. The Food Sovereignty Project features stories of Indigenous communities rebuilding food systems, reclaiming traditional foods and practices and preserving that knowledge for future generations.

Project co-director Nicole Charley joins us to talk more about the series, along with freelance writer Leah Altman, who contributed two stories to the project.

Image: Farmland on Sauvie Island in early summer (Matvyei/English Wikipedia)

Transcript is available at the resource link.

Manoomin: Food That Grows on the Water

Producer
Finn Ryan
Year

This story follows Fred Ackley Jr. from the Sokaogon Chippewa Community of Mole Lake as he harvests and processes manoomin, or wild rice. The ancestors of his community migrated to Madeleine Island from eastern Canada long ago, then more recently to the Rice Lake area. Their 12 square mile reservation was established during the Treaty of 1854, and the tribe finally received federal recognition and their Mole Lake reservation in 1937.

Citation

Ryan, Finn. "Manoomin: Food That Grows on the Water." The Ways: Great Lakes Native Culture & Language. Wisconsin Media Lab. Madison, Wisconsin. 2014. Documentary. (http://theways.org/story/manoomin, accessed September 16, 2014)