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Can Urban Farming Keep Indigenous Food Practices Alive?

The Tlingit food activist Kirsten Kirby-Shoote tends to Native crops in the pursuit of food sovereignty.

By Esra Erol
Bon Appetit
November 24, 2021

Excerpt:

A seed keeper and member of the Tlingit Nation, Kirby-Shoote today tends to 1.5 acres of land in Detroit, the ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabe Nations. The seeds that they grow, such as Cherokee White Eagle corn and scarlet runner beans, make up fertile ground for Indigenous food sovereignty. The U.S. government’s forced relocation of tens of thousands of Indigenous peoples onto barren lands has resulted in a long legacy of little Native access to traditional foods, and Kirby-Shoote is looking to change that.

They provide traditional foods and medicine to Detroit’s communities of color through an accessible garden and work with I-Collective, a group of Indigenous chefs, activists, herbalists, and seed keepers dedicated to food sovereignty and providing educational resources for food justice. And their work is not for profit. For them food is medicine, and it shouldn’t be sold or used for monetary gain but to heal—literally, as so many health issues, such as heart disease, arise from food insecurity and lack of access to crops, including Native ones. Kirby-Shoote’s own father died due to health complications.

Read the complete article here.