Canada: Ryerson’s Rooftop Farm To Introduce Black And Indigenous Food Initiatives This Spring
They’re organizing workshops that will teach the growing of cultural plants, such as callaloo, African eggplant and okra.
By Jack Wise
Campus News
Mar 22, 2021
Excerpt:
Staff at Ryerson’s Urban Farm say they are looking forward to introducing more Black and Indigenous food initiatives this growing season, as the Ontario government permitted farms to reopen in January.
Sam Howden is Métis from Treaty 1 territory, also known as Winnipeg, and the first Indigenous field assistant at the Urban Farm since the position was established in September 2020. Howden said they will be working on an 868 sq. feet plot of growing space on the farm, which is dedicated to Indigenous foodways.
“Foodways relate to cultural ways of growing, practicing and consuming food and medicines,” according to Howden.
The crops that they’re working with are corn, beans and squash—traditionally known in Indigenous agriculture as the “Three Sisters”—along with traditional medicines. Howden said one of the medicines they are focusing on is nervines which help calm the nervous system, something that could be helpful to those feeling a lot of stress during the pandemic. Nervines can be brewed like tea to experience its calming effects.
“We are following planting, moon phases, planting traditional medicines of the Anishinaabe,” Howden said, citing that the Urban Farm at large is on Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas of the Credit territory. “We want to be representative and respectful of [the culture] in this area, even if it’s on a roof.”
