How Indigenous communities worldwide champion resilience and community-building by safeguarding their foodways

The context of He Whenua Rongo symposium

Organised by the Papawhakaritorito Charitable Trust, the Māori collective Ngā Toki Whakarururanga and the National Māori Organics Authority of Aotearoa, Te Waka Kai Ora, He Whenua Rongo was a three-day activation event on the broad topic of Indigenous food sovereignty.

The symposium aimed to create a space for global Indigenous communities, farmers, producers, activists, food advocates, scientists, and policymakers to reunite and collaborate, exchanging their broad knowledge and wisdom on seed, soil, and food systems. Such a reunion was an opportunity to demonstrate the array of solutions that already exist for agricultural practices worldwide, the alternatives to the mono-crops and capitalist system, and the possibilities of a resilient food future for all. It was also a celebration of seed freedom, diversity, soil regeneration and the restoration of Aotearoa's cultural food systems.

The event was ignited by the government's move to introduce GMOs in the food system of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and the growing impact of climate change on local communities, which are both threats to a resilient food system. He Whenua Rongo took place between Te Mahurehure Marae and Papatūanuku Kokiri Marae. 

The symposium lasted three days and covered topics such as free trade and agriculture, Indigenous seed sovereignty, GMOs in food and farming, post-capitalist economies, Hua Parakore [kaupapa Māori system and framework for growing product and food (kai)] and community empowerment.

Day 1 on the 11th of April, "Globalisation, free trade and post-capitalist economies", covered the impacts of globalisation, capitalism and free trade agreements on Indigenous rights, Nature's rights, food, farming and sacred traditional medicines from a Māori lens. Speakers also discussed Indigenous resistance movements and explored the strategies and pathways to developing alternative post-capitalist economies for food, farming, and Nature, free from a capitalist patriarchal structure, with Dr Vandana Shiva.

Day 2 on the 12th of April, "International Indigenous Seed, Soil and Food Sovereignty Symposium" sat within an international context with the intervention of Indigenous representatives worldwide. They shared their strategies and movements for seed, soil, and food sovereignty within their localisation, as well as what people in Aotearoa could learn from them to nurture seeds, soil, and Indigenous foodways.

Day 3, cloture day, on the 13th of April, "He Whenua Rongo: Hua Parakore and growing local seed, soil and food sovereign economies" was a field trip to South Auckland at Papatūānuku Kōkiri marae, including discussions on their Hua Parakore verification journey, demonstrating how the marae work is a local-growing movement of resistance, returning food growing and farming into the power of Indigenous and local communities. 

A detailed program with all the speakers is accessible here.

Day two of He Whenu Rongo was about opening the lens of Indigenous food sovereignty towards other groups outside of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and learning about their strategies and grassroots movements locally. The main groups came from Turtle Island (North America) and India. There was also a presentation of initiatives from African, Asian and Pacific Ocean communities. 

The Morning–Getting our feet on the ground and discovering the stories of the Oneida Nation

The day started in the presence of a dense crowd filling the room of Te Mahurehure Marae in Point Chevalier, followed by the opening speech of Master of Ceremony Jessica Hutchings from the Papawhakaritorito Charitable Trust.

As she recollected the moving moments of the previous day, Hutchings laid out a few notions that stayed with me:

• The two most important things in life—wai, water and kai, food.
• It is essential to retain what we know and that we "Miri Miri Papatuānuku". Mirimiri usually means "natural gift, and encompasses a person's physical as well as spiritual wellbeing", also a vibrational exchange with Papatuānuku (the Earth). I interpreted this notion in a sense that we humans are spiritually and physically connected to our Mother Earth, and we depend on her to feel at peace and heal.
• Interestingly, the Earth is consistently defined by the same word from everywhere in the world: "Mother".
• Kai is medicine. We are what we eat.

From there, Hutchings also emphasised that a focus on local communities is crucial for resilience and enacting change. She recalled how we saw such structures quickly come together during the pandemic and then disappear as fast once the situation diluted. "Small scale seeds the pattern of system change, and small scale can reverberate" at a larger scale.

First Keynote address. The return to right relationships with Nature, by Teina Boasa-Dan

Teina Boasa-Dan, from Te Waka Kai Ora [National Māori Organics Authority], was the first speaker of the day. What an orator! Her words were wise, powerful and engaging. She contextualised her speech through the beautiful story of Hineahuone, the first human created by Tāne, the forest god. Tāne is the son of Papatūānuku, the Mother Earth and Ranginui, the Sky Father. Hineahuone was born in the world of light that appeared after the separation of Papatūānuku and Ranginui. A creation of the multitude, Hineahuone was shaped from clay, soil mixed with Papatūānuku’s blood, and came to life from Tāne’s breath. Her mind also contains Ranginui’s spirit. Learn more of the story here and here. Teina Boasa-Dan emphasised that, as humans, we are holistically connected to the world of light. We were initially born from the soil. It is our life force. And so, the path to reconnecting to Nature is first to understand her guidance.

Some of the powerful key lessons from Nature, as laid out by Teina:

• Diversity and humility are a source of strength. Uniformity is a weakness. Like Hineahuone, we cannot exist in isolation. 
• Mother Earth is attracted to the unkind.
• Connections raise reciprocity and responsibility.
• Mana, a spiritual force, is not a visual perception of ego.
• Our role is to protect the first law of Nature, self-preservation.
• Our life essence, mauri, is to commit to truth, justice and peace. This essence brings us back to course.

Boasa-Dan emphasised how gardening and growing kai encompasses all of the above. It opened our eyes to the true power of producing food and tending to Nature—truth, justice and peace.

Second Keynote address. Seed Rematriation–Journeys Home, by Lea Zeise from the Oneida Nation, Turtle Island

Lea Zeise is a native American from the Oneida Indian Nation. This federally recognised tribe originates in New York state, though they had to move territory after colonisation. I understood that Lea's group is based in Wisconsin. The Oneida Nation is one of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. There are 574 "recognised" independent nations in the United States of America, aka Turtle Island. Zeise's primary work is about improving tribal food sovereignty. She is part of "Braiding the Sacred", an organisation that seeks to expand the network of Indigenous corn growers, to strengthen their community while preserving and perpetuating traditional seeds.

Corn is a sacred food. It is one of the Three Sisters from the Creation Story and a staple of the native American diet. The loss of knowledge about growing corn was a powerful tool for the colonisation and dismantling of First Nations communities. It is not by "chance" that one of the most prominent GMO crops in the United States is corn. Traditionally, members of the tribes weave the corn together following harvest season. It is a technique to dry the corn and collect the seeds in the future. It also enables storing large amounts of corn in a small area. Braiding time is a moment of connection and gathering between people. Braiding the corn is like weaving the people together, and once braided, "it is very hard to pull them apart". 

At He Whenua Rongo, Lea Zeise shared her life work of seeds rematriation. She told the story of how tribes had to relocate their seeds following forced migration, losing part of the diversity and knowledge along the way. Now, people seek to openly re-learn their ancestral knowledge. Lea and her group organise exclusive gatherings for Indigenous corn growers where they come together, repairing the connections, telling stories, sharing perspectives of sacredness and stewardship of corn seed savings—the gatherings are ceremonies where the re-discovered seeds are brought from the seed bank to their original location. Powerful and emotional moments for the people involved, coming together is repairing the connections.

A fascinating story to learn about: if you'd like to know more, I found a recollection of Braiding the Sacred's work on this blog. As written on the Papawhakaritorito Trust profile, Lea "emphasised the importance of the Indigenous collective for driving a radical return to protecting Mother Earth and elevating Indigenous knowledge".

Oneida Seed Sovereignty panel

I didn't take enough notes of the following two groups who spoke, Dr Rebecca Webster with Jasmine Jimerson and Laura Manthe with Kayukwalote Jen Falck, not because it was uninteresting, but quite the opposite. These women's stories were profoundly moving, poignant and proof that grassroots actions are effective. That is to say, there was so much passion that I was too focused to take detailed notes on my phone, but I do have some key take-outs that stayed with me.

Haudenosaunee Seed and Food Sovereignty, with Jasmine Jimerson & Dr Rebecca Webster

Dr Rebecca Webster was the first to speak. She presented the multiple projects she developed with her family to help her tribe build resilience and food sovereignty:

• Her main work is with Ukwakhwa, Our Foods. A non-profit organisation and homestead located on the Oneida reservation that seeks to diffuse Indigenous-based farming practices on "planting, growing, harvesting, seed keeping, food preparation, food storage", and making traditional tools and crafts. They also have a YouTube channel. "Every time an Indigenous person plants a seed, that is an act of resistance, an assertion of sovereignty, and a reclamation of identity".
• Dr Webster and her family are also part of the co-op Ohe∙láku "among the cornstalks", growing traditional, heritage corn and passing through braiding tradition. Despite everything the Oneida nation has been through, natives maintain a strong relationship with the corn.
• They also grow varieties of Haudenosaunee, an Iroquois heirloom bean variety, within a more informal co-op of Oneida community members.

Dr Webster also linked Indigenous wisdom and modern science, underlining how science is slowly catching up and re-confirming what Indigenous people have known forever. 

Afterwards, "Teyútkwʌ" Jasmine Jimerson shared her life story. A life punctuated by difficult human experiences, upon which she never surrendered and built resilience and strength to follow her objectives and dreams. When she finally found a place to dig roots with her family, she integrated the Akwesasne Freedom School in New York State and is now a Special Projects manager, currently developing traditional practices learned from her upbringing and permaculture studies for growing and harvesting Indigenous foods, plants, and trees. Her long-term goal is to create a Oneida community that could live off the land as their ancestors did. Learn more about Jasmine here.

Oneida Farmer and Community Panel–Tribal Elder Food Box - Great Lakes Tribal Food Producers with Laura Manthe & Kayukwalote Jen Falck

Following Jasmine's were Laura Manthe & Kayukwalote Jen Falck. Both work on improving Indigenous food sovereignty.

Laura Manthe developed the Kahulahele Farmstead with her family, an organic farm on the Oneida Reservation that provides food to the tribal community. They also contributed to the Tribal Elder Food Box Program, which runs a food box program in Wisconsin, facilitating affordable access to food for tribal members while forging and expanding an Indigenous network of sustainable growers and inter-tribal food system supports. 

Jen Falck, Lea's mother, first spoke of the Creation Story of Turtle Island—the turtle who welcomed Sky Woman on her back while she was falling from the sky, and on top of which Sky Woman planted the seeds she was holding in her hands. That is how North and Central America came to form as land and lifeforce. Jen also spoke of the Three Sisters story, the corn, the beans and the pumpkin, who are stronger together. Food intrinsically ties people together. And so Jen tirelessly works on food access for her Oneida nation community, growing nutritious, heirloom corn through the Ohe∙láku "among the cornstalks" co-op alongside her daughter Lea and Rebecca Webster. I found this document about the group that dives into the Creation Story and their Ohe∙láku’s work.

It was the first time in my life that I directly heard about the story of native American representatives. Witnessing through these people the violent tearing of their culture, their language, their tribes and their land was heartbreaking and very vivid within the community. Lea's speech was powerful, as were those of Rebecca, Jasmine, Laura and Jen. It shined the resilience of the Indigenous people of Turtle Island and brought to the room many emotions, the mixed feelings of sadness and admiration, empowerment and joy. And many tears in the assistance (including ours!). It is genuinely outrageous how Indigenous people were, and still are, treated by the establishment. Decidedly, all the Oneida women who spoke are a force for change. It was incredible to be able to listen to them.

Following is the afternoon session's speakers and all the wisdom we learned from them, each covering in their way the broad topic of how regionalised Indigenous cultural foodways are a significant path to global food security, moving away from capitalist economies, and the best approach to build climate change, food and community resilience.

The Afternoon–Another point of view on conservation, the truth about modern agriculture and the Indigenous organic agriculture movement

Lunch was provided at the event, and it was so luscious, to say the least. The food was flavoursome and beautiful. There is no better place than an event rooted in agroecology to be sure you will enjoy the food break. In retrospect, I regret not taking photos of the buffets. After recharging our energy and enjoying some rays of sunshine outside, we returned to the room.

Seeding Sovereignty with Dr Melanie Mark-Shadbolt

Dr Melanie Mark-Shadbolt is a social scientist, a former Deputy Secretary of Tūmatakōkiri (Māori Rights and Interest) for the Ministry of the Environment in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and the CE of Te Tira Whakamātaki, a Māori environmental not-for-profit organisation. Te Tira Whakamātaki seeks to empower and uplift Indigenous people and communities and re-establish their connection with Nature and their culture, leading the protection of Nature and sustaining biodiversity through mātauranga Māori [traditional Māori knowledge] and kaitiakitanga [process and practices of protecting and looking after the environment]. The organisation mobilises people through community engagement, research, education and advocacy work, including support for Māori-led research, decision-making, and policy change.

Melanie Mark-Shadbolt started her session by discussing conservation principles in Aotearoa, New Zealand. She laid out how current conservation and bio-protection policies in the country are deeply rooted in colonialism and are tools of colonialism. Government control over the management strategies of these environmental issues often ignores or goes against Indigenous knowledge and sovereignty, “causing more harm than good”.

There is an example that Melanie Mark-Shadbolt spoke about that stayed with me—the Kauri DieBack disease. She shared about the experimentation that Māori researchers have done in the last few years, looking into their ancestral stories, traditional medicine and deep knowledge of Aotearoa's land, coupling these themes with science to create solutions that will effectively reduce and stop the spread of the fungus into the soil. They discovered that particular plants, instead of synthetic compounds, would kill the fungus. In addition, there was a point in the investigation where the Kauri tree's connections with whales surfaced based on the ancient stories of how they used to be brothers. They were part of the same family until they took different life directions. And so, both species would share genealogical connections. These cultural principles further led the researchers to develop a mixture of whale oil, bones and plants that could stop the fungus from spreading. Experimentation has been very promising.

If you'd like to learn more about the Kauri and whale relationships, this podcast episode featuring Dr Mark-Shadbolt is fantastic, and it covers quite a few of the other examples she related at the symposium. Check out the work of Dr Monica Gerth as well for the crossing of science and indigenous knowledge. Undoubtedly, Indigenous people and their solutions are essential in protecting biodiversity, accelerating innovation, and grounding science objectives for Nature's protection.

Earth Democracy - Seed and Soil Sovereignty with Dr Vandana Shiva

If someone had told me I would stand in the same room as Dr Shiva one day, I would have never believed it. She is the kind of personality you see in documentaries, at the UN or on TV in that kind of distant context, never in real life. But here she appeared, in the morning, during Teina Boasa-Dan's keynote, hours before hers. Her arrival slightly disrupted Boasa-Dan speech, as she was referencing Dr Shiva and didn't realise the woman was listening, which gave us all the enjoyment of a funny moment and a good laugh. I saw Dr Shiva again during the lunch break while she was waiting inside Te Taumata O Kupe, the recently completed extension of the Marae and a wonderful building [photograph at the beginning of this email]. And finally, when she arrived to address her keynote with dozens of books in her hands.

I don't think I need to present Dr Vandana Shiva here, though I did realise, while sharing my experience with others, that not everybody knows who she is. There are numerous documentaries, podcasts and other interviews featuring the Quantum Theory PhD turned activist, so if you don't know, start with a quick online search. Or this episode of La Poudre podcast, which I referenced in a past newsletter. Feminism entry point, too.

Dr Shiva's keynote lasted over an hour and included an extensive questions and answers session with the audience. She covered Food Sovereignty through the fight against industrial agriculture, reconnection with Nature and re-establishing our place as humans belonging to Earth. Her speech and answers were as straightforward and intense as the subject required. I felt there was no place for sugarcoating or hypocrisy in her words.

Dr Shiva opened her keynote by evoking our relationship with Nature, how hugging a tree is "the most radical resistance"—a reference to the Chipko activists in India, who in the 70s and 80s fought to save their forests through non-violent actions. There is a deep interdependence between humans and Nature, which modern civilisation and many individuals have forgotten. "You cannot know until you get free". I will interpret her statement as how individuals do not realise the extent of grip and control over them by, let's say, corporate until they are free from it.

Industrial agriculture, a corporative system working against Nature

She drilled on the impact of the capitalist economy and subsequent corporate-based food production and its consequences on Nature, people, and the quality of our food. Dr Shiva highlighted that corporate food and other Big Ag receive approximately four hundred billion dollars in subsidies, aka tax-payers money, to produce anti-food. They received public funds to poison people at either end of the chain.

"Corporates see the world as a market to sell or resource to exploit", and in their world of greed, the only connection is through violence against others, against Nature. This disconnection is deeply rooted in the petrochemical agricultural system that corporations developed to produce food. Dr Shiva recalled the origins of industrial agriculture, "The Green Revolution", based on a push to use chemicals from Germany—the leftovers of the First and Second World Wars, which bombs were made out of the same chemicals as fertilisers. These entrants needed relocation, a new use post-wars. "Fertilisers are like narcotics", rooted in violence, and oil is the enabler of this system and so the foundation of most problems.

Industrial agriculture, a monoculture system of control

Yet, as we all know too well by now, Nature does not tolerate monoculture. Industrial monoculture is about taking; it doesn't hold the essential reciprocity with the Earth, opposite to organic, regenerative agriculture, which is about giving back a little to Nature and expressing gratitude. Dr Shiva also underlined that, contrary to the common anthropocentric belief carried by industrial agriculture, Nature does not belong to man, and man cannot control her. However, "man belongs to Earth". Vandana Shiva made the parallel between the Latin word "humus", meaning either ground, floor or Earth, and soil, which gave the word humanus, nowadays "human" [precisely, a hybrid between Latin homo "man" and humus, according to vocabulary.com]. We are basically soil, a source of food for other species.

Industrial agriculture, a wasteful system

Based on oil consumption, industrial farming uses ten times more energy to produce the same amount of food than traditional, peasant-based agriculture. For the record, one barrel of oil is equivalent to four and a half years of human labour. [Now is also a good time to link this fascinating article by Nate Hagens from resilience.org, which digs into the relationship between economy, work, and fossil fuel—the stats are appalling]. Industrial farming also pollutes and contaminates much more. "An economy that spent 100 years making poison has no idea what plants can do". The web of life is a complete web, a web of knowledge, of food variety, and so we have to make the forgotten food the future of food.

Privatisation of food versus freedom of the seeds and the people

Dr Shiva also touched on how, nowadays, Food corporations have gone beyond Chemical corporations and attracted the likes of Big Tech and Digitals. While we are seeing that Tech is hijacking our democratic system, Dr Shiva suggests these corporations are also working on manipulating our food system through investment in what she calls "fake food"—lab-grown meat, lab-made milk and processed food, which sadly, encompasses "vegan meat", such as Beyond Meat and others. Tech is also working on patented food, such as GMO seeds, heavily promoted by Bill Gates in low- and middle-income countries [thankfully, there are diverging opinions similar to Shiva's] amongst others. A bit further down the obsession with fighting Nature, she mentioned Alphabet (a.k.a. Google) and its life-science division, now called Verify, working on biotechnology projects with minor to no regulation supervision in the process.

Concluding her keynote, Dr Shiva stressed that freedom of the people will not come from individual human rights but from Earth rights. I interpret her statement as such: by respecting Nature's ways of working, freeing the seeds against privatisation, and going against the cooperative food system to let Earth work its magic, it is how people can achieve their rights to exist in peace. "The highest resistance is from care, from love, from saving seeds [...] any garden growing its own food is creating freedom".

Food is a way to control people. Controlling food end to end, seeds to harvest, is a way for humans to free themselves or to be controlled.

A Q&A from the audience followed Shiva's keynote speech. Below, I compiled a handful of her ideas resulting from people's questions:

• On navigating truth in this world—The power of truth is the most powerful tool against injustice, and for her, intelligence is the ability to make the difference between truth and false. And something to remember: "When the wealthy call out information as a conspiracy, then there are good chances that this information is a truth".
• On violence—For corporate technocrats and the establishment, gentleness in relationships is seen as an absence, a lack of.
• On how to manage our collective anger against the injustice of this world—she replied to distil our sense of outreach, and a distraction from tragedy is to grow a garden as a garden of hope. And that engaging ourselves locally can have a global impact.
• If we can, we should visit Navdanya!

Going further

• Dr Vandana Shiva's speech and Q&A on the first day of He Whenua Rongo 2024 is available to watch online. I missed it, but people said it was very moving.
• I found this interview on the We Are The Regeneration website that covers a few of the subjects Vandana Shiva touched on during her talk at He Whenua Rongo.
• Real Food For Health with Vandana Shiva on the Real Truth About Health YouTube channel, where she speaks of the involvement of Tech corporations in the health, and by extension, food business.

Afternoon tea followed Vandana Shiva’s keynote, then a discussion on “Hua Parakore, free trade and the current organic reforms” with Dr Jessica Hutchings and Cathy Tait-Jamieson from Te Waka Kai Ora. Te Waka Kai Ora is the National Māori Organics Authority of Aotearoa that upholds the Hua Parakore certification for growers. Unfortunately, I have no recollection or notes from the discussion. Still, you can explore the topic further through the series Hua Parakarore, available on Maori TV+ (you’ll need a VPN if you are outside of Aotearoa, New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands). Also, this doc by Happen Films.

Keynote Address: Organic regenerative agriculture and Indigeneity – in what ways are Indigenous peoples participating in organic regenerative agriculture? with Karen Mapusua

Karen Mapusua’s keynote was the last of the day. Mapusua is the current president of IFOAM Organics International, an umbrella organisation founded in 1972 with its headquarters in Germany, which promotes and advocates for organic food and farming systems—facilitating the work of growers to transition towards organic agriculture in addition to supporting sustainable, environment policies towards agro-ecological farming practices. They have over seven hundred affiliates in over one hundred countries and territories. From her roots and previous works,

Karen Mapusua is also deeply connected with the organic farming movement community in the Pacific Islands. She has managed varied missions over the years in these remote regions, from agricultural capacity building to organic production as a means of economic development, coordination, and promotion of the Pacific food systems to improve health, nutrition, and resilience locally. With such an overview, needless to say, Mapusua has a pretty good idea of the profound relationships between indigenous ways of farming and organic, regenerative agriculture.

She started her talk by following up on Vandana Shiva’s point between agriculture and economies, underlining that the market economy mindset applied to agriculture comes into the ways of organic agriculture. As we should have understood by now, it is not compatible. Mapusua also raised the fact that the organic agricultural system embodied by mainstream organic certifications does not seem to recognise Indigenous ways, which creates difficulties for Indigenous growers in obtaining these certifications. Systemic racism runs deep. As a reaction, Indigenous people are now reclaiming the organic movement. The Hua Parakore organic certification is an example of such.

Afterwards, Mapusua presented a few cases of people and actions that are leading or led the change towards Indigenous culture and organic agriculture:

• Zimbabwe. “one woman, one pot of seeds and her knowledge”. Karen Mapusua spoke about a woman who started claiming back the organic movement by organising food festivals to raise awareness and enable people’s reconnection with local, traditional food, such as millet, an essential grain for nutrition in many countries of Africa. Learn more about similar initiatives here.
• Taiwan. After years of decline of the tribal societies due to political push, the 921 Earthquake in 1999 and its subsequent emerging response brought back Taiwanese Indigenous people together, re-building the Indigenous economy and connecting people with their land again. Learn more about this particular subject here and Indigenous Taiwanese broader resilience here.
• Turtle Island (USA). At the Rosebud Indian Reservation, a Sioux reservation in South Dakota, people joined forces to dynamise the area, which was a food desert with only three grocery stores, by taking cues from the Seventh Generation Principle and healing body, mind and spirit through indigenous, nutritious food access. Discover more here and here.
• Vanuatu. This archipelago located in the Pacific attracts high volumes of tourism, which can damage the local ecosystem, economy and indigenous culture. A group of inhabitants put together the not-for-profit organisation Regenerative Vanua, which intends to reinforce the resilience and self-reliance of the Vanuatu islands and its Indigenous knowledge system and build a broader Pacific Islands network. They help organise agro-tourism activities and enable third-party organic certification.

Karen Mapusua concluded her keynote by broadening the subject of Pacific farming, “Organic farming in the islands is a labour of love”.

She compiled some of the key differences between a Pacific Organic Certification and a mainstream certification:

• Account of cultural tradition and specificities from the regions.
• Traditional medicine.
• Mitigation of the absence of soils in the atolls.
• Local chefs have the final say in the certification.

Organic agricultural certification from and by the Pacific Islands is an opportunity for Indigenous people to participate in the organic regenerative agriculture movement and add significant value to mainstream organic certification, achieving a successful conversion to organics in the Pacific regions.

This second day of He Whenua Rongo 2024 was a fantastic experience—intense, emotional, and fulfilling. We came to this event not knowing exactly where we were going, apart from listening to Vandana Shiva, and while our demographic was not the target audience of the day, we learned so much from extraordinary people from different parts of the Earth changing the system at their scale. This day was humbling, profoundly moving and motivating.

If I had to retain a few concepts to reply to the problematic “How Indigenous communities worldwide champion resilience and community-building by safeguarding their foodways?”, there would be the following:

• Building resilience upon spiritual connection to the planet is crucial to move forward.
• Women are the primary drivers of change.
• A regenerative movement begins at a small scale, within a community and a region, by empowering individuals.
• Freedom and change are about love and tending to your people and environment.
• A complexity of people creates complex, rich soils; simplicity is counter-productive.

Recent discussions with friends on cultural appropriation and GMOs made me reflect on how people, at least in the West, are disconnected from the cultural multitudes present on this planet and the ways other people, particularly Indigenous populations, deeply connect their culture and values to their environment, including their food. Food and culture are intrinsically woven into each other. From agricultural growing practices to cuisine or cooking, food is bound to cultural knowledge and the land it stands upon.

All these years reading and learning about the cultural significance attached to growing, preparing and eating [food] opened my mind to the negative impacts of the colonialist, capitalist food production system—imbalance, destruction of knowledge, lack of diversity and consequences on the global environment, from poisoning to carbon emissions, whose connections are well documented. And the lack of humility. I am especially thinking about the question of genetically modified organisms. We cohabitate with plants and trees that follow thousand-year-old system patterns to grow. Who are humans to believe that they can change and "improve" these systems? Researchers are barely scratching the surface of understanding how soil, insects, bacteria and plants work together, and some dare to believe that to feed people, science and geo-engineering will make a difference.

Moreover, I read this excerpt from a conference with Malcom Ferdinand, writer and ecological engineer specialised in the relationship between ecology and colonialism:

And that encompasses food production. Through my permaculture design studies and voluntary work within the Aotearoa Permaculture Workshop group, I already had some knowledge of alternative food production, but listening to all the speakers at He Whenua Rongo 2024 clearly established that there are different, ancient ways to feed individuals, without damaging our planet, its biodiversity, and losing people along the way. For the colonisers, it requires a total system change and learning humility. And for the colonised, it is about restoring a proven, regenerative system. Wisdom from indigenous populations is key to enacting profound and effective change for human survival.

This piece was initially published in two parts in November 2024 and January 2025 under our Substack newsletter "Kitchen Conversation".