In an effort to promote healthier food options and educate people on independent food initiatives, Cankdeska Cikana Community College hosted “Nurturing our Roots: Spirit Lake Community Conservation and Food Sovereignty Day” on Monday.
“Food sovereignty” is defined by the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute, and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.”
Throughout the day, panels ranged from diabetes prevention, gardening, land grants, and other similar topics.
“Our ancestors planted the seeds of knowledge and resilience, and today we gather to nurture those roots, cultivating a future where our community thrives and flourishes,” said Vicki Alberts, public relations specialist for the Spirit Lake Tribe. “We can create a tapestry of ideas and actions that reflect our commitment to our traditional values and our future.”
Organizations such as the Spirit Lake Nation Fish & Wildlife Department, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs attended the event.
Tribal Chairwoman Lonna Jackson-Street told a story about how she learned food sovereignty from her grandmother.
“One thing that my grandma taught me was how to take care of wild game, how to clean it, and what it meant to preserve it, drying and cleaning and doing all those things that, at the time, I didn’t know was called food sovereignty,” she said. “To me, it was just being like in a lifetime internship with my grandma, for cooking and taking care of all these things that we take for granted in today’s day and age.”
She added, “Our tribe has always been tied to the land, to these lands, long before any outside institutions were here.”
Numerous projects are in development to continue these initiatives. The projects include:
Food and agriculture nexus team, a nature trail, a community garden, and the Spirit Lake Mobile Farmers Market.
