Food Sovereignty, Indigenous Practices, and Ecocentric Law
By Evie Winebrenner, Maleah Tuttle, and the ELC Team
Earth law seeks to align human-created laws with the laws of Nature throughout the entire legal system. For example, constitutional law can be expanded to include Nature by giving ecosystems and species rights and legal standing in a court of law. Similarly, corporate law can be expanded to include legal guardianship bodies for rivers, lakes, and forests, or to give Nature a voice on boards of directors. The opportunities to put Nature at the core of the legal system are endless.
This blog begins an exploration into food law & policy as a potential new field for Earth law. What types of laws and policies would encourage agricultural practices that are embedded with a deep reciprocity and respect for the natural world? What would it look like if we moved far beyond performative food consumerism into deep relationship with the foods we eat?
Although there is only a small literature on ecocentric law and food production, the food sovereignty movement, and especially the historical and contemporary example of Indigenous food practices, serve as rich starting points for further discussion.
The Indigenous food sovereignty movement seeks to achieve healthy, culturally adapted Indigenous foods in harmony with the land, moving away from destructive, large-scale agricultural practices. Non-Indigenous communities can learn lessons from this approach, as well.
Thus, in this article, we examine Indigenous agricultural practices and knowledge and draw them into conversation with the recent Western concepts of “ecocentrism” and “food sovereignty” as a way of envisioning brighter futures for our agriculture and food systems.
Modern Mass Agriculture, Food Scarcity, and Indigenous Farming
Large-scale modern agriculture is widely understood to have harsh effects on ecosystems, such as habitat loss, soil erosion, water table depletion, toxification from chemicals, and more. Industrial agriculture likewise leaves little space, economically and at times literally, for subsistence or small-scale farming communities to produce their own food. It should come as no surprise, then, that inadequate food access affects marginalized communities, such as small-scale and Indigenous farmers, at a disproportionate rate.[1]
Insufficient agricultural opportunity and outright lack of food is a major issue facing Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. and other parts of the world. This 2014 study published in Public Health Nutrition, for instance, concludes that “food insecurity rates on the Navajo Nation are the highest reported to date in the USA.”
Aerial view of combine harvesting corn on a South Dakota farm. Carl Young, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Large-scale monocropping has overshadowed Indigenous practices of agriculture, such as intercropping and adaptation to local ecologies. The historical and public health record demonstrates that the shifts from Indigenous to Western food production methods have harmed the integrity of our communities and depleted the nutritional, cultural, and spiritual value of food.
As the world begins to reckon with the unsustainability of industrial agriculture, however, we are seeing growing interest in the possibility that the ecocentric farming breakthroughs the world needs are here now in the form of traditional Indigenous agricultural methods and their modern adaptations. Indeed, Indigenous communities have a more ecocentric approach to food sovereignty and agriculture than the dominant Western approach, which focuses on production volume rather than the long-term health of the land.
What Is Food Sovereignty?
In a 2010 book chapter, scholars Hannah Wittman, Annette Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe write that food sovereignty is “broadly defined as the right of nations and peoples to control their own food systems, including their own markets, production modes, food cultures and environments.”[2] “Food sovereignty” is often found in proximity to a related term, “food security,” which describes people’s “physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”[3] Food security and food sovereignty both include the right to access food, but food sovereignty emphasizes the right to produce food.[4]
The term “food sovereignty” seems first to have been used by La Vía Campesina, a group that has represented small-scale food producers and their right to food sovereignty since 1993, at its Second International Conference in 1996.[5] (You can read the group’s document, “Food Sovereignty, a Manifesto for the Future of Our Planet” here.)
The food sovereignty movement has grown in subsequent decades, including indications of an ecocentric orientation. The US Food Sovereignty Alliance vision statement, for instance, includes:
“We honor Mother Earth, value biodiversity, and support ecological farming and fishing practices that protect the Earth, animals, and people.”
The term “food sovereignty” gained currency as national and international agricultural policies started to change and farming peoples were affected by those changes.[6]Food sovereignty has been centered around what farming peoples can do to restore viability.[7] Farming peoples recognized the way the changes were negatively impacting them and started a political and economic debate in food and agriculture between themselves and governments and industries. There has not as yet been an extensive academic focus on food sovereignty, nor a widely accepted definition of it, but a social movement surrounding the concept, with attendant debates, has arisen.[8]
Although the term “food sovereignty” is relatively recent, the issue to which it points has been around since colonization. Ethnobotanist Kelly Zepelin writes that, for Indigenous nations, “the knowledge and skill of wild food harvest was a form of food sovereignty.”[9] Indigenous scholar Natalie Avalos Cisneros defines food sovereignty as “having independence in the way knowledge is generated and narratives of Indigenous food practices are shared.”[10] Indigenous nations have been working toward food sovereignty in many ways, some of which include decolonizing diets and reindigenizing harvest practices.[11] Their approaches to food production can help inform and give substance to an ecocentric perspective on food sovereignty.
Indigenous Knowledge, Agriculture, and Food Sovereignty
As the effects of industrial agriculture, climate change, and general ecological mismanagement continue to play out, Indigenous communities across the globe have become vital keepers of environments. According to the World Bank, while Indigenous Peoples only make up about 5% of the world’s total population, they are stewards of 36% of currently intact forests and are responsible for 80% of the world’s biodiversity. [12]
While many Indigenous ideologies and practices are rooted in cultural and spiritual understandings, it is also clear to see that these communities have intergenerational knowledge concerning how to care for and protect the ecosystems that have lived within them for time immemorial. This kind of skill cultivation cannot be understated as a method of making natural spaces more resilient in the face of increasing environmental degradation. This approach is also being applied to agricultural spaces as a way of promoting food sovereignty.
People like M. Karlos Baca, the founder of Taste of Native Cuisine and cofounder of the I-Collective, are at the forefront of Indigenous food advocacy. His 4th World Farm is located in Mancos, Colorado, within Southern Ute Indian Territory. The farm works specifically with species of crops traditionally grown within the Southwest, making them more resilient under drought conditions since they require much less water to produce. The farm also works to cultivate the seeds of these crops for other Tribal Nations and communities to grow. Baca describes this ecocentric ideology in extremely personal terms:
“In the same way that you treat your lover, your husband, your wife, your children, your grandparents, that same tenderness, love, emotion, and caretaking that you have for them is the same that you need to have for the land. It’s deeper than just what our ancestors subsisted off of. It’s not just food.”—M. Karlos Baca [13]
Hopi Blue Corn, Pole Beans, and Sugar Pumpkins growing in the Arizona mountains at 6000' elevation. Spencer-Nägy, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
There are many examples of this kind of holistic agricultural and cultural practices spread throughout Turtle Island. For tribes including the Iroquois, the Diné, the Cherokee, as well as many others, the Three Sisters is the practice of interplanting Corn, Beans, and Squash together within the same parcel of land, which bolsters the total yield of the plot while also protecting the health and biodiversity of the soil.[14] The National Agricultural Library describes the Three Sisters agriculture practice as it occurred historically: “Two or three weeks after the corn was planted, the women returned to plant bean seeds in the same hills. The beans contributed nitrogen to the soil, and the cornstalks served as bean poles. Between the rows, the farmers cultivated a low-growing crop such as squash or pumpkins, the leaves of which shaded the ground, preserving moisture and inhibiting weed growth.” [15]
In many places, the presence of Indigenous Food Forests has fundamentally changed what was thought possible for ecocentric food production. In British Columbia, for instance, Indigenous people had been cultivating fruit trees and berry bushes in the region’s hemlock and cedar forests, patches of which still thrive today more than 150 years later.[16] According to an article by Andrew Curry for Science Magazine, “The forest gardens were filled with plants that benefited humans, but they also continue to provide food for birds, bears, and insect pollinators.”[17] These forms of food production, while antithetical to many of the inherent beliefs associated with monocropping, are capable of creating food while sustaining and promoting the well-being of the entire ecosystem.
Food Sovereignty and Ecocentric Law
Connections between ecocentricity and Indigenous practices suggest the outlines of a nature-centered approach to food sovereignty that would stand in contrast to the more modern, Western approach, which is primarily related to human needs of production and profit. There is not much literature surrounding the tie between the ecocentric food production and Indigenous practices, but the material that does compare the differences between Indigenous agricultural and Western agricultural practices shows a clear distinction in the handling of crops.
Within Indigenous practices, it is more common to see special protection given to species [18], focus on soil and water conservation [19], and “intercropping” or “companion planting,” where the plants help each other to grow.[20] A key element in Indigenous agricultural practices is that such practices are adapted to local ecologies. [21]
Because Indigenous practices center around knowledge of the land and crops, it can be argued that their way of agriculture is more ecocentric compared to big, industrialized agricultural practices such as chemical pesticides, herbicides, plow agriculture, and large irrigation systems that result in massive water loss to evaporation. Indigenous practices are on a smaller scale, with a focus on the integrity of the crops.
Even setting aside the question of an ecocentric approach, laws that protect food sovereignty, or even reference it, are rare. Maine is the leading state when it comes to legally addressing food sovereignty, as when the town of Blue Hill passed the “Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance” of 2011, which protects citizens’ right to access food and farmers’ right to produce and sell.
At the national level, there has been legislation introduced in the US Congress, but nothing has gone past the introduction. In 2023 there were three bills introduced, two in the Senate and one in the House. S.2489 FDPIR Tribal Food Sovereignty Act of 2023 was the introduced on July 25, 2023 by Senator Tina Smith (D-MN). This bill focuses on the expansion and permanence of a pilot program that the Department of Agriculture would enter into with tribal organizations, upon the tribes’ request, that would fulfill the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. The second bill introduced in the Senate was S.2912 SNAP Tribal Food Sovereignty Act of 2023, also introduced by Senator Tina Smith, on September 21. Its related House bill, H.R.5970 - SNAP Tribal Food Sovereignty Act of 2023, sponsored by Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO), was introduced October 17th. These two bills center on carrying out the supplemental nutrition programs on Indigenous lands with the Department of Agriculture.
While there may not be much happening legally, there are certainly food sovereignty movements among communities. The biggest and most influential movement, as noted above, has been La Via Campesina. They are not specifically fighting for the rights of the crops and land but for the rights of smaller-scale farmers, who do respect the crops and lands.
What Does the Future Look Like?
For Native and Non-Native communities alike, the future of agriculture and food production looks more and more uncertain. It is time to consider what measures must be taken to transform our current systems to something more resilient in the face of climate change, economic shift, and environmental degradation. The Indigenous communities of Turtle Island have more practical, inter-generational experience when it comes to cultivating sustainable food practices than anyone else.
We are already seeing a shift towards Indigenous governance in areas such as the Land Back Movement. For example, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has voted to transfer 40+ acres of the historic Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery in Inyo County to the Fort Independence Indian Community.[22] This return of land will allow the Tribe to reintegrate more sustainable fishing back into the community. This kind of intergovernmental collaboration is only the beginning. Integrating forms of Indigenous governance, knowledge keeping, and agricultural practices into every level of food production will mean fundamentally changing the way institutions and people think about sustainability.
Bibliography
Amin, Samir. Food Movements Unite!: Strategies to Transform Our Food System. Oakland: Food First Books, 2011.
Curry, Andrew. “Pacific Northwest’s ‘Forest Gardens’ Were Deliberately Planted by Indigenous People: Finding Suggests Humans Have Added Value to Forests in Lasting Ways.” Science Magazine. American Association for the Advancement of Science. April 22, 2021. https://www.science.org/content/article/pacific-northwest-s-forest-gardens-were-deliberately-planted-indigenous-people.
Dávila, Ungelbah. “Portrait Of A Farmer: M. Karlos Baca And 4th World Farm.” Edible New Mexico. July 26, 2023. https://www.ediblenm.com/portrait-of-a-farmer-karlos-baca-4th-world-farm/.
“Empowering Indigenous Peoples to Protect Forests.” World Bank Group. August 9, 2023. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2023/08/09/empowering-indigenous-peoples-to-protect-forests#:~:text=About%2036%25%20of%20remaining%20intact,those%20on%20non%2DIndigenous%20lands.
“Final Meeting Agenda.” Wildlife Conservation Board, Sacramento, CA, November 15, 2023. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=216752&inline
Jansen, Kees. The Debate on Food Sovereignty Theory: Agrarian Capitalism, Dispossession and Agroecology. 2015.
Marsh, Emily. “The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture.” National Agriculture Library. United States Department of Agriculture. 2024. https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters.
Rockler, Briana E, Stephanie K Grutzmacher, Jonathan Garcia, Marc T Braverman, and Ellen Smit. “Something to Eat: Experiences of Food Insecurity on the Farm.” Agriculture and Human Values (2023), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10153044/.
Siath, Eva. Ecocentric Consumption: Integrating North American Indigenous Agricultural Practices into Western Agribusiness across the U.S. Colorado: Regis University, 2023.
Smithers, Gregory D. Native Ecologies: Environmental Lessons from Indigenous Histories. Long Beach, CA: The History Teacher, 2019.
“Three Sisters Planting Method.” United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Department of the Interior. June 6, 2022. https://www.fws.gov/media/three-sisters-planting-method#:~:text=Corn%20%2D%2D%20provides%20a%20structure,the%20other%20plants%20against%20predators.
Wittman, Hannah, Annette Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe. The Origins and Potential of Food Sovereignty. Nova Scotia, CA: Fernwood Publishing, 2010.
Zepelin, Kelly A. Foraging Culture: Ethics, Practice, and Identity among Contemporary Wild Food Foragers in the Southwest United States. Colorado: University of Colorado, 2022.
Citations
[1] Rockler, Briana E, Stephanie K Grutzmacher, Jonathan Garcia, Marc T Braverman, and Ellen Smit. “Something to Eat: Experiences of Food Insecurity on the Farm.” Agriculture and Human Values (2023), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10153044/.
[2] Hannah Wittman, Annette Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe, "The origins and potential of food sovereignty," Food sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community (2010), 2.
[3] Ibid,. 3.
[4] Samir Amin, Food Movements Unite!: Strategies to Transform Our Food System (2011), 23.
[5] Wittman, Desmarais, and Wiebe, "The origins and potential of food sovereignty," 2.
[6] Hannah Wittman, Annette Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe, "The origins and potential of food sovereignty," Food sovereignty: Reconnecting food, nature and community (2010), 2.
[7] Kees Jansen, “The Debate on Food Sovereignty Theory: Agrarian Capitalism, Dispossession and Agroecology,” (2015), 2.
[8] Samir Amin, Food Movements Unite!: Strategies to Transform Our Food System (2011), 25.
[9] Kelly A. Zepelin, Foraging Culture: Ethics, Practice, and Identity among Contemporary Wild Food Foragers in the Southwest United States (University of Colorado, 2022), 52.
[10] Ibid,. 209.
[11] Ibid,. 195.
[12] “Empowering Indigenous Peoples to Protect Forests,” World Bank Group, August 9, 2023, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2023/08/09/empowering-indigenous-peoples-to-protect-forests#:~:text=About%2036%25%20of%20remaining%20intact,those%20on%20non%2DIndigenous%20lands.
[13] Ungelbah Dávila, “Portrait Of A Farmer: M. Karlos Baca And 4th World Farm,” Edible New Mexico, July 26, 2023, https://www.ediblenm.com/portrait-of-a-farmer-karlos-baca-4th-world-farm/
[14] “Three Sisters Planting Method,” United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, June 6, 2022,https://www.fws.gov/media/three-sisters-planting-method#:~:text=Corn%20%2D%2D%20provides%20a%20structure,the%20other%20plants%20against%20predators.
[15] Emily Marsh, “The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture,” National Agriculture Library, United States Department of Agriculture, 2024, https://www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/three-sisters
[16] Andrew Curry, “Pacific Northwest's ‘Forest Gardens’ Were Deliberately Planted by Indigenous People: Finding Suggests Humans Have Added Value to Forests in Lasting Ways,” Science Magazine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, April 22, 2021, https://www.science.org/content/article/pacific-northwest-s-forest-gardens-were-deliberately-planted-indigenous-people
[17] Ibid.,
[18] Eva Siath, Ecocentric Consumption: Integrating North American Indigenous Agricultural Practices into Western Agribusiness across the U.S. (Regis University, 2023), 18-19.
[19] Ibid,. 20.
[20] Ibid,. 22.
[21] Gregory D. Smithers, Native Ecologies: Environmental Lessons from Indigenous Histories (The History Teacher, 2019), 274.
[22] “Final Meeting Agenda,” (Wildlife Conversation Board, Sacramento, CA, November 15, 2023), 65-68. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=216752&inline
