White Earth Land Recovery Project CI Report – Interim

What has been most instrumental to your progress?

Communication has been the most instrumental aspect for the Upper Midwest Indigenous Seed Keepers Network. One of our partners, Dan Cornelius, our Intertribal Ag Technical assistant has provided us use of conference call numbers. It’s essential for our network, which consists of community leaders from over 14 tribes in the Upper Midwest region (MN, WI, IA, ND, MI) to communicate on a regular basis. We have monthly conference calls to exchange ideas to strengthen indigenous seed sovereignty efforts. We also gather in person two times a year, at the Indigenous Farming Conference (March 3-6, 2016) and at Shakopee, MN (January, 2016). Keeping good communication with all of the partners lets us know how everything is going at each individual community as well as the general strengths and needs of all the communities. This allows us to have a good big picture and more accurate view of how each project is coming along, and connect on a personal level. Many of the participants of the network find the monthly calls essential to the growth of our work.

We host four 2-day seed workshops in each of the native communities per year. This is an essential part of the ‘train the trainers’ seed keeping program. We hire nationally acclaimed native seed keeping educators such as Rowen White and Terrylynn Brandt as well as plant breeders Frank Kutka and Walter Goldstein, local presenters, storytellers, native chefs, and requested guests. The agenda is made with people from each community with project advisor, mohawk seed keeper Rowen White and provide essential seed saving basics, stories, and information the communities are seeking to help form their individual seed sovereignty projects and seed banks. After the training, we provide the community with necessary training materials to host continued workshops and gatherings. We also have room in the agenda for discussion on the successes and challenges. The workshops are invaluable for the program coordinator to meet individuals first hand and observe the needs of each community.

The three school garden managers from three reservation schools (Pine Point, Naytahwaush, and Circle of Life Academy) on the White Earth Reservation has provided positive weekly gardening programs at each elementary school locations. Each garden manager is hired to manage both the gardens at the school and to get 10 kids out to the gardens each week for a few hours. The garden managers are using the Anishinaabe nutrition curriculum created by our staff. This 13-month seasonal curriculum is focused on youth from 4-12 that are in each of these three schools. The youth in the schools learn about eating healthy, and culturally seasonal food.

Key lessons learned

I have learned patience listening to all of the many people involved in our project. It is not a sole responsibility to direct this project, but always takes a coordination and circle discussion. I bring decisions to be made to our monthly phone calls or group emails. I listen to everyone and when writing up a decision, I’ll send this back to the group so they can sign off on it, as I do not want to misrepresent anyone. There hasn’t been a case where I have misrepresented the group or individuals in a negative way, but I am sensitive and careful not to do this. As program manager, I have a lot of responsibility to be a voice for the group, and I have an Advisor, Rowen White whom I go to with advise on how to handle specific situations. I have managed the Indigenous Farming Conference for the last four years with over 300 members. I find that the conference is formed from listening to core individuals who are invested and using those ideas to collectively work together.

In the summer months, I manage up to 10 staff. I have learned to be more firm and up front regarding expectations of positions. I received help from my advisor, Rowen White on how to handle a difficult situation where a person hired was not accomplishing what they should have by a specific time period. Both Rowen and I wanted to support this individual, yet it would not have been fair to the greater communities to have a person only going a part of the job. We talked it through and thankfully this person is still a part of our group and they work for us when they can and understood that we needed this in on time. This experience led me to create more specific contracts and going over all of the expectations. Because we work with such a large group of individuals serving 13 tribal seed sovereignty initiatives, there will inevitably be situations come up that will test my management skills. With the support of others, and with common goals, we are able to overcome such obstacles.

Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving

Collaborative has been obviously the most important element in our work. We work with over 13 tribal nations and communities and supporting each other is an essential aspect of the success of this work. There is some drama and obstacles in our groups are there are in every group so we have to stay positive and communicate positively to affect change. I am proud of our group and all of our successes. I believe it has to do with our ability to speak about our work with confidence and ask for help when needed. There has been much ancestral agricultural knowledge lost during the colonization period, and many native individuals are in a healing process. Working with plants and seeds is healing work and we find it relatively easy to remain rooted and positive with each other and our work. It makes me happy to see the collaborative efforts of our work grow and witness the eagerness to learn from each other. It is a strong point in our Indigenous Seed Network that will last for generations to come.

Other key elements of Community Innovation

An element that is not mentioned that has contributed to our progress is how we conduct our meetings and gatherings. We have a protocol around the seeds as well as a general protocol for our gatherings. We smudge and have an opening and closing circle. This is the way that our group of native communities gather up and honor the earth, wind, fire, air, creator and all beings. There is a connection to these parts of life that make our group and our work stronger. Our intention is to be connected to the earth and to help heal the earth as we heal ourselves, and grow good nutritious food, while restoring old seeds grown for thousands of years. Because our work has to do so much with seeds and life, there is a great mystery behind all we do and we collectively appreciate that mystery individually and together.

Understanding the problem

While most of the points of contact of our partners have remained the same, there are constantly people moving, leaving positions and growing in all directions. The core of the group has gained insight and clarity into what areas of focus to go after at a time and not get side tract. There is much we can accomplish as a group and it has been important for us to accomplish one thing at a time. I think our group was pretty unique in the way that we were all very clear of exactly what needed to happen early on, but there were so many obstacles in the way that everyone was very excited about the opportunities, and as a group we had the potential of loosing focus on a few things we could accomplish. We stay on track through communicating often and going one step at a time.

If you could do it all over again…

There would be a lot of things I would tell myself. I was a little shy in the beginning of the project. I would tell myself that there was nothing to be afraid of earlier on and could have possibly gotten some more things accomplished in the first few months. I was trying to gain everyone’s trust in the beginning, and think that is important too. We are now getting in touch with more Anishinaabe tribes from Michigan. I think this extension could have been made earlier on as well. These Michigan tribes will now be able to benefit from our newly made Anishinaabe nutrition curriculum as well as attend our traveling 2-day seed workshops.

One last thought

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