Regenerative Agriculture IS Indigenous Agriculture YET so much less
Angels of Impact @FoodFunded 2022 in San Francisco.
As an Advisory Committee member for Food Funded 2022, I reiterated what I learned from Jaime Gloshay back in 2019 when she presented at the SEED conference in San Francisco, that regenerative agriculture IS indigenous agriculture.
Reminding them of Jaime’s talk struck a chord with the other Advisory Committee members, and I was asked to facilitate a session to hold space for indigenous voices at the conference. Unfortunately, Jaime couldn't make it over so thanks to the assistance of Arno Hesse and Lauren Gratten, Xitlali Villa an indigenous Mission-Driven Fellow graciously agreed to co-create the space for deep conversations.
In their presentation, Xitali shared a definition that does acknowledge the roots of regenerative agriculture as coming from indigenous wisdom. “Rooted in Indigenous wisdom, regenerative farming is an alternative decision-making framework that offers a set of principles and practices to grow food in harmony with nature and heal the land from degradation.” — Definition from the Natural Resources Defence Council. Most other definitions however don’t even make any reference to indigenous wisdom and I have seen so many instances of indigenous communities pushed aside while “woke” individuals come in and try to teach them how to do regenerative agriculture. The woke world is so good at coining methodologies and phrases such as sustainable agriculture, permaculture, and now regenerative agriculture to doughnut economics that they have all forgotten that these methods and theories have been inspired by indigenous teachings. Do they truly understand what “harmony with nature and heal the land” in the regenerative agriculture definition above involves. As Jaime Gloshay and Xitlali Villa will tell you, it involves a deep spiritual connection between people and Mother Earth. A multidimensional approach to people and life.
So how were we going to unfreeze people at a Regenerative Agriculture conference who were “experts” and help them understand there is so much more they haven’t fully understood. So Xitlali and I put our thinking hats together and decided to start our session outside of the conference room. Renata Gomez, the amazing conference organizer gave us a room where it was easy to go in and out without too much disruption. So we began outside with a land acknowledgment to Presidio which I took from the Presidio website and combined with another land acknowledgment. As everyone opened their hearts to this exercise, we could feel a gentle breeze come through almost like a blessing.
“We would like to acknowledge that the Presidio of San Francisco is the traditional territory of the Yelamu, a local tribe of Ramaytush Ohlone peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula. Yelamu families lived in the village of Petlenuc, long before California was Spain, Mexico, or the United States. As a reminder, the process of colonization is ongoing and still adversely affects the indigenous people from the Bay Area.
We wish to pay our respects and honor the Ramaytush Ohlone for their enduring commitment to steward Mother Earth. We recognize that the Ramaytush Ohlone have lived in harmony with nature for millennia, and that to achieve a truly ecologically sustainable future for San Francisco, we must embrace Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge in how we care for the city’s lands, waters, and all its people.”
After this, we did a simple exercise to help people connect with the multidimensional aspect of how we connect to each other and to Mother Earth. We asked everyone to think of a sacred object they have (for example I had the symbol of the Baha'i Faith that I wear), or a gesture they do (for example in my culture before we do the classical dance we touch the earth and ask for permission to stomp on it as we believe Mother Earth is sacred or how we don’t step on books because we see knowledge as sacred). As everyone thought about what and how they respect something sacred, we played the beautiful music of Kevin Locke, a Lakota elder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrihdoImSMQ
Then with this feeling of sacredness, we asked everyone to look at each other with the eye of sacredness and then with Mother Earth by touching a tree or the ground and feel the sacred connection. These exercises really helped unfreeze everyone and then we went inside to listen to Xitlali’s deep conversation about the Indigenous approach to agriculture and have a discussion around these concepts and a call to action.
The topic of conversation was “Real Regeneration: Learning from Indigenous Communities–Is “regenerative” new and how much more do we have to discover?” We reminded everyone that indigenous agriculture is regenerative agriculture and more. It comes from indigenous wisdom of seeing us as one with the planet and people–that animals, plants, and even people outside our family are our relatives — and when we see the sacred connections, we treat things differently. I feel regenerative agriculture hasn’t yet embraced this oneness and the multidimensional aspect of life. Xitlali reminded us that regeneration is not enough, we also need to restore the connection of indigenous people to the land. Indigenous people have been doing regenerative farming always and they have much to share. It is the colonization and the culture of extraction and hoarding that has led to agriculture creating the Dust Bowl for example. I shared how colonization has removed indigenous people from their lands, stripped them of their language and cultures, and yet they have held fast to this stewardship of Mother Earth, documented in the UN study which shows that 80% of the world’s biodiversity resides in indigenous lands. Therefore I felt that at minimum, preservation of indigenous lands is key to Climate Chaos as biodiversity is the cornerstone solution to our problems and restoring Indigenous land is also a key component to overcoming Climate Chaos for the good of all.
For those interested in learning more from Xitlali’s presentation, here is the link https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BT6yYoM1d7ncRUExjcJywacPcrtuk_V9m7c1c08Xs94/edit?usp=sharing
One key call to action made at the end of this session was to have the next Food Funded put indigenous speakers as keynotes and increase awareness on how much more we have to learn to do regenerative agriculture right. Many of the attendees said this session helped them see how they could use their privilege to help amplify the voices of indigenous communities and how we can definitely do more.
