REGINA — Don’t throw away your seeds, because they hold valuable ancient agricultural knowledge.
It's one of the key messages from the 13 Moons Food and Seed Sovereignty learning circle project from SAGE - ē kanātahk askiy (it is a clean earth), which is focused on seed and food sovereignty for the Indigenous people living on the prairies.
“A seed is like us,” said Glenda Abbott, with the International Buffalo Relations Institute. “What we go through in life can weather us. A seed can hold a memory if they go through a period of drought or are impacted by insects, it holds those different types of stories.”
SAGE is a collaborative project between the International Buffalo Relations Institute and the University of Saskatchewan and is funded by the Weston Family Foundation.
The seed's narrative is very telling and can be a source of great knowledge, explained Abbott who is from Pelican Lake First Nation.
“They can develop an internal wisdom and knowledge in how to survive year after year, this is why we might choose to save seeds,” she said.
The learning circle will spend the next year or 13-moon cycle sharing knowledge and strategies with First Nations people and communities currently involved in or planning to start community gardens.
“We want people to remember why it’s so important to have food in our backyards,” said Abbott. “I think since COVID, people are waking up to the idea.”
She believes communities and individuals are hungry for the knowledge SAGE offers.
In addition to the 13 Moons Food and Seed Sovereignty project, SAGE provides free workshops and training to people interested in developing better relationships with the land where their food is grown.
This includes sharing information on soil and agroecosystem health from both Indigenous and Western science perspectives. The goal is to develop Indigenous agroecosystems that foster soil health, biodiversity, and resiliency to climate change.
“I think we’re in a period where people are starting to have a deeper understanding of the vulnerabilities of our food system,” said Abbott.
One way to combat food system vulnerabilities is seed saving, which is the practice of preserving seeds from vegetables, grain, herbs, and flowers to use from year to year.
The plants grown from these seeds are far more resilient than seeds purchased at a store, said Abbott.
“A lot of plants grown in a greenhouse, in a controlled environment, are only intended to grow one generation,” she said. “We’re trying to impart the wisdom of saving seeds for multiple generations. In the past, one handful of seeds was equivalent to a full buffalo hide in trade. That’s how valuable they are.”
These sorts of practices could not only increase food security – having reliable and sustainable sources of food but also food sovereignty – the right to have culturally appropriate food and define one’s own food and agriculture systems.
“Foods that are more connected to our culture and history will also grow better,” said Abbott. “This is also about remembering our stories, our trade routes, our history, and re-aligning it through our food systems.”
First Nations, communities, and individuals wishing to join the 13 Moons learning circle can connect with Abbott through the SAGE Project - ē kanātahk askiy Facebook group.
“We want to continue building community knowledge and a network of people who are doing the work and continue growing this idea of achieving food security through food sovereignty,” said Abbott.
Additional information on the SAGE - ē kanātahk askiy can be found online at https://agbio.usask.ca/sage/index.php.
