Food Sovereignty and Environmental Knowledge: Toward a Healthy and Self-Sustaining Future for Indigenous Peoples Worldwide

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This presentation discusses indigenous strategies in South and North America aimed at preserving and restoring original land bases, and enhancing the cultivation and wide circulation of food in order to end world hunger. One billion people across the world are hungry and deal on a daily basis with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness. Climate change has aggravated this dramatic situation as global warming has seriously affected agricultural productivity and availability of food supplies. Indigenous peoples in North and South America, who live below the international poverty line and suffer from famine and its severe health consequences, are working steadily toward the restoration of their land bases, and the cultivation and circulation of quality and nutritious food. We focus on the environmental knowledge and community efforts to restore and preserve food sovereignty in four Amerindian populations: the Xavante and the Guarani peoples in central and southern Brazil, and the Anishinaabeg and the Yurok tribes in the northwestern United States. A close examination of the White Earth Restoration Project in Minnesota, whose goal is to restore the food security of the Anishinaabeg people, indicates that an economy of gift exchange—based on principles of reciprocity that entail the obligation to give, to receive, and to reciprocate—can help ensure food sovereignty. When communities are finally granted the human right to define their own policies and strategies for sustainable production, distribution, and consumption of food, with respect for their own cultures and systems of managing natural resources, a healthy and self-sustaining future for indigenous peoples worldwide will prevail.

Stream: Scientific Evidence

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Mariana L. Ferreira is a medical anthropologist specializing in the social determinants of illnesses, in particular type 2 diabetes and breast cancer in poor, minority communities in her native Brazil and in the United States (Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley & University of California at San Francisco, 1996). She now works as an Associate Professor in Medical Anthropology and an Affiliated Faculty in Public Health at San Francisco State University. Dr. Ferreira is particularly interested in promoting the social and emotional well-being of indigenous peoples in North and South America, from the perspective of liberation medicine and the belief that access to good food, respect for cultural traditions, and integrative therapies are basic human rights. Her publications include, books, articles, short stories, and theater plays addressing the politics of indigenous identity and the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.

Nathan Embretson has been active in environmental groups throughout California for many years. He has worked with local groups as they create localized economies, as well with international groups such as The International Forum on Globalization, which is a proggressive think tank dedicated to solutions for climate change. His current research examines the ways that late capitalist industrial societey percieves its own solid waste, and how that perception could be turned around in order create community, solidarity, and peace. Nathan will be working with the White Earth Recovery Project in Fall 2008 and Spring 2009.