How This Indigenous Farmer Is Solving Food Insecurity
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- Опубліковано 31 тра 2023
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As climate chaos increases around the world, Michelle Week, a farmer outside of Portland Oregon is drawing on her Sinixt indigenous knowledge to adapt her farm to the changing seasons. By practicing techniques like seed saving and dry farming, Michelle is combating the increasing food security crisis while continuing to provide fresh food to her local community.
Women of the Earth is a new show on PBS Terra, produced by Summer Moon Productions, featuring stories of women across America who are leading a new movement to restore and protect the land. By focusing on women in land stewardship roles like farmers and shepherds, the series will explore women’s unique relationship to the earth and their innovative undertakings to heal the earth from climate change.
Original Production Funding Provided by
National Science Foundation - Grant No. 2120006
CSA Locator: www.localharvest.org/
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
This is episode three of a four-part series. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode!
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This lady is someone worthy of a significant donation to buy her own land and fund her vision. It will actually help us all and heal the world, which needs it so badly right now.
so proud to see michelle covered by pbs - this woman is a powerhouse and i cannot wait to see how far she goes
“Plants grow people” …I love that! & It’s literally true, plants will grow without us, but we can’t grow without them!
With out plants there could be no life. All the critters that eat plants feed all the critters that do not. Without plants we could not even breath!! Growing foods(farming) is the most noble of occupations. There is no living creature on this planet that is not directly depending on plant life to survive.
This makes me imagine a network of indigenous communities worldwide. Food insecurity is horrible, but it will surely make people look outside their phones and come together in that beautiful free world. Self sustainability is such an important skill, we are all just so lazy. Thank you for your work
The idea of microclimate adapted seeds being saved is perfect. I love it. I'm going to do it by leaving some of my plants to go to seed this year.
Such a wonderful woman doing good work!! Carry on Sister…❤️🤗🐝
I believe our indigenous First Nation aboriginal people can do the same here in Australia. Thank you for helping your people & culture, and for sharing your knowledge. The world is a better place with you in it. Great big hugs. 🥰🌿🌈
Beautiful native people
Beautiful documentary...I have met Michelle, she is an incredible human. Thank you for featuring her and her work, I'm so inspired
Great series! We have really enjoyed all the stories and information in these Women of Earth episodes👍 Thank you PBS Terra for bringing this content to UA-cam for everyone!
First time I’ve heard a west coast tribal member mention Seminole! Thank you sister for acknowledging us! ✌🏽❤️
I am part Chiricahua Apache living in the New Mexico mountains and started a native edible food forest. I feed myself and local wildlife. This is high desert, I don't irrigate.
We may have no choice, but it is a good choice.
I love seeing others farming in a better way. I have no connection with Apache and ended up here before my DNA told me who I am.
I'm also in high desert at New Mexico/Colorado border, 40acres. Also, Chiricahua descendant mix. We drip irrigate 20 % of area but also have wild forage with no mitigation. I use growing techniques taught by indigenous elders from New Mexico and Arizona. I'm hoping to keep learning and gathering knowledge...I piece together as much as possible then try it out when I can. For example, I farm in spirals to maximize water storage...
@@marissaalonzo7997 Sweet! I haven't tried spirals, will do so. You are lucky to have elders to learn from. I learned foraging from my dad and gardening from my mom. I have combined them into gardening with mostly native edibles. My beds are mature enough to grow a few European vegetables, mostly root crops, but also Coyote tomatoes from the Mexican mountains that survive my cold summer nights. I also seed around big rocks uphill, they keep moisture underneath.
@RebeccaTreeseed I sought out the knowledge keepers different ways...everyone in my family line were killed in massacres and wars. My grandfather was the last to know any of the old ways and died in WWII. So, I set out out to educate myself...I started with Hopi planting ways because and they are the closest geographically to me with dry farming and record keeping, then I moved on to local indigenous dry farming seminars and then to my great-grandmother's people in Southern Arizona. There IA an agricultural center there and that's where I moved from dry farming with rocks to larger spirals. Mathematically the plants make their own rows along the spirals. It's amazing...I am still e xperimenting and outcomes vary. I am hoping for a no water system eventually...
Something invited you there!
@@RebeccaTreeseed Oh, good idea with the rocks! I have seen people do that in the middle East and thought they were markers for where they planted, now I know!
I’m so grateful there are people like her actually doing something to save the earth. It takes a lot of bravery and effort to do that. Truly thankful ❤
You are doing awesome work. You should write a book on all your findings and crops. Somehow I think this will be our future.❤😊
Thank you for all you do, Michelle. And thanks to PBS for giving her (and us) this opportunity.
We need more people like this beautiful woman! Thank You!!
Wonderful video and heartwarming information. Michelle week should be supported by the government so she could start a school of her own and teach this wonderful knowledge to everyone.
This is the content I love to see.
Thank God there are still indigenous people are implementing their knowledge. Please government officials let these people do their work
Your not the only indigenous growing native food upon native lands .keep seed collecting ,happy harvest
Food is a human right and should be free! Stop the capitalization of human rights! And Long Live Turtle Island Forever!!!! Thank you sister for showing the colonizers the way to a sane, truly rich, wonderful life. Love you and your path. May the ancient gods and ancestors protect you and your family!
Regardless of skin color!
Wonderful, brought tears to my eyes...there is hope, after all. More people like this wonderful, beautiful being, please ❤
Camus still grows wild in southern Oregon. It’s becoming more scarce but it’s still here!
Quamash still grows in Washington as well.
If I could get some bulbs I would help re-naturalize them in Southern Oregon.
@@jacksonfamily678
There are places that sell them.
What beautiful video and for this awesome gal trying saving plants and growing it for food to feed the people she doing wonderful job and as always you be safe 🇺🇸🇺🇸
Amazing to see! We must all take action into our own hands to face climate chaos, everyone needs to do as much as they can to ensure that our children will live to see beauty in this world.
It is beautiful what this woman is doing and her passion is honorable. We should all strive to be such a gift to the land.
The more dry it gets, the less you're gonna want to till the ground - it'll blow away in the wind. And that's good soil blowing away. Yeah, less seeds will actually grow when planted, but you'll preserve that good farmland for future planting seasons. We don't need another Dust Bowl.
Then again, I live in the Midwest where we were impacted by the Dust Bowl and a lot of excellent rich farm soil blew away and we'll never get that back. That's probably a lot less of a concern in the NW where y'all are.
Look into Mark Shepard. He emphasizes getting away from typical monocropped, annual, synthetic chemical, irrigation-intensive, overgrazed pasture., CAFO-intensive, grain dependent diet (some animals like poultry still need some grain).
He does alleycropped rows of food-producing trees, shrubs, and vines that grow in rows between perennials, and grasses. Crop residues, culls, pests, weeds, fertility are managed by livestock, so instead of paying for chemical inputs, he let's his livestock be part of his management system, and another point of profit.
Look up his books on restoration ag, and keylining for more complete info. His videos are a great introduction.
There are other reasons for no till practices. For example, it preserves the microbial biome, which aids in healthier plant growth.
I honestly have no words, just a deep respect for her and the work she's done
I enjoyed watching your effort, enthusiasm and beautiful smile. Great video. Thank you.
This is wonderful.
There are also some techniques from so called Dark Ages European and Asian farming history that demonstrate how to farm in lots of water, or very little water, in short but intense growing seasons with a lot of light and heat.
*Sharing all the world's localized techniques from history and the present day will be very important as our micrcoclimates change, which they are doing.*
Yes! So good. Put out the whole series so we can binge watch them all!!!! #whitefarmtrucks 💪 “Food is for all people.” Amen.
Good for you Michelle. I pray for the best success for you in your food project.
I love the term climate chaos. It’s a perfect description!
I’ve always been interested in planting and growing food so this was fun for me to watch
This gives me hope! Thank you.
There is nothing more important than this - thank you 🙏 ❤
I am Native, Creek, in South, but live in Florida today. Bravo for you doing this work. I am impressed and my soul is warmed by your actions & outlook. U are Beautiful to me.
Great to see your effort continue to make a difference.
What an amazing women!! We need more people like her - desparately :0)
incredibly powerful. i wept like a baby. thank you so much for sharing her story
It is shame what we did to indigenous tribes. What a lovely strong woman. We have a CSA garden near us. We are in New. Jersey. My neighbor and I are interested in wild and edible foods.
Thank you for serving humanity.
I'm so glad for her and her people. I hope you flourish.
Watching this seriously made my day. Thank you.
Powerful episode! Thank you for featuring solutions!
Super inspirational. I’ve been trying to grow a food producing garden on “my” (stolen) land. It’s funny because all the weeds that are penalized in my area actually benefit my garden. But they also think my garden is just weeds… but there’s arugula and lots of other stuff. But like even most of the weeds are edible, so it’s kinda obvious there is intent behind that (foods that grow readily with little water-mallows, dandelions, etc). Composting is also penalized. It’s so backwards.
I wish we could get this land back to it’s indigenous roots. Repair the wetlands for sure-I love that she was talking about that. That is a HUGE problem. California has lost 90% of its wetlands, and would take over 1000 years for it to be recovered once action is taken to repair them.
We are literally killing ourselves and our planet so the 1 percent can live in excess and control us like puppets.
Wow this is awesome, and so close to where I live (currently growing food in front and back yards)! Perfect example of going Back to the Future as Western/Industrial civilization continues its decline towards collapse. Glad to see that PBS is starting to carry good stuff again (for the first time since the 1970's, IMO). Reminds me why I'm subscribed to this series, with its information on Climate Change, which previously was only being carried by progressive media sources.
The days of NFL/NASCAR/Disneyland are over!
We know plants are migrating to new areas so when ppl move to new regions they need to bring their seed crops with them. Literally everything from vegtables to herbs, cash crops, berries, nuts everything. Plan being..replant as much as possible and see what does good, because of coarse not everything will. The more ppl doing this and the more genetics circulating the better. The wise will adapt, be strong we got this!
Indigenous peoples gotta have some land back
Such important work!
Got quite emotional at the Camas lily bit, I know it as Camassia, I hope it grows abundant, a beautiful plant. It’s seems so unfair, you having to rent the land…. I am surprised you still till, regenerative techniques tend to have done away with soil disturbance all together. Of course every soil has its particular character, but even in clay that sets as hard as stone in summer if not mulched, no till works for me in Spain (Valencia region). You’re doing important work 💚
It is a very Nice workshop, congratulations
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Very educational and resourceful. Great job! 💚💫
I agree with so much of what she said. I often get asked how I know how to grow this or that and sometimes it sounds so peculiar to me because it just seemed natural to me. The simplest answer is to observe and listen to what the environment has to say. Every living thing around you should be respected because at the very least it has something to say to you. If you didn't hear it, it was only because you never took the time to listen.
I've been living in the Portland area for 15 years now and had camas root for the first time a couple days ago and was surprised at how good it was! A friend prepared it in a crock pot, slow cooking it for a couple days. Slow process but worth the wait! Thank you for all of your hard work Michelle!
As an inspring urban farmer who is trying to grow Vietnamese heirlooms to the elders here in California, this video relight up my motivation and reminds me to keep going.
Thank you❤
More power to her, need more like her.
Lovely woman doing a great job. I use the plastic containers that cookies come in to grow my microgreens. Even if you don’t have dirt you can eat healthy. It feels good knowing my plants origin. My 2 great Gr Mother’s were nativeAm so I have Fox & Choctaw blood. I know what u mean about not talking about it, but now, my generation is proudly claiming that little bit of Native Blood. A-ho💙
Thank you for sharing your craft/work/love. From Rensina in Australia
You’re doing something of true value.
Great video ..
I have noticed that this year, I can see thru the tree canopy this year... unmistakable...
Noodle fermenting I'm enjoying your videos a lot thank you
I'm off grid now, but when I had electricity I kept a 5 gallon bottle of water in front of my electric heater. The water was gently warmed by the heater and would radiate heat into the room keeping the room warmer longer and reducing the amount the heater would run.
I like blue corn better than other types of corn but I have never eaten blue corn on the cob.
So important.
Too bad there was zero investigations into the misdeeds of the government-run Indian schools in the US. Portland was one of the bad ones
Look into Mark Shepard and restoration ag. It's different from most practices labeled 'regenerative ag' or 'organic' as it is deeply holistic and positive in approach.
It allows those interested in farming or wanting to stay in farming a cheaper way that is profitable, ethical, maneageable.
It uses rapid, natural soil building practices, builds farmer resilience. It can be done on a larger scale than most permaculture practices which means more land can be converted to better practices.
*This means avoiding:*
• chemical inputs that destroy soil, and lessen food nutrition. Replacing it with healthy soil biomes and livestock to manage disease, weeds, fertility and pests, as well as many crop residues (crop residues are what is leftover after harvest).
• heavy irrigation dependency.
Annuals are relatively heavy water users during their entire life cycle (restorative ag uses mostly food producing perennials, trees, vines and shubs which require much less irrigation support after the third year). It uses rainwater harvesting techniques like keylining, swales, check dams bunds, etc. This allows bypassing pumping water most of the time. It has the side benefit of allowing aquifers and water tables to recharge.
• avoiding monocropping of annuals and instead use interplanted, diverse species of trees, perennials, shrubs etc. Interplanted crops grown this way work symbiotically to increase fertility, preserve water, move nutrients to where they are needed, improve soil quality, etc.
• avoiding bare ground/fallow practices. Bare ground dries faster, loses the ability to retain water, or soak it in; is prone to wind and rain erosion. It contributes to increasing CO² in the air;
• instead of growing plants that need fussyness after planting,
using biome-appropriate plants. Biome-appropriate plants are better adapted to soil and rain conditions and avoid the need for heavy supplementation, etc. If it fails to do well, replace it, it's likely the wrong variety for the soil.
Most of the area West of the Mississippi has ongoing water supply problems. The Oglala Aquifer is below 20%, it has been a source of water for a large area in the Midwest.
Another person to follow is Brad Lancaster. He is an expert on rainwater harvesting and has excellent guidelines. This can be done everywhere.
It will mitigate flooding, drought, wildfires, ground subsidence, heatwaves, assist wildlife, etc.
Suggest you checkout their books, websites and YT videos for great info, proof of concept, instruction, etc.
The point is that yea, it is profitable, but restoration ag is reasonably and ethically profitable as opposed to the heavily exploitive methods of conventional conglomerate ag.
I’m sure the person in the video is a wonderful person, but this entire video is screaming ‘greenwashing’ with adoption of land back aesthetics. But really there’s no real call for Justice for my people and ancestors It’s really just petite bourgeoisie liberalism.
To each their own, I don’t care if you want to be a capital owner, you want to grind in this system, but just don’t bring my people into this shit, not because I’m forbidding you, you’re not being ‘cancelled’, do it out of respect for all my dead ancestors who still have their fangs out in the face of this colonial experiment. Also, don’t advertise yourself as the company that’s ‘doing it right’, the comment above is closer to the right way than this video.
Oh! You're in Gresham. Are you at the local farmers market? I'd love to support this project.
Thank who ever you pray to for young people like this. A message that needs to be heard
Love this!
We need to understand how people adapted farming to different regions while simultaneously not thinking they are magical and have some knowledge that can't be gained by anyone not indigenous. Follow the science
These methods are what works better for healthy food, land and water, and then everyone who is growing and eating them. Which then, will help future generations of all life.
We don’t have food insecurity we have greedy corporations that throw out tons of food.
Best Luck for your farming from Germany ♥♥♥
You are love in this world.
This was sooo fascinating! After being up here in NW Ohio on sandy loose soil I came to realize why my tomatoes I grew in Tennessee were so much better. I have a bit of Choctaw in me and in Tennessee folks were proud of their Indian heritage but was told after moving to Minneapolis in ‘82 to never tell anyone about my Native piece of DNA. I did not understand it.
???
Probably didn't want you taken away. In 82' they were still taking kids.
@@selenakeller4910 My later boyfriend was a Canadian Cree that had been adopted and put in a school. What he told me was horrible. He had PTSD really bad. I saw so much pain in the local Sioux people that I myself started having severe anxiety and had to move away.
Would anyone be able to provide some entry-level material - books, articles, film, etc - that the average every day person could obtain to begin getting an understanding of this type of stuff? I would love love love to gain more knowledge/familiarization with native plants, but always feel overwhelmed with getting started.
Inaturalist! It’s an app; take a photo of any wild plant and it will help you ID the correct name! A community of scientists and naturalists help with IDing plants alongside yourself, so if you get something wrong someone is bound to correct you eventually
As for native foods, it never hurts to research TEK (traditional ecological knowledge) for your area, or permaculture. Extension services of universities in your area are always a great place to look for insight and/or knowledge on local topics.
Amazon has books on indigenous/Native American foods.
Steps in the right direction towards food subsistency. 🎉
Excellent as always!! Thanks for the video!
Price of land goes up because of inflation, not because of demand...also the price of land is tied to the credit market and farming productivity drops a lot especially during an energy crisis, also farmland is far from urban areas, so I expect price to land to plummet, not to increase
I am reminded a moral I was taught long ago in a far away culture, in Tamil Nadu by a local holy man. He said that the women of India are the Repositories of their Culture.
So, I see that again in other videos and now in your life as a Native Tribal Farmer. Thank you for not giving in to the Cultureless American Consumerism and choosing to revive as much of the ways of the First Nations peoples.
Is it not possible for me to save this to a playlist? The option doesn't seem to be there
Underneath the title of the video ( on my iPad version displayed version), there is the row of symbols and options. Subscribe, thumbs up/ down, then to the far right, there is a horizontal row of white dots. Click on those dots and you can “SAVE” , “To watch later”.
@@dianeleirer9878 Thanks. It's there now. I think YT may have just been glitching or something
Could you not gain a few weeks planting by designating ground that you are allowed to compact so you can get in there and plant rows? You could alternate it every other year but you would have to aerate the compacted ground with a broadfork or whatever it's called.
I use the indigenous invention of ollas, hooked to a drip line to water my garden directly underground.
Wish them the best of luck
Hello
. . .thank you. . for what you do🌱
Beautiful Person!
I farm my own vegetables and so far good season
To get through what's coming, we need to somehow keep hold of the tech knowledge that has literally cost us the earth, while simplifying and shrinking down to small yet connected communities like this.
impressive and touching
I learned alot. Thank you.
GOD bless you 🙏❤️
My Dear
Thank you
Those that love the land understand the roots and the ground that cares for them.
Thank you for sharing
Great storytelling. Cool music too.
I read something earlier, a comment on a video, that stated something about the sun changing every 400 years. She was looking into chinese history. The dynasties changed every 400 years also. She was wondering if there was a correlation. Think that is the right word? Senior moment.
❤❤❤this idea can I plant a 🌳 right on top after buried❤❤❤❤❤I hope so I think this such a beautiful idea I want a peach tree on top of mewhen I die so I can feed everybody even when gone❤❤❤❤❤💯💯💯💯💯👍🖤🖤🖤🖤👍
The girl with the plan
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
The problem of gtound Waterloo polutikns also May affect Othello propriedades that dont you pesticidas...
I really like this series. I wish I could be more independent but I became homeless where I grew up, once a small town now in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States. I got on SNAP when I was between jobs but I'm almost stuck because if I make enough to live, save for a vehicle...then I lose any & all benefits because I am then making too much money to qualify. The system needs to be reworked
Why is it it so slow at the end?
❤️❤️❤️
Plants are people! Not corporations.
Beautiful! 💛