Sustainable Agriculture in Native America

By Christopher-Joseph Ravnopolski-Dean

I have a profound interest in agriculture, and more precisely sustainable agriculture, which uses an ecological approach towards nature – instead of fighting nature, it follows it.

    It’s a modern concept – oddly enough, the “merciless Indian savages” were doing sustainable agriculture in America long before European settlers came on the continent, and their practices have been rediscovered by contemporary agroecologists. For example, Indians had forest gardens – mimicries of forests – that provided them food, timber, and fiber. Europeans couldn’t understand at all that this was agriculture! They were used to their fields with row crops and it didn’t occur to them that one could grow food in a forest. Yet today agroforestry and edible forest gardens are pointed out as useful strategies for combatting erosion and climate change, increasing the water-holding capacity of soils, and using land more economically.
    In relation to my interest in sustainable agriculture, I wanted to watch a documentary about Native American philosophy. I accidentally came upon the film “The Native Americans: Testimonials of the Forefathers” (an OBZURV documentary that can be viewed on YouTube). I had previously read about the atrocities and the wrongs settlers did to locals, but I never suspected that discrimination against Indians was still a reality. I knew that alcoholism was a huge problem among contemporary Indians, but I never thought it could be associated with the uncontrolled supply of alcohol and with higher officials pretending not to see what was happening. I didn’t suspect that elders were fed horrible food.
    I thought that the authors of the film were exaggerating, but I did a Google search. Let’s see what is happening to Native American Civil Rights today. Guess what? The last thing I expected to find was that somebody wanted to install a pipeline through the Sioux reservation, the “Dakota Access Pipeline.”
    Locals are demanding that the presidential candidates express their position on the issue (“Hillary Clinton needs to take a stand on the Dakota Access Pipeline” [Bill McKibben, LA Times, September 7]).

Bill Left Hand protesting construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline

    I think the US has wronged Native Americans enough, and it is quite time to leave those people in peace. The US took their land and built a powerful country, and now, after everything, I think we can only win by treating Indians as human beings.

Copyright © 2016 by Christopher-Joseph Ravnopolski-Dean