Unlocking a Diverse Food Future: Community Self-Reliance and Social Justice as Drivers of Change

Euneika Rogers-Sipp for SCALE consulting team, April 2022
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​In this blog, the first of a series, I will highlight community-based organizations in Western New York that are creating and expanding innovative models of care - beginning new efforts and nurturing long-standing food sovereignty initiatives that are committed to improve health equity and support transformative system-level change. 
 
The Food Future WNY Initiative is learning that forming the right partnerships with these community-based actors will address many of the underlying issues impacting our ability to effectively respond to local community needs for healthy food.  Partnerships working at the intersection of farm enterprise, public health policy and racial justice aim to build a solid foundation for the future of food systems, thereby providing opportunities for mutual healing. 

The Native Farm Bill Coalition meets at Gakwi:yo:h Farms in Cattaraugus County, April 12, 2022. Territories represented: Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Seneca, Allegany, Seneca Cattaraugus, Tonawanda Band of Seneca, Tuscarora, Ganondagan, Cayuga, Onondaga, Akewesasne Mohawk, Kahnawake Mohawk, Eastern Band of Cherokee North Carolina. Photo by Mike Snyder.

An affirming, growing life force is generated by partnering with the Seneca people. ​Among the growing field of food system actors, who center Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI), in this potential accord is held in the greatest respect. As recently as 20 years ago, the Seneca experienced systematic destruction of their agricultural traditions, from how they butchered their animals to how they sowed, harvested, and distributed their crops. According to Mike Snyder, Director of the Seneca Nation Agriculture Department and Manager of Gakwi:yo:h Farms (good food in Seneca), a Seneca Nation farming enterprise, did not exist because in an ecosystem of traditional foods and medicinal practices farming was irrelevant in that iteration of Western New York’s food system culture. 

Gakwi:yo:h Farms addresses food security and food sovereignty through community engagement and wellness by implementing a “Haudenosaunee” (pronounced Ho· de·no·sau·nee·ga) approach to agricultural practices. Commonly referred to as Iroquois of Six Nations, the goal is to produce healthy food, use quality food processing procedures and make these foods available to Seneca community members, from field to table. The foundation of the mission rests on the ability to positively impact the Seneca people, contribute to a conscious shift toward healthier eating habits, and change the way food is brought into homes.

Gakwi:yo:h Farms inspecting corn grown at the Providence Farm Collective with the Somali Bantu community and sharing native corn growing traditions. Photo by Mike Snyder.

The Seneca Nation processes white corn flour and cornmeal food products. All branding and marketing of these value-added products are done in-house. Photo by Mike Snyder.

​As an agriculture initiative, Gakwi:yo:h Farms reconnects the philosophy of their Seneca ancestors and commits to promote the relationship between the people, their lands, and the foods they eat. Just as the Seneca people have always understood and respected the value of their traditional foods, they acknowledge the value placed on healthy food, especially white corn which is an inherent part of the Seneca culture. Gakwi:yo:h Farms is thriving, developed in the ways of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which is indigenous to the exact location it stands today. 

Three phases of Community Food Sovereignty: Plans and Action in Place

• ​Food as medicine Like many communities, the Seneca Nation suffered from high rates of diabetes and other metabolic disorders, due in part to a shift away from traditional foods.  The Healthy Corner Store Initiative in Erie and Niagara Counties confronts disparities in food access by creating a culture of health through engagement of residents in a healthy lifestyle in partnership with neighborhood stores. Organizations in the city of Buffalo’s east side such as The Buffalo Center for Health Equity, and the Matt Urban Hope Center (MUC), emphasize the importance of food systems in generating and exacerbating health disparities in urban cities and suggest avenues for reducing them. 
•  An all-Indigenous run enterprise The Seneca focused from the start with developing an entirely indigenous run enterprise for everything from creating to branding, marketing, and packaging its own goods. The rallying cry for community-based food leaders to create, produce, and consume food and programming about themselves is one that can be heard throughout the Western New York region. The Buffalo Food Equity Network (BFEN) and Food for the Spirit, is an all people of color run organization that develops programming and services for people of color growers while centering their agency and authorship in the food system.​

Healthy and culturally relevant meals prepared with produce and livestock from Gakwi:yo:h Farms. Photo by Mike Snyder.

•  54-acre central farm hub This was the start of the Seneca efforts to expand acreage, increase the number and varieties of foods they produce, while also developing new pathways and distribution models. With the help of a council, the Seneca have gained access to unused land both on and off the reservation – and have expanded the cultivation of Indigenous crops and the raising of culturally significant animals. Grassroots Gardens of WNY, Blegacy Farms, and Providence Farm Collective have all established (as well as advocate for) reliable access to land, along with use rights, control rights, and/or transfer rights, to ensure communities a valuable means of self-determination and ability to produce food for consumption and community wealth benefits.  

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The Access, Equity, and Food Sovereignty (AES) Work Group explores and embraces the transformative potential, opportunities, and wide-ranging benefits that food sovereignty and other justice-based frameworks offer. Frameworks that can benefit people living and working in rural and urban areas. We are inspired by the movement of Senecas to re-establish and control their traditional food systems while diversifying into markets, production modes, cultures, and environments. Although the Seneca are not completely food sovereign today, they are well on their way to a culturally-specific system rooted in their origins. Their self-sufficiency model facilitates direct links between indigenous farming practices and a community's social and economic development. 
 
To learn more, get involved or find contact information please visit the WNY Regional Food System ​Initiative website.