#foodforests — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #foodforests, aggregated by home.social.
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Any one to help us identify this type of plant
#Agroforestry #FoodForests #Permaculture -
Nutrition programs work better when they include #Indigenous food knowledge
Researchers found nutrition programs work better when they include Indigenous food knowledge, local languages, and traditional practices.
By Raquel Brandao, July 24, 2026
Excerpt: "Cameras, cooking and conversation
"Some things worked. #Storytelling, #workshops, and #CookingDemonstrations turned up again and again across the 39 studies, alongside #TalkingCircles, #ShortFilms and #SmartphoneApps.
"The common thread is direction. Each of these methods lets people speak in their own words rather than sit and receive instruction.
"In #NewZealand ( #Aotearoa ), researchers built a mobile health app together with #Māori and #Pasifika partners. The language, the stories, and the pictures all came from the communities the app was meant for.
"Speaking with Earth.com, Rao described a project she led. 'In my own work, and one of the papers reviewed, I have used cameras and #DigitalTools with young women and men in an Indigenous community in #India to document their traditional food knowledges by speaking to the elders, visiting the forests and local markets, talking to women engaged in #foraging and #FoodPreparation.'
"That project is one of the 39 studies in the review. An earlier paper followed ten Santhal young people in eastern India who were trained to make films.
"They made nearly 50 films and screened them in their own villages. Older relatives supplied much of what went into them.
Elders as teachers
"Who holds the knowledge matters as much as what the knowledge is. #Elders, #healers, #farmers, and #women each carry different parts of it.
"None of it arrives as a curriculum. It moves between generations through cooking, gathering and long conversation, which is exactly what a nutrition leaflet cannot carry.
" 'Reclaiming and recognising #IndigenousKnowledge , values and practices to address the different elements of nutrition and health involves recognising intergenerational and wider social relations, and engaging everyone from the elders, healers, educators and farmers to service providers, policymakers and academics, to together raise issues and find solutions,' said Rao.
"Traditional foods carry knowledge of the local landscape in a way nothing else does. The review treats them as practical resources rather than heritage."
#SolarPunkSunday #Technology #IndigenousCommunities #TraditionalKnowledge #TraditionalDiets #FoodForests #Foraging #SharingKnowledge #PreservingCulture #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge #FoodKnowledge #TraditionalFoods
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How #Indigenous #FoodSovereignty can improve #FoodSecurity
Sustainable Bites: Food and Our Future What can we do to help make our food systems more sustainable? UBC researchers share small steps that can make a big collective impact.
March 24, 2025
"Indigenous households experience food insecurity at rates two to three times higher than non-Indigenous households in Canada. #Agroecologist Dr. #JenniferGrenz, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Forestry and Faculty of Land and Food Systems, studies Indigenous food sovereignty and food systems, and how to revitalize them.
Did you know?
#Kwetlal, or #camas, a lily-like plant with a starchy bulb, was an important staple for #IndigenousPeoples along the #SalishSea.
Kwetlal was cultivated in Garry oak #ecosystems by #W̱SÁNEĆ and Quw’utsun Peoples, until #colonization nearly destroyed these unique food systems.What does Indigenous food sovereignty mean?
" 'Indigenous food sovereignty is the reclamation and revitalization of our food systems,' says Dr. Grenz, who is Nlaka’pamux of mixed ancestry, whose family comes from the #Lytton First Nation. She grew up and lives on the coast of BC.
"The lands across #BritishColumbia, Dr. Grenz explains, were purposefully shaped since time immemorial for foods, medicines and technologies by the Indigenous Peoples who lived there until colonial settlers dispossessed them of their lands, culture and traditions.
" 'Indigenous food sovereignty is also about #CulturalResurgence: being able to access those foods and medicines again and find new ones as we face a changing climate,' said Dr. Grenz. 'Heal the people, heal the land. Heal the land, heal the people. I think that’s really what food sovereignty is about.'
"Revitalizing Indigenous food systems can help diversify and localize food systems in ways that could buffer against #FoodInsecurity in a changing climate.
"Dr. Grenz’s research team is working alongside Indigenous communities impacted by the 2021 heat dome and wildfires to understand the effects on culturally important plants.
" 'If you think of land as just vegetation and an aesthetic notion of what belongs, you’re going to have very different approaches and different outcomes to recovery than if you see that land as a food system, not just for humans, but for our animal, bird, fish and insect relations,' says Dr. Grenz. 'We’re working alongside communities to develop those Indigenized processes around wildfire recovery that honour Indigenous food systems, sustainability and resiliency.”'
How can #Settlers support the revitalization of Indigenous food systems?"Learn about the histories of the lands you live on and what the traditional food systems were, what they are now and what they could be, says Dr. Grenz.
"Incorporating reciprocity into your relationship with the land is also important. 'Learn about the plants of those lands and find a way to invite them into your life. How can you take care of them, nurture them and steward them?' asks Dr. Grenz.
"One way might be to Indigenize your own back yard or community garden. Or learn about Indigenous food system protocols and the concept of '#HonourableHarvest.'
How can land-based learning support Indigenous food sovereignty?"Land-based learning is an opportunity to get students and people out on the land—and start taking steps to give back while they are learning.
"At #UBCFarm, Dr. Grenz and students are starting two different Indigenous food systems to work as part of the agrarian food system that exists there — 'essentially bridging two food systems, #decolonizing and #Indigenizing our understandings of what foods are and how those two systems work together to benefit both.'
"In one, they are establishing a Garry oak ecosystem and growing camas, which is a traditional food system of the W̱SÁNEĆ and Quw’utsun Peoples. Another type of #ForestGarden, similar to other Coast #Salish, #Tsimshian or #Haida food systems, will see the forest shaped by different plants like beaked #hazelnut, #elderberry, #salmonberry and #thimbleberry.The students will be able to practice how to care for plants ordinarily thought of as forest plants, and 'learn how to reclaim traditional #LandStewardship practices to actually increase the production of those berries.' "
Source [includes video links]:
https://beyond.ubc.ca/how-indigenous-food-sovereignty-can-improve-food-security/#SolarPunkSunday #FirstNations #Quwutsun #ClimateChange #Resilience #DecolonizeYourDiet #HonorIndigenousFoodSystems #LandBasedLearning #IndigenousFoodSovereignty #IndigenousFoods #BuildingCommunity #CommunityGardens #FoodForests
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So, something else that is a key element of ensuring #HumanWelfare remains in the SW range is to make sure folks are fed -- without destroying the environment! That's where #RegenerativeAgriculture , #SustainableAgriculture, #FoodForests, #CommunityGardens, etc., come into play. But #Rewilding and restoring key natural systems are also very important!
7. #Wildlife faces #extinction cascades as #ecosystems collapse.
"Vertebrate populations have declined by an average of 69 percent since 1970, with some regions experiencing losses exceeding 90 percent as habitat destruction, climate change, #pollution, and direct #exploitation combine to trigger ecosystem-wide collapse that eliminates the #biodiversity necessary to maintain stable #FoodWebs. Species extinction rates now exceed background levels by 100 to 1,000 times, representing a mass extinction event comparable to the asteroid impact that eliminated the dinosaurs but compressed into a timeframe measured in decades rather than millennia.
"The collapse of insect populations threatens #pollination services essential for agricultural production, while marine ecosystems face #acidification, warming, and #overfishing that eliminate entire trophic levels and destabilize ocean food chains supporting billions of people. Domestic animals face parallel threats as #IndustrialAgriculture concentrates genetic diversity into vulnerable #monocultures while climate change disrupts feed production and increases disease pressure on livestock populations already stressed by intensive production methods designed to maximize short-term yields rather than long-term #resilience."
#Collapse #Change #TheLimitsToGrowth #PlanetaryBoundaries #WaterIsLife #NatureIsLife #Extinction