Indigenous practices fundamental to Manitoba farming

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/07/2020 (1929 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Enjoying that vanilla in your coffee?

How about that chocolate bar or those sweet potato chips?

Maple syrup on your pancakes?

Ever eaten acai, avocados, Brazil nuts, black beans, blueberries, cashews, cranberries, green beans, guava, lima beans, papaya, passion fruit, peanuts, pecans, peppers, pineapple, pinto beans, potatoes, quinoa, raspberries, squash, strawberries, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, or wild rice? Drank a yerba mate tea? Smoked or chewed tobacco?

Thank Indigenous farmers, who planted and cultivated these plants for centuries — eventually teaching others how to do so too.

Indigenous farming is the foundation for today’s Manitoba agricultural economy, which provides approximately five per cent of Manitoba’s gross domestic product, $5 billion to the provincial economy, and one in 10 jobs (according to Manitoba Agriculture, Food, and Rural Initiatives).

What are some of Manitoba’s top exports? Sunflower seeds, beans and potatoes. All Indigenous.

And these are just the foods you know. Indigenous communities are also responsible for hundreds of other roots, fruits and spices (check out the resources at the Manitoba Museum for more).

Today you can see Indigenous influences in every restaurant, dining room, and on every dinner table in Manitoba.

Now, scientists are learning how Indigenous farmers did it, and uncovering some of the most sustainable agricultural practices in the world.

Take how Indigenous farmers planted corn, beans, and squash, for instance (what’s often referred to in Indigenous philosophies as the “three sisters”).

These three plants are planted together because corn grows first and tall. Beans, coming second, wind around the stalks to collect sunlight and moisture, protecting and fostering the corn. Squash seeds, planted around beans and corn, protect their two sisters from weeds and pests — creating a virtual trifecta of familial interdependence.

Indigenous farmers invented forms of agroforestry (the planting of trees to protect crops), crop rotating (planting different seeds annually to not exhaust the land), and mixed polyculture (planting multiple crops together) — producing some of the healthiest and most successful agricultural yields the world has ever seen.

That’s called Indigenous innovation. No pesticides, mega-farms, or genetic modifying needed here.

In fact, some of the first things Europeans noticed upon arriving in Manitoba was how bustling and vibrant agricultural life was here.

In 1805, explorer Alexander Henry noted how Indigenous Peoples at the Peguis settlement grew tall corn and rich potatoes.

Others noted how farmers from this territory traded seeds with others in Indigenous cities like Cahokia (in modern-day Illinois), resulting in varieties of squash and beans travelling south and melons and tobacco arriving here.

Seeds came with knowledge too. Specialized plots we now call domesticated “gardens” were evident in local Indigenous communities by the mid-19th century.

This all led to healthy bodies and independent, self-sustaining communities that ebbed and flowed with the cycles of the earth — interrupted only by drought and flood (like I wrote previously about the 1150 mega-drought that devastated communities here).

Kind of like today.

Until recently, the richest evidence of Indigenous agriculture was uncovered by archeologist Leigh Syms in the mid-1980s near what is now Lockport. As Syms wrote for the Manitoba Historical Society in 1996, an agricultural community spanned “at least the last 3,000 years” and was in existence until “the early 1400s.”

At the site were shallow and deep storage pits, animal bones converted into farming implements, and ceramic pots and containers that suggested to Syms that “people either stayed at the village on a relatively permanent basis or they were present for enough of the year to maintain the crop and live off of the surpluses stored there.”

Until 2018 scientists thought the Lockport site was an anomaly, when a new site was uncovered near Melita. Here, many of the same features and farming tools exist as at the Lockport site (particularly bison shoulder blades converted into gardening “hoes”).

Over 300 kilometres away, this suggests an inter-connected network of Indigenous agricultural communities who were sharing seeds, techniques and knowledge.

Scientists from Brandon University continue to work on the site, just off Highway 83, and even offer tours of their findings for the public during the daytime. Check it out.

It’s well known that Indigenous communities were not “nomads” but established permanent and semi-permanent settlements on consistent routes throughout what is now Manitoba. Yes, some communities were also “hunters and gatherers” who followed animals like caribou and bison on their migratory routes, too.

But Indigenous nations also built economies and communities where they traded seeds and shared technologically innovative farming techniques while living in sedentary communities where they grew food in sustainable ways.

They didn’t need chemicals, corporate farms, or genetic modifications to live and thrive here, they just did it. Nowadays we call this “organic” and charge a premium price, arguing food is “healthier” and “more environmental” this way.

Fancy that, Indigenous farmers predicting the future, centuries ago.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca