“On Remote Farms and in City Gardens, A Native American Movement Grows”, by Kevin Noble Maillard. To summarize this article Maillard talks about a farm on tribally reclaimed land that is helping make Native communities self-sufficient through the cultivation of healthy food. Ms. Ferguson, 52, is the supervisor of the Onondaga Nation Farm. She is focused on saving seeds and reversing the effects of assimilation with community members teaching lessons in traditional planting, harvesting, and cooking. In the article she mentions how most natives live in cities away from tribal land, so community groups have created spaces for gathering and planting traditional foods. This way they can still be eating their native foods. It's a place where different tribes can come together to connect with the land. Programs like this can help restore links to communities and land that were disrupted in the past. Especially because during those times there's a big gap that knowledge wasn’t passed down.

In the article "A Return to Native Agriculture" by Anna McNulty and the West. I learned about these three separate Native Americans from different tribes who want to make sure that traditional indigenous ways of gathering, growing, and serving food are preserved. The first person talked about is Herman Fillmore. He is the language and culture director for the Washoe tribe in California and Nevada. He likes to plant the "Three Sisters". Fillmore wants to make indigenous practices more modern so it works in today's society, but he doesn't want traditional knowledge to disappear. He tells a story to the reader of the moment he realized his culture was disappearing. The story is of his bringing a rabbit-skin blanket to a local elementary school where he was to give a presentation. The kids were disturbed by the fact that, even though it is a part of their indigenous culture, they had no idea. His hope is that his community garden project that allow his people to connect, or reconnect with their food systems. The next person were introduced to was Terri James, a high school teacher in Utah who decided to change her curriculum after one of her students asked how their Navajo ancestors dyed corn blue. She knew something needed to change. She started teaching native farming practices and started introducing students to native foods in her science courses. They learned to grow traditional Navajo crops and even a corn variety developed by the Hopi people.

The article "Tribes take the lead on Regenerative Agriculture" By Eva Tesfaye was an informational perspective on what other natives are doing to help restore and practice agriculture. She starts by talking about ways a tribe in Iowa is practicing to help improve their soil and agricultural ways. One is they use bees to pollinate their orchard. They also do prescribed burns and cover crops to keep the ground planted all year long. The Iowa tribe is working on a new project that is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Partnership for Climate-smart Commodities. This partnership is called "CERNA" which is "The Center for Excellence for Regenerative Native Agriculture. This will allow tribes to share traditional knowledge and provide financial assistance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to make it a priority to support indigenous efforts to improve farming practices. Within this she says that indigenous traditional ecological knowledge plays an important role in helping the Biden- Harris administration to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Within this article, she makes sure to express how much other native tribes and nations want to share knowledge and experiences to help regenerative agriculture efforts. 

In the video "Indigenous-led Permaculture Brings Resilience and Food Sovereignty to Pine Ridge Reservation" by Robin Greenfield. In this video, it talks about the Oglala Lakota on Pine Ridge Reservation and because of the abuse for over 150 years. This led to severe food scarcity, health issues, and lack of housing with this project called (OLCERI) "Oglala Lakota Cultural and Economic Revitalization Initiative." They bring in people who have skills in agriculture to build natural buildings, this helps create a community of people who come from all over the world and nations to help on Pine Ridge with community-based projects that help the reservation. Their mission is to help distribute food to food networks across the reservation, so that place can become a tool hub. They help families as well to implement their reservations. Indigenous people helping them see agriculture is what their ancestors have been doing for thousands of years. They want indigenous ancestral knowledge back. 

In the video "Connecting Indigenous Youth to Culture Through Traditional Foods" By CBC News: The National. I Learned about Chef Gladiu who is helping indigenous youth connect with their culture at Little Buffalo School in Canada. In this video, he teaches how to prepare traditional foods from the student's Cree culture, such as butchering a bear to make sausage and frying moose meat. They do this because they feel they're losing sustainability and food security since we've been colonized. They cook traditional meals for lunch and dinner for the students. Gladu, the ched, wanted to change the diet of students because of what he struggled with when he had diabetes. He wanted to make a change in the community to bring in healthy options for students. He felt he lost his identity because he couldn't eat his traditional foods when he was younger. He didn't want students to lose that. He took meat killed by indigenous hunters and got it into schools, with it even being prepared in traditional ways. 

In the article "Diversifying MyPlate: North American Indigenous Cuisine" by Food Insight. In this article, we are introduced to Sharon Swampy, a registered dietitian who is experienced in integrating culturally inclusive approaches. She has a background of Cree and Mexican background. Growing up on a reservation called Maskwacis, she was not introduced to nutrition at all. She then talks about how important these foods were and the importance they held in their culture that people no longer knew about. As time went on these food wats were disrupted, they saw things such as barriers to food access, trauma, and systemic poverty. The removal of their people from the land has played a role in the loss of foodways and culture. She wants to revitalize ancestral knowledge and foodways. She shares how her ancestor's eating habits were and how it balanced them. She talks about the factors that traditional foods that her people ate no longer eat no more. She shares how difficult it is to attain traditional food knowledge when the connection to traditional foods towards revitalizing, restoring, and representing that this knowledge is important. 

In the article "What Happens When Native People Lose their Traditional Foods" by Deborah Small talks about Lorene Sisquoc who is a founding member of a group called "Chia Cafe Collective" This is a group of Southern California tribal members and their allies committed to the revitalization of native foods, culture and community. They have workshops, classes, and demonstrations to take back for their community's help. They talk about the revitalization of native foods, culture, and community. They talk about the connection we need with the land, the land is our responsibility on earth. Sisquoc teaches at the Sherman Indian School and helps kids remember the culture by teaching them their ancestral foods. They take the recognition of Boarding schools and how they play a role in taking their knowledge away. They did this because they discovered that reintroducing native foods into people's diets has been affecting and helping the community with their health. This is a chance to take back their cultural identity. The (CCC) also promotes an ethic of gathering and cultivating native plants in a manner that is sustainable and preserves the plants. They talk about how we have a deeper connection with plants. The article, mentions the only way to get out of hurting the land is to reject the industrialized food chains as well as GMOs that damage species and the land.

My connection with my topic I feel goes back to when I was little. As a little girl, I was always outside and was interested in plants and nature. When I first started getting interested in agriculture was at my first job working for my Pueblo at an agricultural farm (Red Willow Center). I was 13 at the time and started to gain knowledge and experience on food and what that meant, especially as a native person. Within the years of working there, I gained a really big connection with my community. I learned so much about my pueblo's traditional foods and how to find them in nature. I feel the biggest connection was seeing how impactful this part of the life cycle is. During my four years working there I was able to study food, the history, and native food, as well as compare what we consider "Traditionally native" in today's day and what our ancestor's traditional foods were, because it plays a big role on why diabetes and other diseases impact natives the most. I feel growing food has been the most impactful thing I've ever done with my life. When I first started I wasn't sure where I wanted to go in life, or who I was, but I found home and security being with the land. I feel the best feeling was being able to plant a seed, watch it grow into something amazing, and be able to give it back to my community. During this time I feel I was able to do so many great things from meeting so many people at different co-ops across the state and helping re-populate traditional seeds that were going extinct within my pueblo. With this, I want to share a message on the importance of food sovereignty and how to practice that within our communities.