Indian Tribes Go Back to Land in Search of Health | Al Jazeera America

18.8.15

Indian Tribes Go Back to Land in Search of Health | Al Jazeera America: As the manager of the Slim Buttes Agriculture Project on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in western South Dakota, he speaks of the land in a patient, steady voice, with the click of the Lakota language heard faintly in his English. As healthy eating trends have waxed and waned across the U.S. during the past 30 years, the Slim Buttes project has stayed afloat — barely at times, he confesses — but still alive and providing food to local Native Americans each year.

It is not alone. Indigenous farming communities and projects are a big part of the U.S. movement toward healthier eating, said the executive director of Dream of Wild Health farm, Diane Wilson. The 10-acre farm, in Hugo, Minnesota, began as a small operation on the back of indigenous seeds donated by elder Cora Baker.