Good morning.
Merci and meegwetch for the opportunity to provide testimony to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food as you work towards strengthening support for indigenous peoples to become more involved in this sector.
My brief presentation today draws from my research program in the areas of indigenous health and nutrition and the ongoing community-based research I'm involved with alongside first nations and Métis communities and organizations.
I will begin with some background on the structural impacts, some of which Sheri and Stephen mentioned, that have altered food production capacity among southern indigenous communities, with a few case studies included from communities in southern Manitoba and southwestern Ontario to illustrate my points.
Although I consider myself of mixed ancestry, I did not grow up in an indigenous community or with my birth family. My first experience setting foot on reserve was in 1999, when I began my master's research working in the Interlake region of Manitoba. The focus of the study was to look at processes of dietary change during pregnancy by comparing the narratives of young mothers and of grandmothers in the community. I was interested in learning more about patterns of food acquisition, the use of locally harvested traditional foods, hunting and cultivation practices, along with circumstances of food insecurity. Much of what I came to learn was necessary to situate the historical context of the community and the land they continue to cultivate to this day.
Plant resources in Canada have historically played a less prominent role in overall sustenance than have wild meat and fish, in the diets of indigenous peoples. In many of the communities that have been studied to date, agricultural activities may have been directly tied to the operation of residential schools and/or church missions. The Manitoba community that I worked with, along with others in the same region, had a longer history of successful agricultural practices. It has been postulated that early ethnographies in this region were narrow in scope and did not provide sufficient historical analysis to recognize agricultural traditions first documented in the early 1800s, or knowledge passed down through oral tradition.
Prior to the introduction of federal policy in Canada that discouraged agriculture by increasing the difficulties of commercial sales, many communities had their own indigenous agricultural traditions and engaged successfully in subsistence farming. The policy changes in favour of the surrender of reserves located on prime agricultural land were also justified in part by the presumption of a perceived unwillingness of first nations to farm.
In the 1830s, the British Colonial Office put forward a policy of assimilation that encouraged indigenous groups to become settled in permanent villages and educated in the English language, Christianity and agricultural methods. The Anglican Church Missionary Society was very involved in Manitoba in this period and set up a number of agriculture and pastoral communities along the Red River north of Winnipeg. When Manitoba entered Confederation in 1870, the Canadian government began the conclusion of these land settlements and Treaty No. 1 was signed in 1871. It set aside this prime agricultural land for the Saulteaux community at that time, but in 1907 pressure from politicians and investors resulted in the illegal surrender of these lands to the Canadian government. In 1909, band members were moved to a more isolated and forested location, which has become one of the largest reserves in Manitoba.
Environmental dispossession refers to the processes that have reduced indigenous people's access to the land and resources of their traditional environments. It is a process that can affect health in direct and indirect ways. As I've highlighted, lost connections to physical environments and locally harvested and produced foods are examples of the direct effects of environmental dispossession. Even though the origins of these concerns may reflect global food trends, such as the overall environmental health of food systems, the mechanisms or determinants by which access to these foods has been reduced are different.
For example, the impacts of colonialism and forced assimilation that I first observed in Manitoba and directly associated with urbanization have eroded the relationships that have existed among indigenous people, within communities, families and local ecosystems. The health of communities has also been indirectly impacted through assimilative actions taken by governments to disconnect communities from their territories and knowledge systems through the residential school system, for example. The loss of languages, ties to elders, and teachings isolated children from their roots and disrupted the transmission of knowledge to subsequent generations. These influences have not only reduced physical access to food available in the physical environment, but they have also stressed relationships to maintain the crucial social structures for the maintenance of food systems.
Foods originate from the natural environment, from farming or wild harvesting or hunting. The harvesting and consumption of these locally produced foods also hold important significance for the preservation of indigenous knowledge, as they are housed within their own traditional food systems. A traditional food system refers to the socio-cultural meanings, patterns of acquisition, processing techniques, use, composition, health, and nutritional consequences for the indigenous people using these foods. The relationship indigenous people have with their unique food systems and local ecosystems encourages practices, values and traditions that perpetuate healthy communities.
Colonial policies, as I've mentioned, have disrupted, denied access to, and in many cases decimated traditional food sources and medicines. A lack of access to clean drinking water and adequate food remains a key health concern for many indigenous families and communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission explicitly calls for actions that close these gaps in health equity, including food security. To restore sustainable relationships to the land, culture, and communities, restorations of these relationships and structures, including community roles and responsibilities to protect traditional lands and food systems, are necessary acts of resurgence and pathways toward reconciliation.
I can provide some cases and examples of community initiatives. In 2015, I witnessed a growing momentum in the community of Six Nations of the Grand River, where I work, with the start of the Healthy Roots initiative and returning to local food production and elimination of refined or processed foods from the diet. This movement has shifted toward the concept of food sovereignty, as Sheri and Stephen mentioned, which expands on the focus of food security from food cost, access and availability toward an understanding of the ways in which power relations and inequality undermine food production and distribution and consumption patterns.
In the indigenous context, a food sovereignty framework explicitly connects the health properties of food with the health of the environment and identifies a history of social injustice. It addresses aspirations for collective well-being, along with acknowledging land rights and cultural integrity. Indigenous food sovereignty also considers gender equity, adequate nutrition, addressing structural racism, and restructuring the socio-political process.
Emerging literature on the indigenous food movement also identifies community involvement, family-centred food education, and the re-establishment of relationships with the land as essential to restoring—
