For The Wild - ABENA OFFEH-GYIMAH on Sacred Seed and Soil ⧸337

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with Abina

00:00:09.700 Afejima. Who gets to determine whose food is more valuable? All foods are valuable. And I think it's 1.00

00:00:17.960 important to how African farmers farm. They carry the ancestral knowledge. They carry the ancestral

00:00:25.920 wisdom. Farming is a way of life. It's not separate from the farmer. It's not separate

00:00:32.400 from your neighbor. It's not separate from connection.

00:00:39.700 Abina Afejima is the founder of BILA, Center for Indigenous Foods in Ghana,

00:00:46.180 a project that seeks to preserve indigenous African seeds, foods, and practices. Prior to

00:00:52.340 this role, Abina worked as the project lead for the Jane Finch Community Research Partnership

00:00:58.200 with extensive experience in community engagement, ethical research, program development,

00:01:05.280 partnerships, and collaboration, and with previous organizations like North York Community House,

00:01:11.680 Black Creek Community Farm, Jane Finch Center, and with Building Roots Toronto.

00:01:17.580 Abina brings years of experience in conducting ethical, community-engaged research practice, work in local food systems, seed sovereignty, and collaboration in food sovereignty movements.

00:01:31.400 Abina is a writer, a poet, a researcher, a naturalist, and a conservationist.

00:01:39.520 Oh, Abina, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:01:43.700 while researching for this conversation I was really drawn to your work and really appreciative

00:01:51.180 of all of the threads that you pull on so I'm excited to get into it. Thank you for having me

00:01:58.980 I'm excited and I honestly can't wait to have this conversation. Oh good so we're on the same page

00:02:06.020 Okay, let's see. As we begin, I think it would be really helpful to come to an understanding about what ancestral foods are. As so much of your work focuses on preserving ancestral foods and traditions, and in ancestral foods, cultural heritage, and old ways of living, you write, quote,

00:02:26.860 I define ancestral foods as local, organic, seasonal, and environmentally sustainable foods,

00:02:33.720 indigenous to a particular geographic region that locals have consumed for thousands of years,

00:02:39.820 end quote. So I love if you could elaborate a bit more on what ancestral food means both

00:02:46.380 technically and culturally. Yeah, thank you for that. It was just lovely hearing you

00:02:53.080 read that back I think culturally ancestral foods are foods that are tied to our culture

00:03:01.620 foods that are tied to our traditions and foods that are tied right to our DNA to our gut shells

00:03:11.900 foods that our grandparents great-grandparents ate hundreds and hundreds of years ago and I think

00:03:23.080 When we think about ancestral foods, it's not just for consumption, right?

00:03:28.680 I think about the traditions and the practices that come with those foods.

00:03:35.180 You know, now when we go to the grocery store, let me put it this way.

00:03:38.820 But when I go to the grocery store, there isn't a direct relationship between myself, the person and the food that's on the shelf.

00:03:46.660 It's like, I'm hungry. Let me grab this food and pay for it and go home.

00:03:50.620 You know, but with ancestral foods, there's a connection, right? There is an intimacy that comes with that food. There's a story that's attached to that food. I think about millet, for instance, and my mother tells me the story of my grandfather, who would never leave the house, right, without drinking this millet beverage that we have in the morning.

00:04:13.400 they call it Zom, where I'm from in the northern part of Ghana. And so my mom now in Toronto

00:04:20.200 makes a millet meal that we also consume. So I think even when I think about millet,

00:04:27.200 it's not just a grain, right? It's a meal that has the story of my grandfather attached to it,

00:04:34.640 the story of my mother attached to it. Millet also tells me that it's healthy for us, right?

00:04:40.380 It's a part of our lineage. It's a part of our DNA. My gut health knows it, recognizes it.

00:04:47.700 And so I think that food is, ancestral foods bring the spiritual component of food that is often missing in the way that we may think and talk about food in this modern way.

00:05:02.560 And I think, you know, when you think about ancestral foods, ancestral foods is not separate from the ways in which we farm, separate from the ways in which we eat.

00:05:14.180 It's not separate the ways in which we plant, the ways in which we harvest, right?

00:05:19.800 Ancestral foods really look at farm to table, right?

00:05:24.460 What is the relationship between the human and the soil and the culture and the tradition and the trees and the ancestor that all contributed to make this food possible for us to consume it in the future, right?

00:05:40.460 So the aspects of lineage and heritage in ancestral foods, it's so crucial because it makes us realize that there were people before us that preserved this.

00:05:55.740 For us to have this today, for me to hold a millet in my hand or to hold a sorghum in my hand or a banbare beans, someone preserved it years right before me and a year before me, 10 years before me, 20 years before me.

00:06:13.520 And they were part of this grandparent used in preserving that food, you know, whether it was the festivals before the planting season, whether it was the prayers and festivities after the harvest season.

00:06:28.860 All these are crucial part of preserving that food.

00:06:32.740 So when I say ancestral food, it is in context to a certain geographic region is because every part of the world has its own ancestral foods, right?

00:06:44.960 And we're all connected, but we find ourselves also coming from different parts of the world.

00:06:49.920 And in the different parts of the world that we're coming from, yes, there is a shared land.

00:06:54.840 The food is a part of our story as people.

00:06:57.760 So an example is two years ago, I met a farmer in the northern part of Ghana.

00:07:02.740 we've worked together since 2017. And I ended up going to his farm in December and he had pumpkin.

00:07:11.260 So he had pumpkin on the farm. I'm from the northern part of Ghana, but I've never actually

00:07:15.820 seen pumpkin. And he was just telling me the story of like how pumpkin and millet and sirguine

00:07:22.980 banbara beans are usually grown together. And immediately I thought of the three sisters in

00:07:29.060 north america right like indigenous cultures in north america and i thought oh my god it is the

00:07:34.240 corn the bean and the squash right um so those interconnections and just seeing foods that are

00:07:41.440 connected in that way but i think ancestral foods i feel like we live in a time i say my perspective

00:07:48.400 where it's almost like humans are seen as being above other living things or above trees and above

00:07:54.400 seeds and the work that trees and seeds and soils and grass and insects and fungi are all

00:08:01.600 coexisting with us and are all playing equal part in and maintaining this earth and very often when

00:08:08.940 we tell the story of foods we eliminate all of them and so for me ancestral foods bring all that

00:08:14.400 there is a cultural aspect to food there's a spiritual there is a traditional aspect to food

00:08:20.840 And there are people, there are people before us that have maintained and sustained food systems, you know, ancestral food systems for us to be able to have a lot of these foods today.

00:08:33.820 So, yeah, ancestral food for me is about foods that are connected to our lineage, foods that are connected to our heritage, foods that remind us of our cultural practices and traditions.

00:08:48.660 Ancestral foods also tell us about the ecosystem, right?

00:08:51.900 They tell us about diversity.

00:08:53.720 That tree that has lived for thousands of years, right, tells us so much about pollinators and the ecosystem and biodiversity.

00:09:05.640 Yeah. So for me, ancestral foods is really around bringing those linkages between like lineage and heritage and culture and ecosystems and knowing that the food just did not arise from anywhere.

00:09:21.840 There are people that have participated in preserving, protecting the foods that we have now to ensure that we too can enjoy them.

00:09:31.760 But can you imagine unfolding the story of a millet that has lived all these years?

00:09:36.900 Can you imagine unfolding that story of like the farmer that formed it the year before and the one two years before and three years before?

00:09:45.120 imagine all that stories, right? And all the practices that are now forward with me when I

00:09:52.760 hold the millet seed in my hand. And for me, those stories are so important and they cannot

00:09:58.340 be erased or discounted. So I loved that introduction. I wanted to bring up some of

00:10:06.180 your other writing in devaluing of native African foods. You write, quote, although many communities

00:10:12.820 have lost valuable ways of growing and preserving native foods, or may have shifted from growing

00:10:18.260 native foods to cash crops for the market, the role of native African food to sustaining

00:10:24.160 earth's ecosystem is not forgotten. As native African foods begin to gain momentum as superfoods

00:10:30.860 in the health and wellness market, it's important that the shift to valuing native African foods

00:10:36.300 is led by farmers, the communities who are able to sustain, preserve, and cherish these foods,

00:10:43.940 most importantly by Africans themselves, end quote. Yeah, so I'm wondering, how do we keep

00:10:52.080 the value of these foods in the hands of those closest to their production, consumption, and

00:10:59.640 ancestry. Capitalism is a very wild disease of extraction, but that's immediately what

00:11:09.780 came to mind, just the impact of capitalism and colonialism on our food systems. The stories we

00:11:17.900 tell around other people's cultural and ancestral foods, right, from the lens of colonialism and

00:11:24.060 capitalism. And so historically, African foods have been presented as backward, have been presented

00:11:33.100 as poor people's food, have been presented as forgotten foods, misplaced, displaced, right?

00:11:41.240 When it comes to African foods, there are many terminologies that are used to devalue the food.

00:11:47.820 And in devaluing the food, the people are then devalued. The land is then devalued. The farmers is then devalued. And so many African farmers are presented as incapable of being able to sustain their own food systems, right?

00:12:05.560 this regarding the years of seed saving right the years of preserving the land but the story the

00:12:12.900 dominant story that is being told is that the continent is poor the farmers are poor and that

00:12:19.660 the land is not you and so that is the narrative that's being led so I think a part of that

00:12:27.560 is shifting the narrative that african foods are valuable africans can feed themselves and that

00:12:37.840 the farmers have to because farmers are literally archivists of the land right like i i think of

00:12:46.120 farmers like liberians right because they have all this knowledge of the earth and of like

00:12:53.140 the soil and they know when to plant, right? They know when it's about to rain, when certain birds

00:12:58.360 fly away and certain worms are coming from the earth. They know when there's a shift in the

00:13:02.920 smell in the environment. They can just tell when it's about to rain. This is experiential

00:13:08.640 knowledge that you just cannot even purchase anywhere else. But that knowledge is not valued

00:13:15.400 in terms of how we think about knowledge and knowledge production, right? And so I think one

00:13:20.660 part of that is shifting the narrative and shifting the stories of African food and of

00:13:27.900 African farmers. Now, how that happens, I have to be honest and say, I don't know, because that is

00:13:35.380 within the intersections of like capitalism and colonialism and imperialism and all these things

00:13:40.420 that are, you know, moving and shaking. And so that's one part of the answer. The second part

00:13:47.460 is that we can go and fix other people's issues, right?

00:13:51.300 I intimately believe that everyone is a sovereign person.

00:13:55.200 People are sovereign of themselves

00:13:57.080 and sovereign of their culture

00:13:58.680 and sovereign of their traditions.

00:14:00.760 And that we don't necessarily have to go and fix.

00:14:04.800 And I think because the dominant view is

00:14:07.400 if we're not farming like how people are farming

00:14:09.860 in the other part of the world,

00:14:11.860 then they're not doing it right. 1.00

00:14:14.220 And so I think that African farmers

00:14:16.440 must lead because they are the stakeholders, right?

00:14:20.800 Not only the first part in terms of having that intimate relationship with the land,

00:14:25.740 being one with the land, knowing the soil, understanding crop rotation,

00:14:31.120 you know, understanding agroecology.

00:14:33.420 But the second part is that they are the biggest stakeholder.

00:14:37.180 It is their land that lives there.

00:14:39.700 It's part of their story.

00:14:41.560 I think it's really difficult.

00:14:43.560 And I always have this internal challenge that the people that are most impacted are the ones that have to find the solutions for themselves and that one cannot be outside of whatever the issue is and determine what the solution is.

00:15:00.680 The value of African foods have to be led by African farmers because they are the stakeholders.

00:15:07.020 They carry the ancestral knowledge.

00:15:10.580 They carry the ancestral wisdom.

00:15:13.160 Farming is not for profit in a lot of rural communities, right?

00:15:18.020 Across the African continent.

00:15:19.720 Farming is a way of life.

00:15:22.020 Farming season is about to happen in Bolga, you know, where I'm from.

00:15:25.740 And people will leave their jobs.

00:15:27.900 If they're a farmer and a teacher, they will leave the teaching to go and farm.

00:15:31.400 Because it's also how they've come to understand themselves.

00:15:35.520 And I think a bigger part of that is because in terms of ancestral ways of being and seeing the world,

00:15:41.620 the land is not separate from the farmer. The land is not just there. And then we enact an

00:15:47.700 activity on it. There is respect for the land as a person, right? To thank the land for being

00:15:53.720 available for us to grow food on. And I think because all these cultural belief systems about

00:16:00.060 food and seed and land, it's also important to how African farmers farm, right? And so it's

00:16:07.540 important for them to lead because their culture, traditions, belief systems, religion are all an

00:16:14.040 important part of how they understand land, how they understand food, their relationship with

00:16:19.840 their food and farming systems. Yeah, I think the biggest aspect for me is that we can't necessarily

00:16:30.620 see what a problem what is perceived as a problem and if an individual is not a stakeholder

00:16:39.260 how can we decide a solution for people that are most impacted african farmers or african

00:16:47.880 communities that have the most stake have to lead that work because your food is an important part

00:16:55.700 of how they've lived all these years

00:16:59.540 because even the definition of food and farming

00:17:03.020 is not separate from livelihood.

00:17:05.620 You know, it's not separate from connection.

00:17:08.000 It's not separate from your neighbor, you know?

00:17:12.080 You can't visit a neighbor where I'm from in Bolga

00:17:15.220 and they don't offer you food. 0.54

00:17:16.860 Not because they have to,

00:17:18.980 but because it's just a part of that tradition, you know?

00:17:22.000 You've come a long way, you're visiting me.

00:17:23.680 wow, here's millet water and shea butter.

00:17:26.600 I'm welcoming you not just to rest,

00:17:29.500 but to say this is also home, right?

00:17:32.280 African farmers and communities bring who they are

00:17:36.620 and their understanding of food, of land, of life,

00:17:41.520 of connection, of community to how they live.

00:17:45.360 And that influences how they think about food

00:17:47.640 and land and farming, et cetera.

00:17:50.240 And different parts of the world, right?

00:17:51.980 We all have our own sort of definition of how we understand what it means to connect with food and land.

00:17:59.140 And so, yeah, they can be a copy and paste. Right.

00:18:02.100 And I think for me, it's also like that part on, you know, having to leave the value of food is who gets to determine, right, whose food is more valuable?

00:18:12.140 Who gets to to say that this food is more valuable and this food is less valuable?

00:18:16.840 All foods are valuable because they have a greater connection beyond the human eye, a greater contribution in sustaining biodiversity in ways that we don't always get to see and in ways that we don't always get to witness.

00:18:46.840 Well, I want to go back to the article, Devaluing of Native African Foods. And you also write,

00:19:06.060 quote, during colonialism, the degradation of Native African foods took shape.

00:19:11.680 indigenous grains fruits and vegetables became superseded scorned and regulated as poor people's

00:19:19.440 food while exportable cash crops such as cocoa cotton sugar and etc were cultured harvested

00:19:27.600 graded and protected against insects and pests with exceptional investment and researched

00:19:34.360 end quote oh yeah this is this feels so important for us to dive into because understanding this

00:19:42.020 context you know how has colonialism shaped food taste and reputation and how has control over

00:19:50.660 food been a particular tool of colonial control i'll give an example i think so this year is

00:20:01.160 supposedly the year of the millets. So millet is an indigenous African grain. It was domesticated

00:20:09.620 for a thousand years ago in West Africa. We have different varieties of millet,

00:20:15.280 raw millet, finger millet, and then there's also the fournier that's considered.

00:20:19.880 And people have been eating millets for a very, very long time in many different ways.

00:20:26.580 but somehow this year across the world is suddenly the year of millets and so for me

00:20:34.000 I'm like who gets to determine that a people's food that they have been consuming for a long time

00:20:41.440 suddenly should be brought to the market and is it not valuable if it's not brought to the market

00:20:48.820 right and what happens next year and the year after that yeah so I think what colonialism

00:20:55.960 colonialism did one is the devaluation right of indigenous foods because what came with

00:21:02.820 colonialism was whiteness right this idea of what it meant to live in the world this idea of what

00:21:10.660 it meant to eat food because culturally we would eat food with our hand right you would eat food

00:21:16.880 with your hand and that was considered backward so I think the bigger piece I think what I'm trying

00:21:22.160 to say here is that the devaluation of African food also came with a devaluation of the traditions

00:21:30.800 and culture that is aligned with African indigenous foods. What also came with that

00:21:37.380 was a devaluation of African farming methods that then were also seen as backward, right?

00:21:45.540 And so the cultural foods that were not exportable were then seen as poor people's food, right?

00:21:57.340 Because it aligned with that devaluation.

00:21:59.280 If you devalue the food, the people are devalued.

00:22:02.840 The process to which the food is produced is devalued.

00:22:05.760 The farming systems are not valuable.

00:22:08.820 They're not eating well if they're not eating foods that are in the market.

00:22:12.480 But I think the devaluation was also then, how do we understand food, right? What is food and how do we understand them? And if it's a food that is not in what we consider the markets, then is it poor people's food?

00:22:27.140 So that devaluation happened on multiple levels and also in multiple layers.

00:22:35.340 And it also impacted, I think one of the greatest impact was also then how many African people started to see their own foods and started to engage with their own foods.

00:22:47.860 Because what happened was if you're told your food is for poor people and you're no longer aligned with your indigenous values, you're aligned with a different set of values that tells you that, you know, your ways are backward, you're not good enough, then you separate, right?

00:23:03.600 Like there's a separation of self from the indigenous ways of life and living.

00:23:07.800 Yeah, to the ways of living, that's telling you that your ancestral foods are not good enough.

00:23:12.400 And I think in the ways that it also took place that may not necessarily be visible is one through trade agreements, right? So what happened was that there were a lot of investments that were then put into the cash crops that could be exported. This started to reflect in trade agreements. So that's one part of that.

00:23:35.300 But boarding schools, what was considered as boarding schools, are big in different parts of the continent.

00:23:42.380 My brain is thinking of Ghana and no other parts of the continent has it.

00:23:47.360 So children, you know, from elementary, primary and secondary school were then fed foods that were not indigenous foods.

00:23:56.180 Yeah. Well, this reminds me, too, of the term famine foods.

00:24:02.540 And you also write about this in Africa's Indigenous Foods Are Not Famine Foods, where you write, quote, African native food should not be categorized as famine food simply because they can grow and thrive in drought conditions.

00:24:16.620 They are growing naturally in their ecosystems, and their use extends beyond the environmental conditions they grow in.

00:24:24.240 Our indigenous foods are not famine foods.

00:24:26.760 They are our histories, our culture, and our traditions.

00:24:29.920 our native foods carry us and the future possibilities of a sustainable food system

00:24:36.160 end quote yeah so i feel like this really connects to so much of what you were saying and

00:24:43.080 i'm wondering how is the idea of famine food connected to a global food system that separates

00:24:49.480 people from their food and encourages unequal food distribution across the globe so through

00:24:56.520 colonialism, there was the adoption of, we use this loosely, Western ways of being and seeing

00:25:03.380 the world, right? So through language, through religion, through education. And so during that

00:25:12.580 process, there was a divorce of the ancestral indigenous ways because the Western ways of

00:25:20.260 sea in the world was constructed as direct opposition, right, from indigenous ways of

00:25:26.940 being in sea in the world. So the indigenous ways was either seen as devilish, as backward.

00:25:34.240 So nothing, right, of good could come from indigenous ways in contrast to the Western 0.84

00:25:40.880 ways that were provided. And this demonstrated itself very well through religion on the continent 0.96

00:25:49.700 And in many African countries that are predominantly Christian, you see this very often.

00:25:55.020 And so anything that is attached to cultural, traditional, indigenous ways of seeing, it's seen as backward, etc.

00:26:04.120 And so during the period where trade policies across various African countries started to reflect foods that could be exported, around that period, I think to give a bit more context, a lot of African countries were still colonized, right?

00:26:19.260 the first country in Africa to get independence was Ghana. And that was like 1957. And it's not

00:26:26.500 so long ago, if you come to think of it, right? That's the first country. So the impact of the 0.91

00:26:32.280 colonial government is still deeply rooted in so many ways in how systems are run. And so when it

00:26:40.500 comes to food, things shifted through trade policies. And so the Western nations that are

00:26:47.780 connected to many African countries, started to determine what could be consumed and what could

00:26:53.460 not be consumed in terms of what they would export and what could be imported, right? What could

00:26:59.600 come in as foreign foods, et cetera. But there was also seed loss, right? When World War II ended,

00:27:06.860 there was also a lot of chemicals. And it's like, what do we do with all these chemicals? Well,

00:27:11.220 turn them into agrochemicals. It was being pushed to the continent, the agrochemicals,

00:27:16.880 The GM seeds with GMO corn coming in, GMO wheat, GMO soy, that was happening around the late 90s, 1997, 98.

00:27:29.460 So all of this continued to devalue indigenous foods because one, foods was now commodified, right?

00:27:38.740 If there isn't a market for the food, then it's not seen as worthy or worth it to bring in the market.

00:27:45.160 What happened around that time, because of the chemicals coming in, there was also a lot of wars, a lot of communities were being displaced, right, in different African countries.

00:27:57.020 And as different communities were being displaced, people were losing their food systems.

00:28:02.320 Millet and sorghum and foods that indigenous people ate because it's a part of how people lived, were now being considered farming food in context to promoting a lot of foreign foods that were coming in.

00:28:15.160 So the contextualization of African foods as farming foods, it's not something happening out of silos. It's happening in context to how trade policies are negotiated. It's happening in context to foods that are valued in the market. It's happening in context to agrochemicals, right?

00:28:36.180 it's happening in context to Western corporations, sea companies or chemical companies that are able

00:28:43.600 to lobby African governments. So all these things are happening at the same time. And so there is

00:28:50.920 no investment, research or funding that is being put into any of the African indigenous foods

00:28:58.320 because it goes back to what foods are valuable and who determines what foods are valuable. And

00:29:04.260 If the food is not seen as being able to, if there's no space for the food in the global market, then the food is deemed and determined as food.

00:29:12.980 That's not valuable.

00:29:13.780 So a part of devaluing African food is calling it famine foods, because if you call it famine foods, then it's a part of that dominant story that Africans can't feed themselves.

00:29:26.640 If you call it famine food, then the Western country has a right to say, now we need to feed Africa because they can't feed themselves.

00:29:34.260 So what I'm trying to say is that the idea of farming food, it's constructed within a lot of paradigms around the selling of agrochemicals, genetically modified food, trade policies, capitalism, the markets. 0.78

00:29:50.640 And so foods that we have been consuming, the example I gave earlier, the year of millets, my people never stop eating millets.

00:29:58.900 So I don't understand what this year of millets is or next year, the year of phone you, because they never stop, right?

00:30:05.940 But who gets to sit and determine and say, this is the year of millet, right?

00:30:10.040 And I think the idea of that famine food goes back to that larger work and that larger narrative of colonialism and of capitalism.

00:30:22.560 It's hard to come and sell chemicals and genetically modify seeds and promote someone's indigenous foods.

00:30:30.700 It's just not going to work.

00:30:32.200 So in order to be able to sell agrochemicals, then the argument has to be that indigenous foods are famine foods.

00:30:40.040 You know, people just only eat them when it's hard times, not because they're drought resistant, they're climate resistant, they're nourishing, they have a long shelf life because then you're not able to.

00:30:51.680 All those companies and corporations are then not able to come in and sell, right?

00:30:57.280 The chemicals and the seeds and et cetera.

00:30:59.940 There's so many moving pieces that impact that and I'm trying to draw on all the other moving pieces.

00:31:06.640 So currently, our seeds are being modified with, you know, international laws that determine how farmers can save seeds, right?

00:31:18.320 And what seeds they can save.

00:31:20.000 So in order to be able to pass a seed law, now the argument is that indigenous seeds are not viable, right?

00:31:29.000 Because if indigenous seeds are viable, then you don't need a jable seed.

00:31:33.520 You don't need it.

00:31:34.780 But in order to make the argument, in order for corporations and companies to own seeds, you know, to take seeds away from the field into a lab and have that ownership, the argument is that while indigenous seeds or peasants seeds, oh, they're not viable, we can't depend on them anymore, they can't sustain.

00:31:56.160 But these are foods that have sustained us, right? So it goes back to that larger narrative of devaluing, devaluing indigenous foods and devaluing indigenous farming systems.

00:32:26.160 I love hearing you talk about seeds and yeah, there's more I want to ask. There's the

00:32:39.140 more spiritual questions of seeds as portals and portals for life. And then of course,

00:32:46.800 just more about the generation long practices of saving and storing seeds and what we can learn

00:32:54.560 from our ancestors and folks who have been saving seeds for thousands of years and how that plays

00:33:01.380 into how we store them today. And just the importance of it, because like we've been

00:33:07.340 talking about how we work to keep seeds, indigenous seeds out of colonialist capital

00:33:13.520 capture. And just the irony of climate change and food insecurity and water shortages and all

00:33:21.600 these environmental challenges and how now all of a sudden indigenous seeds are being marketed

00:33:28.340 and captured. So there's so much here. And I know you've spoken to some of it, but if there's

00:33:34.500 anything else you could speak to, whether on the more technical side of seed saving, ancestral

00:33:40.820 cultural side, or the spiritual side, I'd love to just hear a bit more before we move on.

00:33:46.880 yeah i think when i was farming when i started farming a black creek farm 2013

00:33:54.540 the wonderful thing was you have the seed in your hand it's not dead it's a living thing

00:34:02.420 and then you take this seed and you put this in the soil and it's magical you put in the soil

00:34:11.540 And then it rains and there's sunshine. And this thing comes out and it's just, it's a living thing and it's breathing and it's growing and it's feeding you and it's feeding other things. And for me, that was one of my first experiences, I would say, awareness of just seeing the wonder of seeds.

00:34:30.580 And in 2017, when I went to Bulga and I saw a baobab seed, I don't know if you've seen the baobab tree.

00:34:39.480 It's large, it holds about 10,000 liters of water in the trunk and it lives for up to 5,000 years.

00:34:47.900 And I'm holding a baobab seed and I'm thinking, wow, like this large tree is in the seed.

00:34:56.420 like are you kidding me that this this baobab tree that i'm seeing now came from this seed

00:35:05.820 that the past of this tree that i'm seeing was in this like grandmother great-grandmother and

00:35:13.340 great-great-grandmother or father or parents of this tree was in this and the future of a baobab

00:35:22.800 tree is also in the seed of me of all seeds right that the future whether it's a she a mango you know

00:35:32.620 an apple that the future of that tree that we are yet to plant is in that seed what a wonder

00:35:40.780 if you've ever been like at the foot of a giant tree it's just a miracle of life really that this

00:35:48.740 living breathing thing that has witnessed years before me right that has the recording of the

00:35:56.680 environment of the sun of water it knows the system if you've ever seen a baobab tree in the

00:36:02.160 dry season there is no leaf it looks like a skeleton there is no leaf and during the raining

00:36:08.060 season it's full of leaves it looks like it has an afro it's so beautiful and for me life is telling

00:36:16.740 me that all this information is in the seed the tree knows how to heal itself it's in the seed

00:36:22.100 the tree knows the seasons it's in there the tree knows its health benefits it's in there all this

00:36:29.160 information it knows the environment that it will thrive in you can grow a bilbat seed in the cold

00:36:36.360 in man canada right the same way that may perhaps the maple tree might not grow necessarily some

00:36:43.060 trees can grow, but they may not fruit, right? Because the environment of the tree's survival

00:36:50.260 and thriving is all in the seed. And for me, that just blew me away. That just blew me away. You

00:36:57.360 know, if you take a shade tree, when the leaves fall, the leaves are also compost for the soil.

00:37:04.000 And so in 2017, like witnessing and seeing that completely propelled and I think grounded that

00:37:11.400 understanding of ancestral foods and the spirituality of seeds that seeds are past

00:37:17.900 they're present they hold stories they know the soil they know where they belong they know where

00:37:24.760 they can thrive you know they know their ecosystem and just that component of understanding that

00:37:33.900 yeah I think that that's what grounded me around the spirituality I would say the spirituality

00:37:39.460 of seeds. But it was also seeing the ways in which farmers harvest seeds that they will seed save

00:37:47.240 and how, you know, they save certain seeds. So for instance, if they harvested sweet potatoes

00:37:53.980 and to preserve it and keep it long, they would dig the earth and then they will put the sweet

00:37:59.680 potatoes in there. They'll put ash on it and cover it. And it will remain as fresh as the day you

00:38:05.720 harvested it you know grains how millet seeds are hung up you know in the kitchen area in the

00:38:12.860 storage area to leave it to dry it was just seeing seeing the practices you know of grinding this

00:38:20.360 millet and fermenting it they just just the life you know seeds are living things they're living

00:38:26.920 things they are they are our ancestors you know seeds are ancestors they have been here before

00:38:33.040 many of us were here. And they have also been here with our grandparents, you know. When a tree is

00:38:39.800 dying, the seed is telling us something about the environment. When you plant a seed and it's no

00:38:44.840 longer growing, but then the tree has lived for 10,000 years, that's information for us humans

00:38:50.520 about our environment and nature and our food systems. So for me, those are like the spiritual

00:38:56.420 and cultural aspects of seeds.

00:39:00.280 And I think some of the technical pieces

00:39:02.440 are looking at how farmers just intentionally plant

00:39:06.720 to nourish, right, the soil.

00:39:09.740 So the farmers know to plant the banbaran beans

00:39:12.980 and the granites for nitrogen in the soil, right?

00:39:16.840 And to also maximize space

00:39:18.580 because those are lower crops.

00:39:20.540 And then they plant the sorghum and the millet

00:39:23.820 and then to plant the squash around it.

00:39:28.400 So it's just witnessing this archival knowledge

00:39:32.100 that farmers hold, so precious,

00:39:35.320 that is often disregarded,

00:39:37.060 but so crucial that has sustained our life for so long.

00:39:40.780 But farmers do it so effortless

00:39:42.440 that we don't realize how crucial this knowledge is.

00:39:46.260 But I think it was just witnessing

00:39:47.500 that cultural aspect of seeds,

00:39:50.820 that this very same seed that I can plant

00:39:53.320 and get food, I can plant and have food grow out of it. I can also dry and grind it and ferment it,

00:40:01.060 you know, that there are stories around how the seed is fermented, you know, stories around

00:40:07.420 how millet seeds are used during wards, stories around how filling millet and sorghum and all

00:40:15.380 these foods are. And it's also, I think, how certain seeds come to life, right? Some seeds

00:40:23.000 some seeds are planted by birds

00:40:26.240 I think humans

00:40:27.920 we think we're the only ones participating

00:40:30.520 in sustaining this earth

00:40:32.260 and the decisions we make

00:40:33.580 and the policies that we make

00:40:35.000 and if we pause and realize

00:40:37.560 how birds are replenishing the earth

00:40:39.560 by taking one seed

00:40:41.580 and planting it in a different place

00:40:43.260 one of the farmers that we work with

00:40:44.960 he has a garden

00:40:45.740 and he always says

00:40:47.420 the trees in his garden

00:40:49.420 the Dawadawa tree and the shade tree

00:40:51.260 he's like bats planted it

00:40:53.000 You know, he sees bats who will eat the shea fruit and then when they poop it out, plants it.

00:40:58.440 And he's observed bats around his farm.

00:41:00.640 And he always talks about the roles that birds play in planting trees.

00:41:05.440 And if we pause and looked at what other species are replenishing the earth and sustaining the world outside of human activities, we would be surprised, right?

00:41:17.000 animals, you know, elephants that are eating fruits and planting unintentionally or intentionally

00:41:22.640 planting trees and crops in somewhere else, you know, ants, a community of ants that are moving

00:41:29.760 seeds from one place to another. You know, some seeds also require fire before they can be planted.

00:41:37.100 So even bringing seeds to life, there's so many ways, there's so many ways. And it's so wonderful

00:41:44.640 to be able to witness.

00:41:46.940 It's just the fruit.

00:41:48.080 If you plant one seed,

00:41:50.240 you get a tree that lives years.

00:41:52.880 But then look at the fruit.

00:41:54.340 I'll go back to the example of the baobab.

00:41:56.740 It starts to fruit after 15 years.

00:42:00.060 But if after 15 years,

00:42:01.580 that tree lives 500 years,

00:42:03.860 for 450 years,

00:42:06.080 we get a fruit every single,

00:42:08.300 not just one, multiple fruits,

00:42:10.020 every single year for 450 years from one seed that was planted.

00:42:17.840 Yeah, the other aspect I'll add about seeds, I think,

00:42:21.900 is the communal aspect of seeds within indigenous or peasant seed systems.

00:42:29.380 So peasant seed systems are people that have a closer relationship to the land

00:42:34.300 whose sustenance, I would say, come from the land,

00:42:37.660 maintaining the land and having a relationship with the land through food. So in peasant seed

00:42:43.540 systems and in indigenous seed systems, there is a sharing and there is an exchanging of seeds.

00:42:50.240 And I think it is so crucial, right, to biodiversity, but also crucial to human

00:42:56.180 connection and to community connection. So the exchanging of seeds, the sharing of seeds,

00:43:01.620 that's what makes international seed loss dangerous because seeds are free. Nature gave

00:43:07.420 them to us. So for a company or corporation or country to invest research and then to claim the

00:43:16.160 intellectual property rights and the usage of that is very dangerous. It's like a threat to life.

00:43:22.720 It's really a war against life. If you think about all the ways that seeds have sustained

00:43:29.040 humans, visible, invisible, seen on seeds. If we were to take an inventory of all the people

00:43:37.780 that have participated in protecting, preserving, and saving seeds, if we took an inventory of the

00:43:43.960 cultural inventory and compare that to a company or corporation claiming intellectual property

00:43:50.620 and then asking the folks that have been protecting these seeds to now pay for it,

00:43:57.160 it's absurd that we're in a time in human history that this is even something that should happen.

00:44:04.280 Like the fact that it's even a conversation that we're okay with, I mean, we're not okay. People

00:44:09.860 are resisting and fighting. But the fact that Allah has even been passed, that is given plan 0.99

00:44:15.420 to breeders the right to own seeds. Bizarre. Bizarre. Like, are we even okay? We're not okay. 0.96

00:44:25.380 It's so absurd to me.

00:44:27.000 I can't, every time I try to process it, I just, how?

00:44:31.980 See it?

00:44:33.240 Now, not only are we saying that you're eating famine foods,

00:44:37.020 but now we're going to say, or the system or the law is going to say that

00:44:41.160 we're going to take that famine food, we're going to modify it,

00:44:47.500 and then you now have to buy it from us along with our chemicals.

00:44:53.200 But then you're poor.

00:44:54.240 It's absurd. I can go on forever because my brain is just like, how are we doing this in life?

00:45:02.720 Yeah, I'm completely there with you. And I think speaking to the absurdity is necessary because

00:45:09.480 it's insane. It's insane to live in an ecocidal culture. It's really out of control. And I feel

00:45:18.080 like it would be nice to end on something that you had just brought up, which is community and

00:45:25.280 just thinking about reimagining life on earth with community as guide, considering that so much of

00:45:31.620 your work takes place in community. So I would just like to ask you, what could the world look

00:45:39.860 like if we paid attention to our local communities and invested in local seed banks and really

00:45:47.820 started to believe in those around us. A couple of things come to mind. Three things. Connection,

00:45:58.080 trust, and love. You know, connection, trust, and love. When I think through some of the work that

00:46:06.680 we have done, the bigger piece has been trust. You know, the connection and the trust. I think

00:46:13.840 the first thing is the fact that we already know what to do. The communities that we've worked with,

00:46:20.200 people know what it means to live in community with each other. People know what it means to

00:46:25.880 be in service and to be of service with and to each other. And I think it's creating the space

00:46:35.540 and creating the opportunity for people to be able to do that. And reimagining how we can live

00:46:43.500 community and having our seed banks is indigenous and ancestral ways of being. Because indigenous

00:46:50.320 and ancestral ways of being for me means that life is not human-centered. We're not looking 0.76

00:46:56.700 at humans. We're not looking at ourselves alone to solve the problem. We're not looking at a

00:47:02.320 one community leader. We're not looking at an individual to give the answers. But we're coming

00:47:08.720 together in connection with the land, with the trees, with the seeds. For me, reimagining a

00:47:15.900 community future is not just centered on people. It's also centered on the land. It's also centered

00:47:21.840 on other living things, on the seeds, you know, and the trees, as I mentioned, even on unseen

00:47:27.820 things that are facilitating our existence. I think it's creating, learning how to create

00:47:34.060 mutual space to be able to trust each other and to be able to coexist in that space, right? So I

00:47:43.140 think whatever that ancestral indigenous ways mean within different people's geographic region,

00:47:51.820 because it may not necessarily be the exact same, but I think as long as it honors living in a way

00:47:58.940 that does not harm other people and does not harm the land and the rivers and the waters, right?

00:48:05.980 In the future that I imagine, I cannot just be human-centered while the land and the rivers,

00:48:11.180 et cetera, are harmed. So I think that's the first point for me is living in an ancestral ways

00:48:17.020 and also not being fixed on what that is, but also being open on how that shifts and that changes.

00:48:24.880 I would say I am or we've been socially conditioned to really see life in a particular way.

00:48:30.700 And so sometimes it becomes really difficult to reimagine when the new ways of being and living, right, it's in contrast to how we currently see life.

00:48:41.080 So I think even in an ancestral indigenous ways of being, it's being open, being open to learning new, new things about our indigenous ways.

00:48:51.740 you know how the seeds the one seed is the past the present in the future so ancestral indigenous

00:48:57.500 ways are not necessarily separate from the future as well right because if you look once again the

00:49:03.840 example of the baobab the baobab seed has had many it's come out of many trees that have lived

00:49:10.420 in the past right but in the same seed there are also many trees in it that will live in the future

00:49:16.880 so in the same way that in reimagining for me community is that there are many ancestral

00:49:23.580 knowledge on how we can live in harmony in connection with trust with love and we have a

00:49:30.200 lot of that knowledge in the past but that knowledge also exists in the present right and

00:49:35.540 it also exists in the future and I think it's opening ourselves up to be able to do that

00:49:42.900 Another key piece, if I'm looking at seeds, is the sharing piece, right?

00:49:48.860 Think using seeds as a lens on how to reimagine community and how to reimagine the future.

00:49:57.240 These are about sharing, right?

00:49:58.880 There's a sharing, there's an exchanging, there's a giving.

00:50:03.480 And in looking at that value and that relationship that seeds bring,

00:50:08.280 in recreating community, we have to learn that every single person is valuable.

00:50:12.900 Your value does not come from performing.

00:50:16.460 It doesn't come from something that is extractive, right?

00:50:20.000 You are valuable just as you are as a human.

00:50:24.020 A seed is valuable as it exists as a seed, right, in our hand.

00:50:28.040 We don't say, okay, now that we've planted you and you've produced a tree, you're now valuable.

00:50:32.720 We know the value of the seeds just in our hand as seeds.

00:50:35.920 In the same way that in the future of community with other humans, we are valuable just by living, right? Everything else we do is extra. And so in reimagining that community, humans are valuable just in their existence, right?

00:50:52.500 In sharing ideas, in exchanging knowledge, in being in service with and to each other.

00:51:01.360 I'm looking once again from the lens of a seed, you know, and looking at community through what seeds bring us, right?

00:51:11.160 Close to 300 people traveled to Benin in March across the African continent to protect and save indigenous seeds.

00:51:19.880 That is community.

00:51:20.740 For me, that is the kind of future that I want, that for four days, we ate indigenous food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For four days, we communed on agroecology. We learned about the different ways in which different communities are protecting different seeds, right? It's the sharing of our humanity. I think that's it.

00:51:43.020 what can a seed tell me about community what a seed informs me about itself is how i see

00:51:50.620 i want to see a reimagining a community right i think the first is looking at

00:51:55.960 our ancestral indigenous ways of being and how we can live in harmony with the waters and

00:52:03.840 land and seeds and other living things as well and the second piece would be the sharing and

00:52:12.160 exchanging of our service and our thoughts and our ideas and our existence and the third piece

00:52:20.000 is harmony think living in harmony just sitting on their tree and see how three or four different

00:52:28.380 species of trees are just there in harmony with each other oh abina this was so beautiful thank

00:52:36.640 you for sharing your time and your heart and your passion with us it was a really energizing

00:52:42.420 conversation and yeah just appreciate spending this time with you so thank you so much yeah

00:52:49.280 thank you ayana thank you for for having me it was fantastic just to sort of yeah see some of

00:52:57.840 these things out loud and yeah sometimes when you're doing work connected to seed and land and

00:53:04.020 water you just realize how much like earth loves you you know like I'm just here and the seed loves

00:53:12.500 me enough to feed you know loves me enough to give me land loves me enough to give me fresh drinking

00:53:19.040 water and the land offers itself because of love for me to grow food because it trusts that I will

00:53:25.740 live in harmony with it all you know so hearing you read the quote and hearing myself I was like

00:53:31.180 what an honor you know it is for yeah so they'll learn to just trust us to be in harmony with it

00:53:38.900 to protect and to preserve so thank you for for having me thank you thank you

00:53:44.800 thanks for listening to for the wild the music you heard today is by buffalo rose

00:53:56.100 Marion McLaughlin, and Eliza Edens.

00:54:00.120 For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young,

00:54:02.700 Erica Ekram, Julia Jackson,

00:54:05.280 Jackson Krupp, and Evan Tenenbaum.

For The Wild - June 21, 2023

ABENA OFFEH-GYIMAH on Sacred Seed and Soil ⧸337

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