This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Rowen M White, originally aired in July of 2020.

Across Turtle Island, seeds have long been passed down through the generations — accompanied by ceremony and prayer, reverent seed cultures, and sustainable food growing practices. Through eras of colonization and acculturation, however, we’ve seen the consolidation of seeds into a handful of corporations and the production of a soulless industrial food landscape. This system is failing us and, as centralized infrastructure strains and buckles, we turn to the embrace of our community and the nurturance of seeds at the local and village level. This episode is all about renewal and reanimation, as our guest Rowen White shares her thoughts on Indigenous food sovereignty, seed restoration as rematriation, and what it means to bring seed relatives home. 

Rowen White is a Seed Keeper/farmer from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for indigenous seed and food sovereignty. She is the Educational Director and lead mentor of Sierra Seeds, an innovative land-based educational organization located in Nevada City, CA. Rowen is the National Program Coordinator for the Indigenous Seed Keeper Network, which is an initiative of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, a non-profit organization aimed at leveraging resources to support tribal food sovereignty projects. She is the chair of the Board of Directors of Seed Savers Exchange, the largest public access seed bank in North America. 

She facilitates creative hands-on workshops and strategic conversations in community around seed/food security around the country within tribal and small farming communities. She mentors emerging leaders/mentors and community-based organizations to align their way of working with their cultural and core values. Rowen has a deep commitment to approaching food systems revitalization with a cultural context. She weaves stories of seeds, food, culture and sacred Earth stewardship on her blog, Seed Songs and other distinguished publications.

Rowen’s words crack open worlds upon worlds — the magical, manifold creations that lay rest in the seeds that we tuck away in our closets, rattle in wild grasses, and ride the wind. An ode to this “talisman of adaptation and creativity,” our interview with Rowen circles Native seeds, the myth of individual self sufficiency, the cultural dimensions of biodiversity, biocolonialism and safeguarding agricultural heritage against patenting, seed work as slow work, and reweaving cultures of belonging. In talking about reclaiming our responsibility and relationship to seeds, Rowen reminds us that we are also naming our birthright to nourish and sustain ourselves. Great healing awaits in these fertile, fecund soils.

♫ The music featured in this episode is "Manzanita" and "The Well" by Madelyn Ilana.

Episode References

Cultural Memory and Biodiversity by Virginia D. Nazarea

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive by Martín Prechtel

Wendell Berry’s quote: “We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love.”

Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health, edited by Elizabeth Hoover

Dan Barber’s essay, “Save Our Food. Free the Seed.”

Take Action & Learn more

To learn more and follow Rowen’s journey, check out her blog Seed Songs and visit her website Sierra Seeds. Follow Rowen’s journey on Instagram and Facebook. 

Please consider making a donation to Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, which supports Native communities nationally with advocacy, education, and networking as they revitalize their Indigenous food systems.

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