Muskoday Reclaims Relationship with Food

By Brenda Frick, Ph.D.

Members of the Muskoday Organic Farm Cooperative (MOFC) hosted the North American Indigenous Food Symposium (NAIFS) in June 2009, sharing their success and their vision with an enthusiastic crowd bused in from Saskatoon. “We are taking important steps to reclaim our traditional relationship to food” explained Harvey Knight.

The tour stopped at a special Elders Garden that was planted and will be tended by children working with community elders. The elders bring a spiritual dimension to the project. “We are re-establishing relationships to our brothers and sisters, the food crops that live with us” explained Knight. “It’s not just planting. In the past there were ceremonies, and the elders are helping to bring that back. We are beginning to understand what that heritage means.”

“Muskoday has been a farming community since the reserve was established” said Knight. “We’ve been under a lot of pressure to give up farming and gathering and hunting. Now we are training our people to grow food again.”

MOFC is providing training and employment through in a project developed with Heifer International. Joe Munroe explained the process. People from Muskoday, Flying Dust and James Smith First Nations who are collecting welfare are eligible to apply for 6 months employment and training. This gives people enough employment insurance credits to qualify for further training funds. The program has been very successful, with less than 5% of participants returning to welfare.

Other community members work in the vegetable plots for credits that can be used in the fall to buy the garden products.

The crops grown at Muskoday are primarily those indigenous to the Americas. They have 17 ac planted to potatoes, as well as acres in vegetable plots including tomatoes, corn, squash, beans and sunflowers. They also have 65 bison, and they grow oats for milling, and as a rotational crop.

The potato crop was being planted during the NAIFS tour. Dean Bear pointed out the specialized 4 row planter that delivered registered and certified organic Red Norland seed potatoes to row after half mile long row. Later, potatoes will be hilled, and 10 people working full time will keep the plots weeded. A spring fed dugout will allow irrigation, using rented equipment. A diversity of wildflowers will be transplanted around the potato fields, to encourage beneficial insects that will keep the Colorado potato beetle under control. This proved a successful strategy last year.

People at Muskoday will be encouraged to contribute to the farming efforts at home as well. The project is supplying composters and rain barrels to each house on the reserve. Eventually MOFC is hoping to haul the collected materials to the fields with horses.

All the agricultural land at Muskoday is certified organic. The community was concerned over their high cancer rate, which they linked to the use of chemicals on the land. When they decided to return to farming, it was easy and natural to start organic. According to Eric Bear, “organic is the number one thing on Muskoday”.

The MOFC is working with other bands to expand their successful model. As well as 7 ac of potatoes for the Muskoday group, another 10 ac have been planted by members of the Peter Balantine First Nation. Peter Balantine supplied trucking of seed potato from the Outlook area. Muskoday and Peter Balantine First Nations are partnering with the James Smith First Nation to convert a local skating rink into a potato storage facility.

The MOFC is also working with CHEP to help secure markets. Muskoday does not want to depress local markets, so is instead targeting hospitals, schools and other institutions that generally import product. They will also market to their local store, to First Nations reserves, and temporarily, while local markets are being established, they hope to sell seed potatoes into the United States.

The tour at Muskoday brought us from the fields to the school where elders spoke of the connection of spirituality, food and community. All of these were shared as we enjoyed bison steaks and vegetables prepared by David Wolfman (from Cooking with the Wolfman), as well as moose stew and muskeg tea brought by members of the community.

For a list of additional organic field days, see http://organic.usask.ca/.


Brenda Frick, Ph.D., P.Ag., is the Organic Research and Extension Coordinator at the University of Saskatchewan and is an affiliate of the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada. She welcomes your comments at 306-966-4975 or via email at organic@usask.ca. This article was commisiioned by OACC.


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Posted August 2009