In the migration story of the Anishinaabeg, prophets told the tribe to follow a shell in the sky from near the Pacific Ocean to a land “where the food grows on the water [LaDuke 2007].” There, the Anishinaabeg, named Ojibwe or Chippewa by whites, found manoomin, which the whites named wild rice. Manoomin translates to ‘the most wondrous seed' in Anishinaabemowin and is the only indigenous grain to North America [LaDuke Jul/Aug 2007.] Manoomin is the most sacred food to the Anishinaabeg and the basis of their economy, and they regard the rice as their “relatives with roots [LaDuke Oct 2007].”
In 2000, plant geneticists at the University of Minnesota cracked the DNA sequence of manoomin, opening the door to the possibilities of genetic contamination, seed slavery, and the eventual extinction of the Anishinaabeg staff of life. To the Anishinaabeg, reengineering and patenting manoomin is not only environmentally and economically disastrous, but akin to experimenting with the DNA of their parents and children. The biotech industry's attempt to adapt and conquer such an important part of Anishinaabeg identity has been met with solid, informed resistance from within the native community, but the battle is far from over.
[...] Whereas the modern, Western, Christian view states that everything on the Earth was placed here for man's use, Native American religion tends to see the relationship between people and nature as more equal. Native Hawaiians recently waged a battle that paralleled that of the Ojibwe for the sovereignty of taro, which they call their ‘elder brother,' succeeding in getting the University of Hawaii to tear up its patents on strains of taro in 2006. New Mexican pueblos and Hispanic communities also joined forces that year to pass a declaration stating that they “consider genetic modification and the potential contamination of our landraces by GE technology a continuation of genocide upon indigenous people and as malicious and sacrilegious acts toward our ancestry, culture, and future generations [LaDuke Jul/Aug 2007].” Although the State Department of Agriculture and food giant Monsanto got tough clauses about the implications of genetic engineering removed from the declaration, in 2007, the New Mexico House of Representatives went on the record as supporting “efforts to prevent genetic contamination of native seeds [LaDuke Jul/Aug 2007].” The Anishinaabeg, too, have had successes. [...]
[...] By 1976, after companies like Uncle Ben's and General Foods began to out-produce the native rice harvesters, the price had fallen to $ 2.68 per pound. The next year, Minnesota made wild rice the official state grain. The University of Minnesota was then free to use state money to market its mass-produced, patented strains of wild rice, but it lost control of the market to California. By of the world's rice was paddy-grown in California [LaDuke 2007.] Between 2000 and 2005, California produced 8.8 to 18 million pounds of paddy-grown, cultivated wild rice to Minnesota's 4.3 to 6.2 [Levy 2005]. [...]
[...] The biotech industry and the Anishinaabeg have opposite world views and relationships with the land: the Native Americans see themselves as related to all other living things on Earth, and use the land as members of an ecosystem, while the biotech industry exploits and will possibly destroy it for scientific advancement and profit. Seed sovereignty issues are the latest in a long history of forcing indigenous people to adapt to white culture. With our new power over genetics and nature, we can assimilate even the genes of their relatives. [...]
[...] Retrieved March from http://www.prairienet.org/prairienations/chippewa.htm. Reprinted from original 1912 edition. Smithsonian. LaDuke, W. (2007, Oct. 20). Plenary talk. Bioneers 2007. San Rafael, California. I wasn't quite sure how [...]
[...] Winona LaDuke's speech at Bioneers stressed the importance of the integrity of manoomin as a vital piece of Anishinaabeg history, identity, and culture, and as a relative of Anishinaabeg people past and present. However, Charles Muscoplat, dean of the University of Minnesota College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, took a diplomatic approach to calling Native American agriculture backwards: know wild rice, to the Indians, is sacred, given to them by the Creator, that it's central to their traditional rituals, feasts and ceremonies. As a gift from the Creator, it's perfect. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
