From Stewardship to Sovereignty: The Connection Between Land and Food

The Learning Dinner speakers (from left to right): Rebecca Naragon, Jacque Demko, Richard Elm-Hill, Cameron Chesbro, Roo George-Warren, Cody Vavra, Lea Zeise, Jamie Grant, and Chief Anne Richardson.

The heart of community – is it food or is it land? Food is something that brings us together to celebrate moments, honor people, and carry traditions. Access to traditional foods and foodways keeps Native communities and economies healthy. Food is the center of all things, providing us with nourishment and connectivity. Land is where we come from – our origin stories speak to our birth from a sacred body of water, place, or plant.

Access to the places our origin stories speak of connects us to something greater than ourselves. There are places that, no matter how long we are away, will embrace and envelop us when we return. Land is the past, present, and future. The connection between food and land is one that is difficult to put into words because they’re both central to culture and identity. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) says in Braiding Sweetgrass, “People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, ‘plant a garden,’ It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people.”

At First Nations, the distinction between food and land is such that we have two separate programs. The Native Agriculture and Food Systems Investments program supports tribes and Native communities as they build sustainable food systems that will improve health, strengthen food security, and increase control over their food systems. The Stewarding Native Lands program supports tribes and Native communities in restoring access to and controlling and managing their lands and resources. Community and cultural health are tied to balance and right relations with both food and land. Because of the interconnected nature of and food and land, staff of both programs work closely together to ensure we are best addressing community needs.

To highlight the connection of our work, in June 2026, I joined First Nations’ Native Agriculture and Food Systems Investments Director Richard Elm-Hill (Oneida) in hosting hosted a learning dinner at the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) Forum focused on Native-led work that is increasing access to and restoring relationships with land, building adaptive capacity to respond to climate change, and reclaiming traditional foodways and food systems. This blog post is inspired by the rich conversations that unfolded during the learning dinner that broached the reciprocal relationship between food and land.

Heart of the Work

First Nations’ learning dinner conversations were led by community partners from the east and southeast with specialized knowledge and experience in increasing tribal access to land, addressing climate challenges, reclaiming regional food systems, and creating local workforces.

Speakers included:

Chief Anne Richardson (Rappahannock Tribe) and Jamie Grant (Chickahominy Tribe) of the Rappahannock Tribe
Cody Vavra (Osage Nation) and Cameron Chesbro (Muscogee Nation) of the Osage Nation
Rebecca Naragon (Choctaw Nation) of the United South and Eastern Tribes,
DeLessin “Roo” George-Warren (Catawba Indian Nation) of the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education,
Lea Zeise (Oneida) of the United South and Eastern Tribes and Ohe·láku.

Speakers started their table conversations by introducing themselves and sharing how Native-led work creates better outcomes for regional food systems, biodiversity, and climate adaptation.

Chief Anne and Jamie first shared background about their tribe’s efforts to adopt legislation that grants the rights of nature to the Rappahannock River and reclaiming Fones Cliffs, land that is adjacent to the Rappahannock River and of cultural and ecological importance.

Rappahannock was the first nation to ensure the constitutional rights of a body of water in their constitution. The tribe is also dedicated to restoring the health of the Rappahannock River and culturally relevant oysters, through their oyster conservation efforts that will eventually create a pathway for sustainable harvest. These efforts demonstrate the tribe’s commitment to ensuring that tribal members can access sacred areas and steward cultural resources for future generations. They also created opportunities for programs to develop like the Rappahannock Producers Cooperative, the tribe’s producers co-op designed to increase access to healthy food for community members.

In 2026 Osage Nation’s newly added hives are supporting sustainable tallgrass prairie ecosystem and tribal food sovereignty efforts.

Cody and Cameron’s table conversation started with details about the Wahzhazhe (Osage) Nation’s priorities addressing climate change. Climate change is one of many factors that impact food security for all people but disproportionately for Native people because of our connection to and reliance on the natural world. One way the Osage Nation has been working to build adaptive capacity to respond to climate change is by increasing pollinator habitat to repair the prairie ecosystem and expand biodiversity within the buffalo preserve. The Nation is focusing efforts on apiary expansion, which will increase pollination, restore ecosystem health, and have an economic benefit, as eventually bee honey will be sold at Harvest Land Farmers Market.

Cody and Cameron shared the Nations’ efforts to prioritize production pathways that advance food sovereignty and center traditional values and stewardship practices. This research was driven by the Nation’s limited access to food and resulted in the Nation creating a mobile market program to transport fresh vegetables and meat to communities that would otherwise need to drive over an hour each way.

Rebecca’s table conversation started with the origin story of United South and Eastern Tribes (USET), which is rooted in southern and eastern tribes’ collective action to grow political power and ultimately protect Tribal Sovereignty. Of USET’s three primary programs, the Office of Environmental Resource Management (OERM) is responsible for protecting human health and ecosystems, cultural resources, traditional and conventional agriculture, and sustainable development. To support their 33 member tribes, OERM staff established a food sovereignty program that provides direct technical assistance to departments to restore rivercane, install drip irrigation, and propagate sweetgrass, and more. The program also created a community of knowledge to assess tribal needs, opportunities, and gaps in workforce development to support member tribes with economic, food systems, and restoration goal setting and to promote intertribal exchange and relationship building.

At their table, DeLessin “Roo” George-Warren of the Catawba Indian Nation shared how his work has connected tribal governance, food sovereignty, and Indian education. Drawing from his experience as a member of the Catawba Nation Executive Committee, Roo spoke about the Nation’s Black Snake Farm and its work to provide healthy, accessible food for Catawba families. He connected this work to the effort to strengthen Catawba foodways, including bringing traditional corn back into community life. Roo also shared about his current role with the National Fund for Excellence in American Indian Education, where he works with schools on language revitalization and student outcomes. The conversation highlighted the importance of tribes having the ability to shape their own food systems, education, and cultural priorities.

Jennifer Falck (left) and Lea Zeise (right) are featured in Wisconsin People & Ideas Spring 2026 volume for their work growing their Tribal Elder Food Box Program.

Lea started her conversation with a story about coming back to the land. For the Ohe-láku, revitalizing traditional food systems matters because Native people should have access to traditional foods, and accessing traditional foods is often an entry point to learning more about history, identity, and cultural legacy while growing a sense of pride. Traditional foods are much more than medicines for physical bodies. They’re medicines for spiritual, emotional, and mental wellness. Ohe·láku is committed to supporting community members in relearning how to grow Tuscarora white corn to restore relationship with the land and cultural foods. After the corn is harvested, it is made into traditional corn products, like cornmeal, which then get added to tribal elder food boxes. These efforts demonstrate the organization’s commitment to ensuring traditional foods are a mainstay, connecting people to the land and their traditions.

Carrying Responsibility

The learning dinner provided space for people to hear stories and experiences from community partners who are working to create better outcomes for regional food systems, biodiversity, and climate adaptation. Before attendees left, they were encouraged to continue learning and applying their understanding to support regional food and land justice programs and initiatives.

This learning dinner further validated a few points. There is an ongoing need for investment to sustain Native-led food and stewardship work, which will allow for a broader impact on an individual and community scale. Greater capacity is needed to ensure that Native producers are familiar with the intricacies of federal, state, and tribal requirements of various food programs. Native peoples should have access to their traditional foods and land because food is connected to land and land is connected to food. Both are, and always will be, intertwined with culture, identity, belonging, and self-determination.

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