Relative to the landscape: Producer cooperatives in native food sovereignty initiatives

Abstract

Across Turtle Island, Native communities are joining the Indigenous food sovereignty movement to reclaim their foodsystems, cultural practices, and economies. Cooperatives are a particularly viable organizational structure for these projects since Indigenous foodsystems historically depended on community cooperation and collective use of land and other resources. This paper is interested in the ways Native foodway initiatives are building producer cooperatives in the US as a method towards food sovereignty. To do so, authors conducted interviews, attended food sovereignty gatherings, and reviewed relevant literature to offer historical context, a theoretical framework for Indigenous food sovereignty producer cooperatives, and four Native-led food producer cooperative case studies that are working to increase access to fresh, local foods produced in accordance with the beliefs, behaviors, processes, and worldviews of their particular communities. The organizational structure and purpose of the four cooperatives differs, but they are united in a common commitment to stewarding the interspecies relationships foundational to Indigenous foodways. In doing so, these cooperatives are also expanding who, or what, counts as a “member.” We argue this offers a compelling model for ecologically and culturally integrated cooperative development in individual communities and a platform for (re)establishing foodways and trade relationships between Native Nations.