3 Indigenous Regenerative Techniques to Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Regenerative Agriculture is nothing new. Its techniques and principles have been practiced for millennia in all corners of the world. Many indigenous people are still practicing their farming and gardening techniques in resilient patches of land speckled across the globe.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day provides an opportunity for us to examine and highlight the role indigenous people have played and continue to play in sustainable gardening and agriculture. That’s why we want to highlight 3 regenerative farming practices that indigenous people have been using for ages.
1) The Three Sisters
I’m sure many of you have heard of the Three Sisters technique for crop symbiosis and diversity. Developed by Native American farmers, this system grows corn/maize, squash, and beans in a perfect trifecta. The corn grows tall and strong, creating a natural trellis for the beans to climb up. Meanwhile, the squash sprawls across the earth, providing ground cover and deterring pests with its spiny leaves. What’s more, the beans, being leguminous, fix Nitrogen in their roots and provide it to the other two sisters, especially the corn which is a heavy feeder. Given what we know today about plant exudates and fungal networks, it’s logical to assume that the three sisters exchanged more than just Nitrogen via their roots.
“The corn grows tall and strong, creating a natural trellis for the beans to climb up. Meanwhile, the squash sprawls across the earth, providing ground cover and deterring pests with its spiny leaves”
But have you heard about the forgotten fourth sister? Yes, some claim that Native Americans also grew sunflowers alongside the three sisters. But why? In fact, it’s also to deter pests, but this time the aerial kind. As any Iowan will tell you, birds love corn. However, when they see a juicy looking sunflower pointing its head east at sunrise, they “dine on the sunflower seeds rather than the corn kernels.” I, for one, will take this piece of wisdom for my next Three *ahem* Four Sisters garden, and hope the NYC four sisters (pigeons, finches, sparrows, and starlings) won’t come for my corn next season.
2) Chinampas: Aztec Floating Farms
The Aztec (or Mexica) people had a flourishing civilization with cities even more impressive than their European counterparts. They were pioneers of many technologies, among them the Atlatl which increased javelin toss range, and the Chinampa, which enabled the sustainable farming of swamp and riverlands. A Chinampa is a floating farm technique in which the farmer or gardener would dredge up sediment from the river bed in order to form a man-made island. This island would first be anchored using fast-growing willow trees to root down from the island into the river or swamp bed. The island would then be shaped and structured using mud and woven reeds as walls and mats.
You might be thinking that all this meddling with nature may have hurt the environment, but it’s actually just the opposite, “the Chinampas didn’t harm the environment — they enhanced it.” This was due to the fact that it created a marine ecosystem thriving off of the soil nutrients and biodiversity. Birds also thrived in this bustling ecosystem.
“The Chinampas didn’t harm the environment — they enhanced it.”
The most common crops grown in the Chinampas were “maize/corn, beans, chillies, squash, tomatoes, and edible greens such as quelite and amaranth.” Flowers were also grown to increase biodiversity and attract beneficial insects. Intensive crop schedules were employed, including intercropping. All of these factors and more mean that Chinampas were among the most productive and sustainable farming techniques ever practiced.
Swamplands in the United States are woefully mismanaged and misunderstood. Often the dumping grounds of chemical industries, they are ignored and left to deteriorate. If we allowed indigenous people to step in and restore these marshes using Chinampas and other regenerative techniques, we could see a new purpose and value placed on the country’s copious amounts of swampland.
3) Agroforestry
Agroforestry simply means the practice of growing food in forests. This has been practiced by indigenous peoples from the Philippines to the Amazon. Contrary to our current methods of clearing the forest and planting monoculture crops on the land, agroforestry is a system based around maintaining a thriving ecosystem. The delicate balance of the forest is preserved while extracting only the excess. However, since forests are the most productive land-based ecosystems in the world at generating biomass, there is plenty to spare. When actively managed, agroforestry systems can be even more productive than standard forests.
“Forests are the most productive land-based ecosystems in the world at generating biomass.”
Instead of continuing to clear the Amazon rainforest at an alarming rate, indigenous peoples could be put in charge of maintaining and restoring it while converting it into a productive agroforestry system. This win/win situation will restore the environment, sequester massive amounts of carbon, give land and power back to indigenous communities, and produce more food than current grazing systems could ever hope to produce in the same space.
We hope that these three indigenous regenerative techniques have inspired you to think about regenerative gardening and agriculture in your own life, community, and country. We urge you to read up on and speak out about indigenous land issues to help empower indigenous communities to lead the sustainable food systems of the future.
Sources/Further Reading:
https://www.mvorganizing.org/which-3-ecosystems-have-the-highest-productivity/
http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.re.20150501.04.html
https://rodaleinstitute.org/blog/the-three-sistersand-that-fourth-sister-no-one-really-talks-about/
https://www.janjohnsen.com/the-glorious-sunflower-the-fourth-sister/
https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2013/09/24/aztecs-gardens-in-the-lake/
https://www.upworthy.com/chinampas
https://es.slideshare.net/edithelejalde/agricultura-azteca-21288925
