A tribal elder stood with a group of youth on the edge of a field at United Tribes Technical College’s (UTTC’s) Extension gardens. “The corn is your relative,” the elder explained. “And like a family member, it needs and deserves love.” One of the young girls listening that day took her corn home and cradled it like a baby through the night, doing what she could to show it her love and respect as a relative. Eventually, that corn was replanted and grew to continue the cycle.

Hearing this story, someone in a conventional agriculture context might ask, “What effect could that have upon the corn yield?” But in the context of agriculture that seeks to produce food that feeds the mind, body, and spirit of a community, a better response to this story might be: “How did that relationship with the corn nourish that young girl?”

Unlike many modern agricultural endeavors, UTTC takes a holistic approach to growing and consuming food.

“The elders back home trust us here,” says Robert Fox (Arikara) about the UTTC agroecology program. “They trust us in bringing back the old seeds, done right, with prayer.” Fox often reminds listeners that UTTC’s programs and activities respect Indigenous culture. Fox tells a story about someone who approached him with impressive data on the high yields of an indoor hydroponic agriculture system. “It’s interesting,” he allowed, “but why would I want to grow food deprived of the sun and the earth?”

So, what is the appropriate role of the 1994 Land Grant colleges in addressing issues of food sovereignty in Indigenous communities? Zach Ducheneaux, a third generation cattle rancher from Cheyenne River, recently presented at the third annual Native American Nutrition Conference. Asked if beef cattle were Indigenous, he got excited, saying it was his favorite question to answer. He said it’s not what you grow, it’s how you grow it. If you are acting from a place rooted in Indigenous culture, raising beef or carrots or whatever can be Indigenous. And that is the approach to agriculture education at UTTC: Explore modern agriculture from a place rooted in Indigenous culture.

Just what is “Indigenous food”? Some argue it’s not what you grow, it’s how you grow it.

UTTC has students from over 40 tribes, and if you ask any one of them they will have a story about diabetes, obesity, and food insecurity in their families and communities. Most will have a story about trying to make healthy changes in their own lives. UTTC established its Land Grant Department in 1998 and from the very beginning its mission has been to address these issues of nutritional health in tribal communities. And if you examine the roots of nutritional health concerns in any community, you will inevitably trace a path back to a breakdown in community food sovereignty.

But what is meant by “community food sovereignty” at UTTC? First, it’s important to recognize what it isn’t. In practice, the modern industrial food system is concerned primarily with feeding itself. Despite the real advances in efficiency of production and distribution that modern agriculture has achieved, we continue to see communities suffering from food insecurity, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. So, in addressing both the real advances in modern agriculture and the real deficiencies at its core, agriculture curriculum should give students the skills and tools they need to reestablish an agricultural system whose central purpose and primary impetus is the nourishment of the mind, body, and spirit. That is community food sovereignty.

It starts with a belief that food forms part of a fundamental relationship between us and the Earth. Real food offers more than calories, fleeting flavors, or the satisfaction of a marketing-induced craving. Real food is a connection to the Earth. Real foods come from communities that are engaged in its production. When a community produces that food, in that way, it is achieving meaningful community food sovereignty.

“If we can teach them, students and staff, when they go off to do other things, they can make the chain reaction that spreads food sovereignty to communities everywhere,” says Alice Wadsworth of UTTC’s Land Grant Department. But, just how do we achieve that, and how do we teach it? Noelle George (Yup’ik), who worked as an intern in the gardening program and is currently pursuing a B.S. in business administration at UTTC, makes this succinct suggestion: “If more people saw what was grown, they would probably be more likely to have that in their diet.”

UTTC is taking this approach a step further. If people allow the plants and animals to feed them first through experience, if they allow themselves to be open to them in the field, they will be more likely to be open to them in their diets. This approach is affirmed by Leona Morsette (Northern Cheyenne). Currently a culinary arts student who began working in the campus gardening program last summer, Morsette is open about sharing the impact the work has had on her. “Working with the plants,” she says, “opened my mind to wondering what they taste like. I love beets. I just found that out. I didn’t think I would like squash, but I do.” She continues: “It can be hard work sometimes, but it’s fulfilling. And sometimes, this summer, working out in the garden, weeding the carrots, with the sun shining on me, I would be out there smiling and waving to people going by and it just felt so good.”

UTTC encourages community members to take to the fields. The more people understand horticulture and take part in the actual process, the more likely they will change their dietary habits.

Making even incremental changes in our food system, especially fundamental changes, is a formidable challenge. It’s complex. The status quo has the advantage of inertia. But if our institutions of learning don’t exhibit the courage to allow the youth to chart a path to a better future, than who will? UTTC is using its own campus community as an experiment from which its students can draw to develop strategies for their own communities in the future. Together, UTTC agriculture students will work to establish and perfect systems that will engage every member of the campus community in their own community food sovereignty.

A focus on community food sovereignty allows us to bring together the study of community development, nutrition, health, technology, culture, physical intelligence, culinary arts, global food systems, traditional food-ways, biology, ecology, agricultural science and more into an interdisciplinary, experiential program anchored in real-world problem solving. Such a program gives students the tools they need to continue to grow into the leaders their communities need to ensure that they thrive into the future.

Brian McGinness is the director of the Land Grant Department at United Tribes Technical College.