Putting Tribal Sovereignty
The Tulsa World recently published an op-ed by the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative’s Executive Director, Carly Griffith Hotvedt. In the piece, Griffith Hotvedt highlights the important role food and agriculture play in Tribal sovereignty.
Find an excerpt of the article below. Click the button to read the full piece, and watch Griffith Hotvedt’s recent video interview at the bottom of this page.
“As we begin this new year, I’ve reflected on what I’m looking forward to in 2025. Tribal food sovereignty is at the top of this list. Recent progress has been wildly positive and a welcome contrast to so many issues in the political landscape that reduce our quality of life.
“During the height of the pandemic, we experienced the bare shelves and limited product availability. Tribal communities often experienced the same or worse. Pandemic conditions displayed the deficiencies of industrial agriculture systems.
“The ‘just-in-time’ production to processing model comes with a lack of sufficient redundancies to absorb disruptions to the model, resulting in bottlenecks and other system shocks.”