Site will be used
to grow produce and will serve as an outdoor classroom
The Yurok Tribe recently purchased 40-acres of agricultural land
to create a food security farm.
The COVID-19 crisis illuminated a very real potential for
food shortages in our rural region. We purchased this property to
make the Tribe more self-sufficient during times of emergency and
when things get back to normal. This property presents an ideal
location to cultivate a tremendous amount of healthy, organic produce
for our people, said Joseph L. James, the Chairman of the
Yurok Tribe. Establishing this environmentally sustainable
food security farm will also strengthen our sovereignty.
This year, we have taken significant steps toward radically
increasing the availability of healthy foods on the reservation.
With this acquisition and the purchase of the old Weitchpec nursery,
we have secured more than 65 acres of land for food production,
which will complement our efforts to restore our natural food resources.
For many years to come, these projects will improve the physical
and mental health of our youth, families and elders, added
Ryan Ray, the Yurok Tribal Councils Requa District Representative.
The Yurok Tribe Environmental Programs Food Sovereignty Division
will manage the Klamath farm, which is located next the Margaret
Keating Elementary School and the Yurok Tribes Head Start
and Early Head Start. The Food Sovereignty Divisions staff
will employ a holistic, regenerative method of cultivation to grow
a wide variety of vegetables at the site. An organic orchard will
be established on the property too. Purchased with funds from the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the parcel is
comprised of roughly equal parts fertile pasture and forest. The
redwood-dominant forest flanks Mynot Creek and contains traditional
food resources, such as huckleberry. In the future, the Klamath
farm will also serve as an outdoor classroom where Yurok students
will participate in projects featuring the following: earthfriendly
plant cultivation, culturally consistent land management, traditional
food harvesting and fish and wildlife habitat restoration.
Earlier this year, the Yurok Agricultural Corporation, a Yurok
Tribe-owned entity, acquired the 26-acre Weitchpec Nursery. In addition
to sustainably grown fruits and vegetables, the tribally operated
nursery will soon offer plant seeds and starts as well as gardening
equipment. The Yurok Agricultural Corporation will also provide
tutorials at the site to assist local residents in developing and
maintaining their own food gardens.
In 2017, the USDA declared the Yurok Reservation a food desert
because there are very few sources of healthy sustenance on tribal
lands. This was not always the case. Prior to European contact,
the Klamath River was filled with fish, including abundant salmon
and steelhead runs that arrived in each of the four seasons. On
land, a large quantity of wild game accompanied an enormous variety
of edible plants and fungi. The immense natural bounty was a direct
outcome of precise tribal land stewardship strategies designed over
the course of millennia to facilitate maximum productivity and biological
diversity. Another factor contributing to the lack of access to
nutritious foods is the fact that most of the arable land on the
reservation is privately owned, excluding the Tribes new properties
in Klamath and Weitchpec.
At the start of the pandemic, it quickly became clear that rural
areas would receive resources last, which is a worrisome predicament
in the event of a food shortage. That is why the Tribe is developing
creative solutions to increase the availability of healthy forms
of nourishment on the reservation, such as purchasing land for organic
crop production, the restoration of traditional food sources and
the revitalization of the overall landscape. We are working
toward becoming completely self-sufficient and food sovereign. I
foresee a day when there is convenient access to sufficient supplies
of organically grown produce and the natural resources that sustained
our people since time immemorial, concluded Chairman James.
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