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#Post#: 16589--------------------------------------------------
Returning the ‘Three Sisters’—Corn, Beans and Squash—to Native
American Farms Nourishes People, Land and Cultures
DIR By: guest78
Date: November 21, 2022, 10:43 pm
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Returning the ‘Three Sisters’—Corn, Beans and Squash—to Native
American Farms Nourishes People, Land and Cultures
--- Quote ---
> For centuries Native Americans intercropped corn, beans and
squash because the plants thrived together. A new initiative is
measuring health and social benefits from reuniting the “three
sisters.”
--- End Quote ---
[img]
HTML https://pocket-image-cache.com/direct?resize=w2000&url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.theconversation.com%2Ffiles%2F370181%2Foriginal%2Ffile-20201118-15-102ilmb.jpg%3Fixlib%3Drb-1.1.0%26rect%3D45%252C0%252C5120%252C3372%26q%3D20%26auto%3Dformat%26w%3D320%26fit%3Dclip%26dpr%3D2%26usm%3D12%26cs%3Dstrip[/img]
--- Quote ---
> Historians know that turkey and corn were part of the first
Thanksgiving, when Wampanoag peoples shared a harvest meal with
the pilgrims of Plymouth plantation in Massachusetts. And
traditional Native American farming practices tell us that
squash and beans likely were part of that 1621 dinner too.
>
> For centuries before Europeans reached North America, many
Native Americans grew these foods together in one plot, along
with the less familiar sunflower. They called the plants sisters
to reflect how they thrived when they were cultivated together.
>
> Today three-quarters of Native Americans live off of
reservations, mainly in urban areas. And nationwide, many Native
American communities lack access to healthy food. As a scholar
of Indigenous studies focusing on Native relationships with the
land, I began to wonder why Native farming practices had
declined and what benefits could emerge from bringing them back.
--- End Quote ---
Side note:
--- Quote ---
> Wild—but not domestic—turkey was indeed plentiful in the
region and a common food source for both English settlers and
Native Americans. But it is just as likely that the fowling
party returned with other birds we know the colonists regularly
consumed, such as ducks, geese and swans.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/first-thanksgiving-meal
Back to the original article:
--- Quote ---
> To answer these questions, I am working with agronomist
Marshall McDaniel, horticulturalist Ajay Nair, nutritionist
Donna Winham and Native gardening projects in Iowa, Nebraska,
Wisconsin and Minnesota. Our research project, “Reuniting the
Three Sisters,” explores what it means to be a responsible
caretaker of the land from the perspective of peoples who have
been balancing agricultural production with sustainability for
hundreds of years.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSwGxJe4bVs
--- Quote ---
>
> Abundant Harvests
>
> Historically, Native people throughout the Americas bred
indigenous plant varieties specific to the growing conditions of
their homelands. They selected seeds for many different traits,
such as flavor, texture and color.
>
> Native growers knew that planting corn, beans, squash and
sunflowers together produced mutual benefits. Corn stalks
created a trellis for beans to climb, and beans’ twining vines
secured the corn in high winds. They also certainly observed
that corn and bean plants growing together tended to be
healthier than when raised separately. Today we know the reason:
Bacteria living on bean plant roots pull nitrogen – an essential
plant nutrient – from the air and convert it to a form that both
beans and corn can use.
>
> Squash plants contributed by shading the ground with their
broad leaves, preventing weeds from growing and retaining water
in the soil. Heritage squash varieties also had spines that
discouraged deer and raccoons from visiting the garden for a
snack. And sunflowers planted around the edges of the garden
created a natural fence, protecting other plants from wind and
animals and attracting pollinators.
>
> Interplanting these agricultural sisters produced bountiful
harvests that sustained large Native communities and spurred
fruitful trade economies. The first Europeans who reached the
Americas were shocked at the abundant food crops they found. My
research is exploring how, 200 years ago, Native American
agriculturalists around the Great Lakes and along the Missouri
and Red rivers fed fur traders with their diverse vegetable
products.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> Displaced From the Land
>
> As Euro-Americans settled permanently on the most fertile
North American lands and acquired seeds that Native growers had
carefully bred, they imposed policies that made Native farming
practices impossible. In 1830 President Andrew Jackson signed
the Indian Removal Act, which made it official U.S. policy to
force Native peoples from their home locations, pushing them
onto subpar lands.
>
> On reservations, U.S. government officials discouraged Native
women from cultivating anything larger than small garden plots
and pressured Native men to practice Euro-American style
monoculture. Allotment policies assigned small plots to nuclear
families, further limiting Native Americans’ access to land and
preventing them from using communal farming practices.
>
> Native children were forced to attend boarding schools, where
they had no opportunity to learn Native agriculture techniques
or preservation and preparation of Indigenous foods. Instead
they were forced to eat Western foods, turning their palates
away from their traditional preferences. Taken together, these
policies almost entirely eradicated three sisters agriculture
from Native communities in the Midwest by the 1930s.
--- End Quote ---
Entire article:
HTML https://getpocket.com/explore/item/returning-the-three-sisters-corn-beans-and-squash-to-native-american-farms-nourishes-people-land-and?utm_source=pocket-newtab
BONUS:
Three Sisters • Native American Flute Song • Jonny Lipford
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Rjjny6H1U
Three Sisters
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gnxcpeCj8
#Post#: 22186--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: Scythe
Date: September 17, 2023, 7:47 pm
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How to Scythe + STOP Weeding, Watering and Fertilizing
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVn1kiZnldQ
The company this guy bought is scythe from has been in business
for 500 years...
#Post#: 24549--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: 90sRetroFan
Date: December 21, 2023, 3:04 pm
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A rare flash of sanity from Greece:
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/19/greece-to-legalise-papers-for-thousands-of-migrants-to-counter-labour-shortage
--- Quote ---
> Thousands of migrants are to have their papers legalised in
Greece as part of efforts to curb an acute labour shortage that
is hitting key sectors of an otherwise resurgent economy.
>
> In a move that has thrown his centre-right party into turmoil,
the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, pushed through
legislation on Tuesday regularising the status of about 30,000
unregistered labourers.
>
> Critics of the bill, which was passed in a parliamentary vote
with the endorsement of the leftwing opposition, have described
it as dangerous. Mitsotakis’s predecessor, Antonis Samaras, who
voted against the law, had argued it risked turning Greece into
“a beacon of attraction for illegal migrants”.
>
> Defending the one-off measure, the country’s migration and
asylum minister, Dimitris Kairidis, told the Guardian that the
legislation would help with not only labour shortages but also
social cohesion.
--- End Quote ---
30000 is a tiny number (the population of Greece is >10
million), but it is better than none. Why should it be a one-off
measure? The workers will eventually move to other EU countries,
and Greece will need new workers. It should be regular policy.
--- Quote ---
> Agricultural associations, which depend on immigrants to
gather fruit and vegetables, have increasingly complained of
their produce rotting, and MPs in rural areas have exhorted
Mitsotakis to take action. Fears for this year’s olive harvest
have similarly grown, with farmers whose yields have fallen
because of the climate crisis voicing alarm over the prospect of
reduced pickings on account of the labour shortages.
>
> Under the bill, migrants will be able to legalise their status
more easily by acquiring residence permits in three years rather
than seven if they can prove they are employed. Greek government
officials have been quick to emphasise that by integrating
“invisible people”, the measure will help boost public revenue
with employment taxes and contributions. Many of the jobs that
people from abroad are willing to do are ones that unemployed
Greeks will not touch, unions say.
>
> At a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is fuelling far-right
support across Europe, the law has been welcomed, with the left
seeing it as overdue, if also opportune.
>
> “Simply because it has proven incapable of confronting the big
problem of labour shortages, the government has been forced to
adopt [our] proposal and has moved ahead with the rapid
legalisation of work and residence permits for undocumented
migrants,” said Theodora Tzakri, who heads the main opposition
party Syriza’s parliamentary group.
--- End Quote ---
Greece still deserves to be made Ottoman again, though:
--- Quote ---
> On Europe’s south-eastern frontline, Greece has long been a
gateway to the EU, and the centre-right administration has faced
criticism for enforcing self-declared “tough but fair” migration
policies that have sought to keep asylum seekers at bay through
illegal “pushbacks” at land and sea borders, according to human
rights groups.
>
> With ruling party MPs told they would face discipline if they
failed to back the bill on Tuesday, cabinet ministers were at
pains to stress that the measure in no way presaged a relaxation
of the government’s migration management agenda.
--- End Quote ---
See also:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/enemies/hungary-v4/
#Post#: 27758--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: rp
Date: September 6, 2024, 1:25 pm
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HTML https://x.com/1shankarsharma/status/1828657060000444499?t=5GM_IqChI-utnGwVLSPTJQ&s=19
[quote]
After deep analysis of several nations, I have come to the
GRAND conclusion that:
India is the best country to be poor in:
- Food is cheap, plentiful (rice,gram ,banana, guava etc)
- fuel via lakdi, koyla, goitha ( dung) is cheap
- weather doesn't require warm clothes. " Sooti" thin cotton
cheap and good enough
- water via myriad rivers is plentiful
- Agri offers good enough employment
- transport is cheap via taanga, cycle, etc
Views?
[/Quote]
This is not a "poor" lifestyle, but is in fact how nearly
everyone in India lived prior to colonization. The Western
lifestyle should be seen as a wasteful one.
#Post#: 29299--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: rp
Date: February 4, 2025, 1:52 pm
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HTML https://www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/comments/rg55ja/subsistence_farming_vs_self_sufficiency/
[quote]
I have been thinking recently about peoples attitudes towards
subsistence farming. In my experience when I have seen people
discussing subsistence farming it is usually a negative context
and some people seem to view this as a lower type civilization/
society. Yet hunter gatherer society is somewhat romanticised.
These distinctions seem to be drawn at arbitrary levels.
Homesteaders for example can be held up as self sufficient and
living some form of an ideal. Where as when subsistence farming
is used it is often In a context implying poverty. Is this a
post colonialism hang up?
As solarpunks is it when sustainability and quality of life
ideals meet that is the sweet spot to strive for?
Just curious as to what others think about these distinctions,
not as means of living exactly but in the cultural context and
how people react to the terms and the connotations connected?
[/Quote]
#Post#: 29301--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: 90sRetroFan
Date: February 4, 2025, 4:58 pm
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The following comments get it:
--- Quote ---
> It's definitely a colonialist hangup. "Subsistence" feels like
it's used to look down on people who don't really want more than
farming enough for their community. If you don't produce (or
want to produce) enough crops to trade/sell, and especially if
you live outside the Western world, you get labeled "subsistence
farmer." It might be helpful in a larger agricultural sense, but
it is definitely used to otherize the Global South.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> Seems to me like the ‘difference’ between immigrant and expat.
One is ‘classy’ and reserved for white people.
--- End Quote ---
Self-sufficient "white" = "homesteader"
Self-sufficient "non-white" = "subsistence farmer"
--- Quote ---
> Yup I’ve been thinking about this for so long. It’s basically
racism.
--- End Quote ---
In other words, it's OK for self-sufficiency to be "white".
#Post#: 29307--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: rp
Date: February 4, 2025, 10:04 pm
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It's also because "white" homesteading is often associated with
heavy machinery such as tractors along with livestock rearing
(ranching), while "non white" subsistence farming is purely
associated with pre industrial agriculture.
#Post#: 32099--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: Pro-Agrarian
Date: February 3, 2026, 10:02 pm
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Agro-Punk not Cyberpunk.
HTML https://nikparent.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/01-aerial-view.jpg
HTML https://nikparent.com/2023/05/07/imagining-an-agrarian-future-in-rural-rwanda-evidence-from-congolese-refugees-at-mahama-camp-article/
Abstract
Congolese refugees in Rwanda constitute one of the most
protracted displaced populations in the world. As durable
solutions remain evasive, this article presents Congolese’ own
vision for life beyond the camp. Wanting to return to peasantry,
their utopian agrarian landscape is articulated as an
intentional community where subsistence and autonomy exist
within a common property space shared peacefully with
now-landless Rwandans. By exploring the archaeologies and
ontologies that lay the architectural foundations of this
utopia, key assumptions are subverted – notably, that refugees
in protracted exile have a limited sense of futurity, and that
their return to land within rural Rwanda would necessarily lead
to conflict.
Keywords
Refugees; Land and peace; Rural futurity; Utopia; Critical
agrarian studies; Rwanda
Highlights
- Congolese refugees living in camps for over twenty years
imagine a post-camp future defined as agrarian and
subsistence-first.
- Autonomy in the form of an intentional community shared with
now-landless Rwandans.
- Past livelihoods in the Congo and experience of exile inform
their vision for a future around land-based rural livelihoods.
- Unsettles the paradigm that land and resources are cause for
conflict between refugees and host communities.
- Provides new ways to think about durable solutions to
situations of protracted displacement.
#Post#: 32645--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: Pro-Agrarian
Date: May 24, 2026, 4:31 am
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Grows Food in Dead Soil — the "Primitive" Trick That Beat Modern
Science
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAx9NtwPlyg
--- Quote ---
> 5:53 — the World Resources Institute, said that Yakuba's
impact on restoration in the Sahel has been greater than that of
all national and international experts taken together.
>
> Think about that. Billions of dollars. PhDs from the world's
top universities, state-of-the-art agricultural technology, all
outperformed by an illiterate farmer with a shovel and a bucket
of manure. So, if Z is this effective, why did we stop using it?
Because there is a reason ancient agricultural wisdom
disappears. And it isn't because it stops working. It is because
it doesn't make money.
>
> Zaï pits require zero purchased inputs. No fertilizer from
chemical companies, no seeds from agri business corporations, no
machinery from equipment manufacturers, just local soil, local
manure, local labor.
>
> The global fertilizer market is worth over $200 billion
annually.
>
> In the Sahil, farmers who use Zaï need zero synthetic
nitrogen.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://assets.weforum.org/editor/rlnxMP_ztYlsfHYW7aTHNqLzGPee2EDwTnXgCXXN9BY.png
HTML https://www.mdpi.com/resources/resources-13-00120/article_deploy/html/images/resources-13-00120-g004.png
HTML https://s3.amazonaws.com/docs.echocommunity.org/linked_images/ETN_Zai-Pit-System_Page_02_Image_01.jpg
WIKI
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Za%C3%AF
OTHER LINKS
HTML https://www.greener.land/zai-pits/
HTML https://www.ccardesa.org/zai-pits
#Post#: 32752--------------------------------------------------
Re: Agorism
DIR By: Satellite Traveller
Date: June 22, 2026, 8:09 am
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20 Lost American Homestead Skills That Vanished With the
Greatest Generation
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cRLHwoSnhQ
--- Quote ---
> Number 18, root cellaring. Every homestead had one. A dugout
room beneath the house or carved into a hillside where the
temperature held steady around 50 to 55° Fahrenheit year round.
Your great-grandmother arranged potatoes on wooden shelves,
careful that none touched. She hung cabbages upside down from
the ceiling rafters by their roots. Carrots and beets went into
boxes of damp sand. Apples were stored on separate shelves
because the ethylene gas they released would spoil potatoes.
That single detail, keeping apples away from potatoes, was
common knowledge to every farm wife in 1940 and is unknown to
most Americans today. A properly managed root seller kept a
family fed from October through April without electricity,
without canning, without freezing. The USDA published root
seller guides through the 1950s, then quietly stopped. Basements
got furnaces. Supermarkets got produce aisles. And the skill of
storing food underground, the oldest preservation method humans
have ever used, vanished in a single generation.
--- End Quote ---
Tips on Building a Root Cellar to Store Food All Winter
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO0kYhKRA84
HTML https://offgridhomesweethome.blogspot.com/2014/04/self-sufficient-living-root-cellars.html
HTML https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjsOQ5VNjy0-cr1ZACMg0c8VBzEKz4jEOyb0uze-mE7jFxfdzkw5qG_mgBJ0vXlsphGWjYXQx42Zv8ht20_vWT2ZK1H9suYxhbxHVWDGY_FKrQq3eewOgjP7yg0R-qYRn9JWcwhFrrBSeE/s1600/24e9571d8d57c4727cbcb4e619d89565.jpg
HTML https://www.harrowsmithmag.com/3240/how-to-build-a-root-cellar
HTML https://www.harrowsmithmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Root-House-Plans-731x1024.jpg
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