Rowen White reflects on her ancestral seed collection and the sacred significance of diverse corn varieties within the Haudenosaunee community. Through a journey of seed stewardship, she explores the cultural dimensions of biodiversity, emphasizing the role of cultural memory, tradition, and community relationships in preserving and restoring these seeds that have witnessed generations of history and nourished diverse cultures.
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Seed rematriation addresses the desire for Indigenous communities to actively reclaim their ancestral seeds and traditions. Seed Savers Exchange, with grants from North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE), has actively supported Indigenous communities by rematriating seeds in the SSE collection back to their cultures of origin with the goal of practicing sustainable, sovereign, and environmentally and socially responsible agriculture.
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“The corn is one of my greatest teachers,” says Jessika Greendeer, a Ho-Chunk Nation tribal member from Baraboo, Wisconsin, and a Deer Clan member who serves as a seed keeper and farm manager for Dream of Wild Health. The Minneapolis-based organization works to recover knowledge of and access to healthy Indigenous foods, medicines, and lifeways.
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“You can’t have food sovereignty without seed sovereignty,” says Jessika Greendeer, former seed keeper and farm manager at Dream of Wild Health in Hugo, Minnesota. “That is why this work is so important.” The “work” to which Greendeer refers is seed rematriation, a growing movement Rowen White, founder of Sierra Seeds, explored in the Heritage Farm Companion, Seed Savers Exchange’s member magazine. “In the Indigenous seed-sovereignty movement, we have begun to use the word ‘rematriation’ as it relates to bringing our seeds home again,”
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