Shuwiyasha

The Warm Springs Community Action Team’s food systems project, Shuwiyasha, supports community, private, and Tribal sustainable farming and food production projects with a focus on breaking down internalized colonization within those systems. This project, which we are conducting in partnership with HDFFA, will reduce health inequities by increasing community knowledge around food systems and food sovereignty, increasing access to fresh foods, and laying a foundation for future local food production

Based on community feedback from 150+ survey respondents, we have proposed the following definition of food sovereignty:

“Our food sovereignty is centered on a connection to traditional foods, the gathering, hunting, fishing, preservation and preparation of these foods, and the Tribal life views associated with them. It is the right to define our own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate. It includes the true right to access food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves.”