Indigenous food systems can serve as models for social and ecological resilience according to a new book co-edited by Noa Lincoln of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Indigenous Insights for Planetary Health and Sustainable Food Systems highlights 15 case studies from around the world demonstrating the significant knowledge, practices and values represented by Indigenous food and agricultural systems. Lincoln and his co-editors Priscilla Settee and Shailesh Shukla make the case for the urgent need to embed such lessons into the foundations of global farming and food production practices.
Planet before profits
Lincoln, a researcher in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience , was a contributor to the volume through the Indigenous Cropping Systems Laboratory and the Ke Ō Mau Center for Sustainable Island Food Systems .
"By the measure of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, Indigenous societies were indeed wealthy," said Lincoln. "This book highlights how many Indigenous-led efforts are putting people and planet before profits."
Two of the chapters focus on Hawaiʻi case studies, with contributions from Lucy Gay, Kaui Sana, Miwa Tamanaha and Lincoln. One of the chapters looks at the growth of MAʻO Organic Farms, the largest organic vegetable producer in Hawaiʻi, and its work to revitalize community food systems.
"There is a lot to learn from the struggles and successes in Hawaiʻi," said Lincoln. "Hawaiʻi is a microcosm that can serve as a powerful model. This is the type of work we hope to promote through the new Ke Ō Mau Center for Sustainable Island Food Systems."
Community and cooperation
Renowned Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith opens the book with the statement, "I feel great urgency about what needs to be done for Indigenous food sovereignty and sustainability. The work in this book gives me some assurance that there are global networks and community-based practices that share knowledge and build support systems."
As the global community stories illustrate, Indigenous ecological knowledge, wisdom and perspectives are central to the visions and strategies shaping sustainable food systems and planetary health's past, present and future. Western agriculture and food production has many hidden health and economic costs , leading to new thinking about agri-food system solutions with components valued in Indigenous thinking: community and cooperation, integration of people and nature, and measures of human and natural systems well-being rather than profit.
The post Planet before profit: Indigenous food systems as models of sustainability first appeared on University of Hawaiʻi System News .
