Category: Sustainable World -Farm Environmental

Trump official consulted global warming rejecters

Associated Press

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Seth Borenstein,     June 14, 2019 

In this March 29, 2013, file photo, a worker helps monitor water pumping pressure and temperature, at an oil and natural gas extraction site, outside Rifle, on the Western Slope of Colorado. A Trump administration national security official has sought help from advisers to a think tank that disavows climate change to challenge widely accepted scientific findings on global warming, according to his emails. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Trump administration national security official has sought help from advisers to a think tank that disavows climate change to challenge widely accepted scientific findings on global warming, according to his emails.

The request from William Happer, a member of the National Security Council, is included in emails from 2018 and 2019 that were obtained by the Environmental Defense Fund under the federal Freedom of Information Act and provided to The Associated Press. That request was made this past March to policy advisers with the Heartland Institute, one of the most vocal challengers of mainstream scientific findings that emissions from burning coal, oil and gas are damaging the Earth’s atmosphere.

In a March 3 email exchange Happer and Heartland adviser Hal Doiron discuss Happer’s scientific arguments in a paper attempting to knock down climate change as well as ideas to make the work “more useful to a wider readership.” Happer writes he had already discussed the work with another Heartland adviser, Thomas Wysmuller.

Academic experts denounced the administration official’s continued involvement with groups and scientists who reject what numerous federal agencies say is the fact of climate change.

“These people are endangering all of us by promoting anti-science in service of fossil fuel interests over the American interests,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.

“It’s the equivalent to formulating anti-terrorism policy by consulting with groups that deny terrorism exists,” said Northeastern University’s Matthew Nisbet, a professor of environmental communication and public policy.

The National Security Council declined to make Happer available to discuss the emails.

The AP and others reported earlier this year that Happer was coordinating a proposed White House panel to challenge the findings from scientists in and out of government that carbon emissions are altering the Earth’s atmosphere and climate.

President Donald Trump in November rejected the warnings of a national climate change assessment by more than a dozen government agencies.

“I don’t believe it,” he said.

Happer, a physicist who previously taught at Princeton University, has claimed that carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas from the burning of coal, oil and gas, is good for humans and that carbon emissions have been demonized like “the poor Jews under Hitler.” Trump appointed him in late 2018 to the National Security Council, which advises the president on security and foreign policy issues.

The emails show Happer expressing surprise that NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, a former Oklahoma congressman who once questioned mainstream climate science, has come round to accepting that science.

A May 2018 email exchange between Heartland’s Wysmuller and Happer calls the NASA chief’s change of heart on climate science “a puzzle.” The exchange calls scientifically established rises in sea levels and temperatures under climate change “part of the nonsense” and urges the NASA head — copied in — to “systematically sidestep it.”

Happer at the time was not yet a security adviser, although he had advised the Trump Environmental Protection Agency on climate change.

A NASA spokesman on Thursday upheld the space agency’s public statements on climate change.

“We provide the data that informs policy makers around the world,” spokesman Bob Jacobs said. “Our science information continues to be published publicly as it always has.”

But at the Heartland Institute, spokesman Jim Lakely defended the effort, saying in an email that NASA’s public characterization of climate change as manmade and a global threat “is a disservice to taxpayers and science that it is still pushed by NASA.”

After joining the agency, Happer sent a February 2019 email to NASA deputy administrator James Morhard relaying a complaint from an unidentified rejecter of man-made climate change about NASA’s website.

“I’m concerned that many children are being indoctrinated by this bad science,” said the email that Happer relayed.

Happer’s own message was redacted from the records obtained by the environmental group.

Two major U.S. science organizations took issue with Happer’s emails.

“We have concerns that there appear to be attempts by a member of the National Security Council to influence and interfere with the ability of NASA, a federal science agency, to communicate accurately about research findings on climate science,” said Rush Holt, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advance of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society.

There have been hundreds of scientific assessments by leading researchers and institutions the last few decades that look at all the evidence and have been “extremely credible and routinely withstand intense scrutiny,” said Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society. “Efforts to dismiss or discredit these rigorous scientific assessments in public venues does an incredible disservice to the public.”

Near Record ‘Dead Zone’ Predicted for Gulf of Mexico

EcoWatch

Near Record ‘Dead Zone’ Predicted for Gulf of Mexico

Jordan Davidson           June 11, 2019 

This map shows how pollution from cities and farms flows down into the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA

 

Every year the Gulf of Mexico hosts a human caused “dead zone.” This year, it will approach record levels scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or NOAA — estimate, in a statement released Monday.

The researchers predict the hypoxic zone — an area with little to no oxygen that can kill marine life — to be nearly 8,000 square miles or roughly the size of Massachusetts.

NOAA wasn’t the only organization to estimate a near record dead zone this summer. Researchers from Louisiana State University (LSU) released a statement on Monday predicting this year’s dead zone to be 8,717 square miles, making it the second largest on record.

“We think this will be the second-largest, but it could very well go over that,” said Nancy Rabalais, a marine ecologist who studies dead zones co-authored the LSU report, as CNN reported.

The Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone is a result of nutrient pollution, including nitrogen and phosphorus from urban environments and farms, traveling through the Mississippi River watershed and into the gulf, according to NOAA’s press release.

NOAA pointed to the overwhelming spring rains along the Mississippi River, which led to record high river flows and flooding, as a major contributing factor to this year’s sizeable dead zone.

The record flooding brought a substantial amount of pollutants into the water. “This past May, discharge in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers was about 67 percent above the long-term average between 1980 and 2018. USGS estimates that this larger-than average river discharge carried 156,000 metric tons of nitrate and 25,300 metric tons of phosphorus into the Gulf of Mexico in May alone. These nitrate loads were about 18 percent above the long-term average, and phosphorus loads were about 49 percent above the long-term average,” NOAA said in its press release.

What happens is the nitrogen and phosphorus stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, which fall to the bottom of the water and decompose with the bacteria that uses up the oxygen, creating an area with not enough oxygen to sustain life.

“The low oxygen conditions in the gulf’s most productive waters stresses organisms and may even cause their death, threatening living resources, including fish, shrimp and crabs caught there,” LSU said in a statement. “Low oxygen conditions started to appear 50 years ago when agricultural practices intensified in the Midwest.”

To prevent the problem in the future, a task force of federal, state and tribal agencies from 12 of the 31 states that comprise the Mississippi River watershed set a goal of reducing the dead zone from an average of about 5,800 square miles to an average of 1,900 square miles, but that number is far from today’s reality, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

“While this year’s zone will be larger than usual because of the flooding, the long-term trend is still not changing,” said Don Scavia, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Michigan who contributed to the NOAA report, in a University of Michigan statement. “The bottom line is that we will never reach the dead zone reduction target of 1,900 square miles until more serious actions are taken to reduce the loss of Midwest fertilizers into the Mississippi River system.”

In the meantime, farmers along the Mississippi can build embankments to stop runoff, diversifying their crops and using sustainable perennials like wheat grass, which will hold more nitrogen and soil in the ground since it has a longer root than corn and soybeans, according to CNN.

Plant Extinction Is Happening 500x Faster Than Before the Industrial Revolution

EcoWatch

Plant Extinction Is Happening 500x Faster Than Before the Industrial Revolution

By Jordan Davidson       June 11, 2019

Cyanea superba, endemic to the island of Oahu and now extinct in the wild. David Eickoff/ CC BY 2.0.

 

Researchers have found that nearly 600 plant extinctions have taken place over the last two and a half centuries, according to a new paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The 571 proven plant extinctions lost since 1753 is twice the number of animal species lost in the same time frame and nearly four times as many plants lost as botanists recently estimated. The researchers with the Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK and Stockholm University also noted that many plant species disappeared without anyone ever knowing about them, pushing the true number of extinctions much higher.

The extinction rate — 500 times greater now than before the Industrial Revolution — is also quite alarming, according to The Guardian. This number, too, is likely an underestimate.

“This study is the first time we have an overview of what plants have already become extinct, where they have disappeared from and how quickly this is happening,” said Aelys Humphreys, Ph.D., of Stockholm University, the BBC reported.

The paper documented all known plant extinctions in the world, finding that most lost plants were in the tropics and on islands. The researchers created a map that showed South Africa, Australia, Brazil, India, Madagascar and Hawaii as particular hotspots for plant extinction, according to The Guardian.

So what’s causing the rapid rate of plant extinction? The main culprit is human activity like clear cutting forests for timber and converting land into fields for agriculture.

The researchers note that their paper also shows what lessons can be learned to stop future extinctions.

“Plants underpin all life on Earth,” said Eimear Nic Lughadha, Ph.D., at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who was part of the research team, as The Guardian reported. “They provide the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat, as well as making up the backbone of the world’s ecosystems – so plant extinction is bad news for all species.”

Life on Earth relies on plants for oxygen and food. And, the extinction of one plant can lead to cascading effects that threaten to harm other species that rely on the plant for food or for a place to lay eggs, the BBC reports.

“Millions of other species depend on plants for their survival, humans included, so knowing which plants we are losing and from where, will feed back into conservation programs targeting other organisms as well,” Nic Lughadha said, as the BBC reported.

The researchers highlighted steps to slow down plant extinctions including, recording all plants in the world, preserving specimens, funding botanists and educating children to recognize local plants, according to the BBC.

The research comes on the heels of other grim reports that have highlighted the destruction humans have caused. Last month, a UN report said that one million of Earth’s eight million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.

U.S. Floods Snarl Trucks, Trains, Barges

Bloomberg

This incredible facility transforms 96% of household waste into reusable materials!

Global Citizen

May 28, 2019

This incredible facility transforms 96% of household waste into reusable materials! ♻️

This Trash Facility In Poland Repurposes Household Waste

This incredible facility transforms 96% of household waste into reusable materials! ♻️

Posted by Global Citizen on Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Can We Grow Enough Seaweed to Help Cows Fight Climate Change?

Civil Eats

Can We Grow Enough Seaweed to Help Cows Fight Climate Change?

Research suggests that adding red seaweed to cattle feed makes then burp 60 percent less. Now, some scientists are asking what it would take to do it at scale.

By Gosia Wozniacka, Climate, Farming      June 3, 2019 

Australis Aquaculture employee Khanh Huynh checks on seaweed cultures, near Ninh Hai, Vietnam. (Photo courtesy of Australis Aquaculture).

 

Over the past few months, graduate students and researchers at California’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories have scoured coastal waters, collecting seaweed in the hopes of finding a native species that could help gassy cows.

Cows belch—a lot. And their burps (as well as those of other ruminants) make them the top polluters of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. As pressure to reduce heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere mounts, an increasing body of research has shown that seaweed added to cattle feed could dramatically reduce livestock’s impact.

The challenge: where will the enormous supply of seaweed—enough to impact millions of cows—come from? And at what cost?

Most scientists have focused on one red seaweed species—asparagopsis taxiformis—which thrives in tropical and sub-tropical climates. While asparagopsis can be found in Southern California, its habitat in the U.S. is relatively small since it’s a warm-water species. There are also concerns about it being invasive.

Australis Aquaculture experiments with longline seaweed farming as a rotational crop to its barramundi operation in Van Phong Bay, Vietnam.Australis Aquaculture experiments with longline seaweed farming as a rotational crop to its barramundi operation in Van Phong Bay, Vietnam. (Photo courtesy of Australis Aquaculture)

The hope is that a native seaweed alternative can be found to allow for sustainable cultivation in California. Simultaneously, researchers are studying the local asparagopsis strains, to better understand their life cycle and how they could be safely cultivated at a large scale in on-land tanks or off the California coast.

Currently, the asparagopsis used for research is imported from Australia, Asia, and Europe. It is not cultivated or sold anywhere, so divers must be hired to pick it in the wild, making it expensive. If it were grown at scale for cattle to reduce emissions, it would cost less; most seaweed grown on ocean farms around the world is already quite cost-efficient.

“If we’re going to use seaweed to feed cows and do it on an impactful scale, there’s an interest in local sources, so we’re not sticking it on a boat, burning a bunch of fuel and bringing it to California,” said Jen Smith, an asociate professor at the University of California, San Diego, who studies asparagopsis native to the state. “We’re interested in growing it here.”

Cows’ Gassy Problem

Cows are, literally, a massive contributor to global warming. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world has 1.468 billion head of cattle (compare that with 7.7 billion humans), with Brazil, India, China, and the U.S. raising the most cattle. As of January 2019, the U.S. had nearly 32 million beef cattle and just over 9 million dairy cows. (Calves don’t emit much methane because they are fed milk, or milk replacer, and have not yet developed a rumen.)

It’s no wonder the livestock sector contributes 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions—more than the entire global transportation sector. And when it comes to methane gas, livestock’s contribution is much bigger: 44 percent. Most of the methane produced by cows is a by-product of their digestion, known as enteric fermentation, a process during which microbes in the cow’s digestive tract decompose and ferment food. A smaller percentage of the methane comes from cows’ manure.

Cows grazing grass Photo © Kyle Spradley for the University of Missouri Forage Systems Research CenterPhoto by Kyle Spradley for the University of Missouri Forage Systems Research Center.

Manure digesters, large tanks that capture the methane biogas from manure and convert it into electricity, can curb some of these emissions. But there’s no way to collect cows’ burps into a tank. Researchers have tried to solve the problem for years by feeding cows things like oregano, tea leaves, citrus extract, and garlic. They also came up with a synthetic material called 3-nitrooxypropanol, or 3NOP. While some of these solutions show promise, their reductions in methane are modest.

The urgency to find a solution picked up in 2016 when California passed a landmark bill that mandates a 40 percent reduction in methane emissions by 2030. The state’s biggest contributors of methane gas are its 1.7 million dairy cows and 650,000 beef cows.

That same year, a researcher in Australia published a study showing near-complete reductions of methane in the burps of cows that were fed minute amounts of seaweed—specifically, asparagopsis taxiformis at 2 or more percent of the total feed. The study was done using rumen fluid in the lab, not on live animals.

The findings spurred significant interest. Researchers around the world are now aiming to replicate those results, including at the University of California, Davis where Ermias Kebreab is conducting trials on live animals. Kebreab, associate dean for global engagement in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, said initial results showed a 60 percent reduction in feed containing just 1 percent asparagopsis. The study was done using a weaker strain of the seaweed, so more of it had to be fed to the cows, he said.

Kebreab is now conducting a six-month live trial with a stronger strain to see if the reductions in methane emissions will stick over time. The study will also determine whether the seaweed will negatively impact cows’ digestion or the taste of milk and meat (he said it hasn’t so far).

Searching for a Native Seaweed Alternative

California’s dairy industry says it’s open to solutions to reduce cattle’s methane load, but some farmers are hesitant about the seaweed. Michael Boccadoro, executive director of the trade association Dairy Cares—a project of the California Dairy Research Foundation, which is funded by dairy checkoff dollars—said the primary concerns are cost and whether the marine algae can be sustainably grown in the quantities needed.

“A lot of us wonder how to get the price down to something that’s economically feasible. And how to get enough supply, and not just for California cattle. It has to be done globally if you want to make a dent,” said Boccadoro. “We’re a little skeptical that this is a sustainable option.”

The dairy industry is also concerned about the health effects of feeding seaweed to cows long term, Boccadoro said. Bromoform, the compound in seaweed that’s responsible for methane reduction (along with some other compounds), has been classified as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. EPA, and its synthetic form is banned for animal use. According to Kebreab, the U.C. Davis researcher, the bromoform in seaweed does no harm because its concentration is very low. Humans have eaten seaweeds for tens of thousands of years. In fact, asparagopsis is known as limu kohu in Hawaii, where it’s an ingredient in poke, the popular raw fish dish. But Boccadoro said it remains to be seen whether consumers accept the idea of feeding it to cows.

Even if the seaweed proves to be a panacea, shipping it from out of the country should be avoided, said Dr. Luke Gardner, a California Sea Grant Extension Specialist based at the Moss Landing laboratories. Gardner is hoping to find a native California seaweed with properties similar to asparagopsis.

Luke Gardner, at the tanks where wild harvested seaweed is cultivated. (Photo courtesy of Luke Gardner)Luke Gardner, at the tanks where wild harvested seaweed is cultivated. (Photo courtesy of California Sea Grant)

In recent weeks, he has been overseeing the collecting of native seaweed samples. Next month, he’ll freeze-dry and ship them to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research lab in Oklahoma. His USDA collaborator will then test the seaweed and come up with a short list of species that show promise for methane reduction.

From the shortlist, Gardner will choose several species that are most amenable to aquaculture. Seaweed has a complicated life cycle, Gardner said, so it’s not easy to culture. Some species, for example, might have the ability to reduce methane, but grow too slowly to be farmed.

Of the chosen native seaweed, Gardner will grow several pounds of each and will again ship them out, this time to a USDA researcher in Wisconsin who will conduct a 10-week live animal trial. He’ll feed cows different levels of the seaweeds and will measure the resulting methane so as to determine which is most potent.

Jump-Starting California’s Seaweed Farming

The current wild supply won’t provide enough supply to counteract the methane cows release. To do that, it must be farmed, which hasn’t yet been done. Gardner said it’s important to look for a native seaweed that can be grown at scale in the U.S. Doing so would help not just the climate, but it’s also a nascent industry, Gardner said. “We hope to kickstart seaweed aquaculture on the West Coast,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest in it and (growing seaweed for cattle feed) would give it a real market.”

The vast majority of seaweed farming today takes place in the ocean in a handful of Asian nations, headed by China. In the U.S., many bureaucratic and cultural hurdles keep seaweed aquaculture from becoming a mainstay. (A few kelp farms do exist in Maine and Connecticut, but they are the exception.) California, in particular, has a very complex permitting process. Only one off-shore commercial aquaculture farm, Catalina Sea Ranch, has been permitted thus far in federal waters off the southern coast. Its main crop is mussels, but it’s also experimenting with kelp.

Members of the state’s Native American communities have raised alarms about expanding seaweed cultivation and harvesting before, noting the sacred role seaweed plays in their cultures and the other recent examples of others overharvesting foods that are important to indigenous communities, as has happened with abalone populations on Northern California’s coast.

To Gardner, allowing seaweed aquaculture in the state is a no-brainer. Growing it locally is economically advantageous. The average cow eats 10,000 pounds of dry matter forage per year. So the state would need about 140,000 dry tons of the seaweed per year to add just 1 percent of it to cows’ diet. Shipping the stuff from Asia might increase the price-tag. “In order to get the industry to take this on, it should not affect their bottom line,” Gardner said.

Moss Landing Marine Laboratories graduate student Katherine Neylan collecting native seaweed samples. (Photo courtesy of Luke Gardiner)Moss Landing Marine Laboratories graduate student Katherine Neylan collecting native seaweed samples. (Photo courtesy of California Sea Grant)

Seaweed farming is also low-impact, Gardner added. Unlike other seafood, it doesn’t require any feed. And it cleans the water by capturing nutrients that cause harmful algae blooms. Though there’s also potential for negative impacts, Gardner admits. There may be a disease lurking in seaweed that grows in the wild, which could manifest once seaweed is grown in denser, larger populations.

To overcome these challenges, the researcher at the U.C. San Diego envision initially growing seaweed in tanks. Smith is studying the asparagopsis taxiformis found locally, looking at how manipulating temperature, light, and nutrient concentration affects growth rate. “We want to grow it as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Smith said.

Smith’s team is working to develop a living library of the native asparagopsis strains and running experiments in the lab to find the optimal one. “We might be able to find a strain that grows fast, is tolerant to environmental conditions, and produces the most bromoform,” Smith said. She is also trying to increase the marine algae’s concentration of bromoform by manipulating nitrogen and phosphorous, which would allow the cows to consume less of the seaweed.

A land-based system of tanks would minimize environmental impacts and allow for better control of the fragile algae, Smith said. In particular, researchers could optimize a growing phase during which the seaweed reproduces through fragmentation, meaning it could be cut it into pieces that each grow into a full plant. Growing in tanks also means no worries about pests, predators, storms, swells, or other dangers.

“If we can optimize growth rates, all you need is access to sunlight and clean seawater and tanks,” said Smith. “You can have much more control.”

However, Josh Goldman, the founder of Australis Aquaculture, says growing seaweed in the ocean is more cost efficient and effective. For the past year and half, Goldman’s company—which farms barramundi in Massachusetts and Vietnam—has been working on a project called Greener Grazing. Its goal is to cultivate asparagopsis in the ocean (the entire life cycle of the seaweed hasn’t yet been replicated in captivity).

Greener Grazing team member Dr. Leonardo Mata examines a strain of Asparagopsis taxiformis red seaweed closely under microscope.Greener Grazing team member Dr. Leonardo Mata examines a strain of Asparagopsis taxiformis red seaweed closely under microscope. (Photo courtesy of Australis Aquaculture)

Funded by both philanthropic and private investors, the company has built a pilot farm in Vietnam. It’s working on producing seaweed spores which can then be attached to ropes or nets in the ocean. Greener Grazing has also created a seed bank of different seaweed strains that grow in different environments and climates. Once the company figures out how to reproduce the seaweed, Goldman said, it hopes to share the expertise with others around the world.

“There aren’t many opportunities to move the needle on climate change in a short time,” said Goldman. “That’s why this is so exciting.”

This desert farm is harvesting food using nothing but sunlight and seawater.

Mashable

May 15, 2019

This desert farm is harvesting food using nothing but sunlight and seawater.

Harvesting food using sunlight and seawater

This desert farm is harvesting food using nothing but sunlight and seawater.

Posted by Mashable on Sunday, April 28, 2019

Wild Rice is Feeding Indigenous Communities in Detroit and Beyond

Dedicated tribes are working to protect and revive Manoomin, weaving it back into Native diets and the fabric of the community in the Upper Midwest.

By Jo Erickson, Health, Indigenous Foodways     May 27, 2019

Civil Eats is a sponsor of the Feet in 2 Worlds journalism workshop, Telling Immigrant Food Stories, taking place in San Francisco May 31-June 2. This article originally appeared in the Feet in 2 Worlds Magazine, and is reprinted with permission.

When Renee Dillard tastes freshly cooked wild rice harvested by her hands, she feels a spiritual connection to the “sacred food” of her people. That spell is broken when she tastes the wild rice that most of us buy and eat.

Native wild rice, often referred to as Manoomin, which means “the good berry” in Ojibwe, isn’t the perfectly uniform dark brown long grains you find in supermarkets. Although it has the same name, much of that rice is commercially grown and has been genetically engineered. Just because the label says it’s wild, that’s not always true. Native wild rice, with flecks of brown and yellow, has a grass-like quality and a subtle flavor.

“As soon as I put that mass-cultivated rice on my tongue I can taste the emptiness,” Dillard says. “This food is soulless. It doesn’t fill me with life or joy, but reminds me of caged chickens who never see the light of day, nor touch the ground . They don’t know who they are. This rice is empty.”

Renee Dillard parching wild rice

Renee Dillard parching wild rice. Photo by Jo Erickson.

Dillard is a traditional ricer and basket weaver from the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, based in the northern part of the state. Through spoken word she has learnt about the ancestry of wild rice from elders in her community.

Dillard is a survivor of the U.S. government boarding school experiment to “Americanize” her and her community. “I’ve been kidnapped, abused and robbed of language, culture and everything that makes me who I am,” she says.

Now in her 50’s, she teaches the next generation the traditions of weaving with wild rice stalks and stewardship of the land and lakes. During last winter’s Arctic freeze that covered most of the Midwest, Dillard was out in the woods with her long grey hair fighting the wind, her traditional moccasin shoes knee-deep in the snow, observing the changes of the seasons. With the arrival of spring, the 57-year-old waits for the first shoots of wild rice.

Dillard remembers when she was very young she’d walk to the edge of reservation and there would be wild rice growing. But with urban development, pollution, and the threat of GMO seed contamination, native wild rice is struggling to survive. Dillard is part of a movement to restore wild rice in Michigan.

For the past 10 years several tribes, including the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, and the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians have come together to form Michigan’s wild rice restoration project where they can track and restore native wild rice in the state’s rivers and lakes.

Indigenous People Living in Detroit Connected to Wild Rice

Shiloh Maples, 33, lives and works in the heart of downtown Detroit. She brings her passion for Native foods to city streets, food banks, and community gardens. Working for American Indian Health Family Services she helps provide food relief to Native Americans and other struggling communities living below the poverty line. As the program manager for food sovereignty and wellness, her mission is to develop the concept of food sovereignty.

Marginalized communities are empowered to have a stake in the food system, to control what they eat, and how they eat it. About seven years ago Shiloh noticed that a lot of families relied on local corner stores for their food or food stamps. With limited finances and no transportation, struggling families had to make do with whatever food they had access to. Often it was canned foods and junk food.

Under the program Shiloh manages they have a choice. Native Americans can get traditional, culturally appropriate foods including wild rice soups, berries, fish and turkey.

Shiloh’s work on food sovereignty within the indigenous community has led her to develop community gardens in Romanowski Park that grow traditional foods, and cooking classes to rediscover traditional Native American meals. “As the community garden grew, the community realized that they cared about how their food was grown,” she said. “Was it done in an ethical way? Did it respect mother earth? They wanted to make sure that culture and tradition were part of how their food is produced. So that means incorporating song and ceremony and prayers to the planting and harvesting.”

With the help of Shiloh’s project poverty-stricken families feel they can make life-changes. “It’s exciting to watch. They’re making connections of where their food comes from and their relationship to that food. That changes people, ” she said.

Food offers an emotional connection to urban tribes-people in cities including Detroit, Seattle and Chicago who are looking to strengthen bonds to family and cultural roots.

Shelley Means, 55, is one of the many city dwelling tribes people who see traditional meals and sharing stories over food as keys to unlock history and family traditions. Shelley’s mother is from the White Earth Nation and her father was Lakota. She grew up in the city knowing very little of her family history.

As a young girl she recalls that her grandfather would send packets of wild rice and occasionally they would visit him for gatherings in Bemidji, Minnesota. She realized that some of her most powerful childhood memories are gatherings where hundreds of tribe members gathered for meals with bowls of wild rice. “I can’t remember much about the reason for the gathering, but I do remember the smell and taste of wild rice,” she recalls.

A boat-sized haul of wild rice.

A boat-sized haul of wild rice. Photo by Jo Erickson.

These memories drove Shelley to seek out family members who could tell her more about her family and traditions. One of her aunts told her what she knew so that Shelly could in turn pass on family history to her son.

Whenever she thinks about wild rice, she thinks about her family. She smiles as she recalls how her uncle would grind the grain to make bread and her mother prepared wild rice, “She’d heat it up in the microwave, then put a bit of milk and black pepper, that’s her favorite thing.”

Threats to Wild Rice

According to Barb Barton, Aquatic Resource Specialist at the Michigan Department of Transportation, restoring native wild rice across the state will take several years to accomplish.

One of the biggest challenges is the decimation of wild rice found in the north of the state. “There were 212 historical wild rice sites scattered across the state dating back to the 1800’s, but only 14 are known to still exist,” says Barton, author of “Manoomin: The Story of Wild Rice in Michigan.”

Zizania palustris, a native wild rice plant found in northern Michigan, is on the threatened species list. In the last two years Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources has worked with tribes to restore some of the old rice sites.

In Michigan wild rice harvesting is unregulated. That’s in contrast to Minnesota and Wisconsin, where state laws give tribes sovereignty over wild rice. Tribal members carry permits to harvest rice and non-tribal ricers buy licenses. Despite these challenges, Michigan’s wild rice restoration project has replanted and manages 136 native wild rice beds. At the same time more and more urban tribes people are rediscovering the value of returning to a traditional diet of wild rice.

There is still a long way to go before northern wild rice is taken off the threatened species list. If Michigan were to lose its native wild rice, “it would be devastating,” says Shelly Means. “The stories will still be here, but the rice will not.”