Conference for Food and Seed Sovereignty
Sustainability & Food Security for the 21st Century & Beyond
Dedicated to the memory of John Mohawk

The Native Earth Bio Culture Council in conjunction with the Institute of American Indian Arts and Pueblo of Tesuque farm program is hosting the fourth annual Symposium For Food and Seed Sovereignty September 25 & 26, 2009.  The Symposium will include internationally renowned speakers as well as local and regional experts in the areas of food security and sustainable ecology and a heritage seed exchange as well as panels on youth issues in the 21st century, food and nutrition, water issues and traditional farming, land restoration and medicinal herbs.  An important theme will be pro-active community response in support of sustainable communities, ecologies, health and indigenous spiritual practices. There is a vendors market featuring natural earth friendly products, information and services. These events, we hope, will contribute tremendously toward the goal of making the entire nation aware of the need for sustainable agriculture and the Genetic modified food issue.

[Virtual Conference]
Where you can watch at your convenience or purchase past presentations on dvd

The public is invited and can register by clicking below.

  Registration form: (click here)    Register before Sept. 15th and get a free...(not yet available) Vendors Application form: (click here) Questions: (click here) Travel map link: (http://www.iaia.edu/map.php )

This Years Schedule (not yet available)

This years Speakers include; Jeffrey Smith, Walter Gregory, Erica Fernandez, Qachuu Aloom from Guatemala and a host of local experts filling the panels.

 Jeffrey M. Smith international bestselling author is a leading spokesperson on the health dangers of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). His globally respected research and magnetic communication style captured public attention in 2003 with his first book on the serious yet unknown side effects of genetically engineered foods, Seeds of Deception : Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating.  Seeds of Deception became the world’s best selling book on the health risks of GMOs and is credited with motivating changes in consumer buying habits to safer, non-GMO foods. In his second book, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Mr. Smith reveals insider documents about GMO safety trials that are sure to evoke strong emotions in the reader. Genetic Roulette shows how the world’s most powerful Ag biotech companies bluff and mislead critics, Congress and the FDA about food safety research for the products Americans buy everyday.

Mr. Smith has counseled world leaders from every continent, influenced the first state laws regulating GMOs and has united leaders to support The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, a revolutionary industry and consumer movement to remove GMOs from the natural food industry.

Qachuu Aloom works in the municipality of Rabinal, department of Baja Verapaz. Rabinal was heavily affected by the 36-year civil waged by the Guatemalan military. The consequences of the war were severe, in particular for the indigenous population.Villages are still suffering from the direct and indirect effects of what is now known as la violencia (the violence) – the shattering of the social fabric, the lack of leadership due to the mass murders, and the severely weakened economy. The extreme poverty levels and lack of access to resources such as land, drinking water, schools and medical care add a greater level of difficulty to the current situation that most rural Guatemalan families face.

Qachuu Aloom is a Maya-run organization in rural Guatemala that was created to rebuild communities in the aftermath of the war. Through the work of community leaders, it strives to strengthen cultural identity, traditional farming and building practices, and to create economic opportunities for its members..

The Qachuu Aloom Association has formed a seed library to protect, and propagate native seeds that are disappearing in Guatemalan villages.  Qachuu Aloom now has over 100 families producing seed.   These families have helped bring back many native crops that were on the brink of extinction. 

Erica Fernandez found out that a liquefied natural gas facility was proposed for the coast of Oxnard and Malibu with a 36-inch pipeline routed through low-income neighborhoods, she was outraged. She worked in concert with the Sierra Club and Latino No an LNG group to mobilize the youth and Latino voice in protests and public meetings. She organized weekly protests at the BHP Billiton offices in Oxnard, met regularly with community members, marched through neighborhoods that would be most impacted, reached out to the media, and brought more than 250 high school students to a critical rally. 

Her passionate testimony at the California State Lands Commission meeting was quoted in news articles, and helped convince the Commission to vote to deny the project. Next, she helped convince the California Coastal Commission to vote 12-0 against the project, and worked on a letter writing and phone call campaign to the Governor asking him to veto the project, just as the commissioners did.  Erica's community organizing and dogged determination played a crucial role in helping her community to resist a multinational billion-dollar corporation. Fernandez is the recipient of a Brower Youth Award.

Her message for everyone is Si Se Puede! (Yes We Can) create change in our communities, nation, and our planet. She believes we can work to create a more sustainable and healthier planet. Her philosophy is that you need to find your voice and speak up, when you speak up people hear you. She often quotes her role model Cesar E. Chavez that says “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducated person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. And you cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We are the future and our future is ours.” Si se puede!!!

Past speakers have included:
The Late John Mohawk, a Turtle Clan Senecca farmer from the Cattaraugus Reservation (Iroquois), former editor of Akwesasne Notes, once the largest Indian publication in the US and Canada, was an assistant professor of American Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo and associate professor director of Indigenous studies in the Center for the Americas.

Ohki Simine' Forest, a Canadian Mohawk vision holder who has lived in Chiapas, Mexico since 1986 collaborating with the indigenous Maya Zapatista people in resistance. She is founder of the spiritual and social justice organization, Red Wing Councils, and author of  Dreaming the Council Ways: True Native Teachings from the Red Lodge.

Debra Harry, Northern Paiute from Pyramid Lake, Nevada doctoral candidate at the University of Auckland, School of Education, Executive Director of the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonization (IPCB) and producer of the documentary film “The Leach and the Earthworm” which examines the globalized hunt for genes within indigenous territories and people. 

Clayton Thomas Muller, Mathais Colomb Cree Nation (Pukatowegan) in Northern Manitoba, Canada, co-founder of the Aboriginal Youth with Initiative (AYII) and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Youth Council, architect behind and national spokesperson for the National Assembly of First Nations National Youth Advisory Council.

 Martin Bourque,   Martin Bourque is the Executive Director of the Ecology Center in Berkeley CA. Martin has been instrumental in bringing the concept and practice of Zero Waste to the vanguard of the waste and consumerism movement, and has forwarded important sustainable food and farming efforts.  He served as the Sustainable Agriculture Program Director at the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) where he worked on building international exchanges around food, farming, and hunger issues in the US, Latin America, and South East Asia.

Thomas Allen Linzey, Esq., independent candidate for Pennsylvania State Attorney General, co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, cum laude graduate of Widener University School of Law in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, three time recipient of the Schools' Public Interest Law Award and a 2004 recipient of the Pennsylvania Farmers Union's Golden Triangle Legislative Award.

Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) of the Mississippi band Anishinabeg who lives and works on the White Earth reservations. She is program director of the Honor the Earth Fund, she works as a national level advocate to raise public support and create funding for frontline native environmental groups. She was a Green Party vice presidential  in 1996 and 2000 national elections and is the founding director for the White Earth Land Recovery project.

The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF THIRTEEN INDIGENOUS GRANDMOTHERS, represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come.

Galen D. Knight, PhD co-discoverer of vitaletheine. The Discovery of the vitaletheine modulators he has ushered in a new understanding of what causes cancer and other "dys"eases, and of the environmental remediation, nutrition, and immune support needed to make all four leading causes of agony and death in the "US" simply go away.

Percy Schmeiser  Schmeiser has felt the sting of Monsanto's long legal arm the company took the 68-year-old farmer to court, claiming he illegally planted the firm's canola without paying a $37-per-hectare fee for the privilege. Unlike scores of similarly accused North American farmers who have reached out-of-court settlements with Monsanto, Schmeiser fought back. The landmark case that went before the Federal Court of Canada, has attracted international attention because it could help determine how much control a handful of powerful biotech companies can exert over farmers. (Excerpt from Macleans Magazine, May 17, 1999, article by Mark Nichols) 

Paul Stamets  Paul Stamets discussed the evolution of mushrooms in ecosystems and how fungi can help heal environments.
Paul Stamets has been a dedicated mycologist for over thirty years. Over this time, he has discovered and coauthored four new species of mushrooms, and pioneered countless techniques in the field of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He received the 1998 "Bioneers Award" from The Collective Heritage Institute, and the 1999 "Founder of a New Northwest Award" from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. In 2008, Paul received the National Geographic Adventure Magazine's Green-Novator and the Argosy Foundation's E-chievement Awards.
 

Ben Powless Ben Powless is a 22 year old Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario. He has been involved with the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition since its inception, working at both the national level and with the Ottawa Chapter. He is also heavily involved with the Indigenous Environmental Network, having represented them at various international events, most recently at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's High-Level Conference on World Food Security, Climate Change and Bioenergy. He also sits on the board of the National Council for the Canadian Environmental Network,  is on the Youth Advisory Group to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and is very involved in the local Aboriginal community.

Evon Peter Evon Peter is the Executive Director of Native Movement and former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska. He has served as the Co-Chair of the Gwich’in Council International, on the Executive Board of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council, and as an alternate area Vice-President to the National Congress of American Indians. Evon is also featured in the 2005 award winning feature film “Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action,” that follows the work of four Indigenous people who are working on issues of Environmental Justice in North America.

CONTEC Consultoría Técnica Comunitaria, has been working for ten years in Rarámuri and Odami communities of the Sierra Tarahumara. They carry out ther work through a system of technological education in indigenous communities that supports economic self-sufficiency and good governance.  By working closely with their own traditional and agrarian authorities, they strengthen the autonomy and self-sufficiency of indigenous peoples.

Past Display artists have included:

David Lauer Pueblos de maíz Series Pueblos de maíz is an on-going, collaborative photographic project between the photographer, David Lauer, several non-governmental organizations, indigenous communities and individuals throughout Mexico in defense of native maize.

 These Annual Symposiums for Sustainable Food & Seed Sovereignty are organized and produced by Native Earth Bio Culture Council a consortium that in includes Tesuque Pueblo/Agricultural Resources Department, the Institute of Natural and Traditional Knowledge (INTK) Traditional Native American Farmers Association (TNAFA), the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) and others.  The Symposium are made possible by generous donations from numerous community organizations and business and with generous financial support from the Lannan Foundation, the Pond Foundation, the Christensen Fund, and the USDA and others.

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