A Public Affair

A Conversation on Seeds, Stories, and Solidarity


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On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with three panelists taking part in a program next week to celebrate World Day for Cultural Diversity. Dr. Claudia Calderón, Avexnim Cojti, and Cherie Thunder are part of a panel called Let’s Get Growing: Seeds, Stories & Solidarity happening on May 21 from 5-7pm at Aubergine on Willy Street. 

As part of today’s roundtable, they talk about seed sovereignty, which is the right of people to use and exchange their own seeds in order to maintain the foodways and autonomy. This movement counters the billion-dollar global seed trade, the privatization of seeds as intellectual property, and the selective breeding of seeds by agricultural companies, says Calderón. She recommends a few books on these topics, Flourishing Kin and First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology.

Indigenous communities across the world advocate for seed sovereignty, says Cojti, because of the legacies of colonialism. Following the appropriation of land from Indigenous peoples, colonizers then imposed the commodification of that land as private property, explains Cojti. Her organization, Cultural Survival, resists this appropriation and commodification and supports the maintenance of common land and common agricultural practices. 

Seeds are significant to the cultural, spiritual, and ecological livelihoods of many Indigenous peoples. Thunder discusses the role of wild rice for the Menominee people and the history of harvesting and reseeding wild rice over the last two centuries. 

Dr. Claudia Irene Calderón is a Teaching Faculty, Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an affiliated professor at Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Dr. Calderón uses participatory approaches to facilitate agroecological transitions. With extensive transdisciplinary experience at the intersections between gender, indigeneity, health, and agroecology, she is committed to re-centering ancestral ways of knowing, bridging epistemological divides, and fostering respect for nature to nurture sustainable food systems.

Avexnim Cojti (Maya Kiche), Director of Programs at Cultural Survival. She is from Chuwila, Guatemala. She is the eldest of five sisters, a mom, a sociologist and a Maya calendar ancient knowledge keeper of her community. She has more than fifteen years of experience supporting Indigenous rights and community initiatives upholding community, self-determination and reciprocity with the land. She holds a degree in Indigenous Government Studies from the Institute of Indigenous Government, Vancouver, British Columbia. Her work with elders and a conviction on the right of Indigenous Peoples to traditional health systems takes her to pursue her PhD on Indigenous knowledge transfer about medicinal plants at the University of Toronto.

Cherie Thunder is Menominee, Potawatomi, English, German, Irish, and Swedish. She grew up on the Menominee Reservation in Northeast Wisconsin. Cherie is the Tribal Wild Rice Research Coordinator at the Menominee Department of Agriculture and Food Systems. Since she graduated from UW Madison in 2013 Cherie has worked with non-profit organizations in the Menominee Nation and she strives to create a better place for children to grow into good humans.

Featured image of wild rice via Flickr.

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The post A Conversation on Seeds, Stories, and Solidarity appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

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A Public AffairBy Douglas Haynes, Ali Muldrow, Carousel Bayrd, Allen Ruff, & Esty Dinur

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