Engaging crucially with food as a cultural, spiritual, and generational experience, this week’s guest Abena Offeh-Gyimah highlights the connections between ancestral foods, and the soil, seeds, and people who play a part in sustaining ancestral foodways. Focusing on the ancestral foods of Africa, and specifically her home-country of Ghana, Abena shares stories of connection, trust, and community fostered by food. 

Abena calls listeners to pay attention to the technical and spiritual aspects of seeds that connect them to past, present, and future landscapes. Through this deep connection, Abena points out the absurdity that certain companies claim to own seeds as if they could own life itself.  Seeds carry with them the miracle of life and abundance, how might we shape our food and agricultural systems to honor this sacred reality?

Abena Offeh-Gyimah is the founder of BEELA Center for Indigenous Foods in Ghana, a project that seeks to preserve indigenous African seeds, foods, and practices. Prior to this role, Abena worked as the Project Lead for the Jane Finch Community Research Partnership, with extensive experience in community engagement, ethical research, program development, partnerships & collaboration, and with previous organizations like North York Community House, Black Creek Community Farm, Jane Finch Center, and with Building Roots Toronto. Abena brings years of experience in conducting ethical community engaged research practice, work in local food systems, seed sovereignty, and collaboration in food sovereignty movements. Abena is a writer, a poet, a researcher, a naturalist, and a conservationist.

For an extended version of this episode please join us on Patreon at patreon.com/forthewild. 

Music by Buffalo Rose, Eliza Edens, and Marian McLaughlin. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.

Support the show