Muskoday grows organic food

Muskoday First Nation has been working to create sustainable healthy economic benefits for their community and their consumers with organic farming.
Harvey Knight, president of the Muskoday Growers Cooperative, said the cooperative continues to become more community-based.

“We are moving towards broader based areas of action developing our different initiatives,” he said.

Knight is quick to credit the organization Heifer International (HI), and Joe Munroe who was president of the earlier initiative called Muskoday Organic Farmer’s Cooperative, and the even earlier development of potato growing operations in 1999 which created 100% employment in Muskoday. 

As Munroe’s work led him to HI, they became partners in 2008.

HI helps communities in over 55 countries develop sustainable agricultural and economic practices in exchange for the community assisting other communities, a type of ‘pay it forward’ model.

“They’ve been very successful over the years and more recently they’ve turned their attention to Indigenous communities in North America,” said Knight.

He added that they had long been involved in South and Central America but began recognizing that there were many First Nations and Métis communities in North America existing as third world communities.

“And in fact even non-Indigenous groups in the ghettos and marginalized areas of our societies are being helped by Heifer now today,” he said.

In return for financial support to purchase seed and equipment and some of the training costs, Muskoday must share the gifts given in both food and knowledge to other First Nations groups and they are actively seeking interested bands.

“It’s called sharing up the gift,” said Knight. “So we’re trying to find another First Nations community right now...to share our gift-in-kind.”

Currently there are about 30 members signed up to Muskoday’s Cooperative, which produces organic food for the local community, restaurants throughout the province, and programs like CHEP’s ‘Good Food Box’ program.

“Our aim is to become self-reliant, for our people to become a self-reliant productive community,” he said.
Knight added that not only is the project sustainable economically, but also ecologically. It is a rediscovery of First Nations cultural and agricultural heritage that existed for thousands of years and return to an original self-reliant state, he said.

“Once we were farmers as well as warriors and hunters,” Knight stated, adding even in more recent historical times, Muskoday farmed right from when the reserve was established in 1867, as did many others - but the Indian Act and Indian Agents made it very difficult to succeed.

“But this heritage goes back, further back into our Indigenous history to thousands of years,” he said.
Muskoday tries to plant as many indigenous food crops as they can, as well as being the originators of composting, using fish-heads to fertilize soil. There are many plant varieties that were first developed by Native Americans - corn, squash, beans, tomatoes, sunflowers, potatoes, corn. They are currently experimenting to see what indigenous plants are particularly suited for their location.

“This all points towards our whole effort to grow organic foods,” Knight said.

“To go back and re-establish and reclaim our heritage of agriculture. Growing food organically goes hand in hand with that.”