Practicing Food Sovereignty: Spatial Analysis of an Emergent Food System for the Standing Rock Nation

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Practicing Food Sovereignty: Spatial Analysis of an Emergent Food System for the Standing Rock Nation

by Morgan L. Ruelle, Stephen J. Morreale, Karim-Aly S. Kassam

http://dx.doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2011.021.005, pp. 1–17

Abstract

Food sovereignty is understood as the right to determine food systems, and the ability to exercise this right requires the capacity to obtain, produce, and distribute culturally relevant foods. In the Standing Rock Nation of the northern Great Plains, efforts to reclaim food sovereignty include projects to increase the availability of gathered and gardened plants that are necessary components of traditional foods. Toward this objective, a voucher-based food assistance program administered by the Standing Rock Tribe is helping elders obtain culturally meaningful foods while contributing to the growth of farmers' markets within the reservation. As program enrollment and market attendance increase, organizers are considering the spatial arrangement of food system components and its influence on accessibility and participation. Our GIS spatial analysis of voucher issuance and redemption patterns reveals that the minimum cost-distance to market explains 33% of variance in voucher redemption. In order to improve program equity and efficiency, cost-distance models are used to identify potential additional market locations that would reduce the effort associated with trips to market and thus encourage participation. These analyses and possible spatial solutions contribute a powerful tool to improve food-system planning and to enhance the food sovereignty of indigenous communities in rural areas.

Keywords: cost-distance analysis, farmers' markets, food security, food systems, indigenous, GIS, Lakota/Dakota, self-determination, Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, sociocultural and ecological relations, sovereignty

Banner photos include a Cape Cod cranberry bog; a cranberry “screen house” used to grade fresh cranberries; farmland near Lake Placid, NY, in the Adirondack Mountains; Montmorency cherry trees on the Mission Peninsula of northern Michigan; the historic Round Barn in the South Mountain Apple Belt of Adams County, Pennsylvania; the “Sea of Grapes” district of the Lake Erie Concord Grape Belt, near Erie, Penn; a field of cabbages near Shortsville, NY, home to one of the world’s largest sauerkraut factories. All photos copyright by Duncan Hilchey.

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