Indigenous Farming in the US

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14

PROGRAM #10546 11:00 AM PT

Indigenous Farming in the US. 

Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have come from indigenous regions in Mexico to toil the fields in the US. Besides their labor, they bring with them their experience as farmers and their ancestral knowledge about the land, the crops and the environment. How can their traditional farming practices and techniques help US agriculture mitigate the ravages of climate change? How can those farming traditions help develop a sustainable food system? Is the US prepared to recognize the indigenous traditional knowledge of the migrant farm worker communities?

Guests: Dr. Bonnie Bade, Professor of Medical Anthropology, California State University-CSU at San Marcos, San Marcos, CA; Dr. Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, Professor of Work, Labor and Social Justice in the US at the University of California Los Angeles-UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.

Regenerative Farming: Tale of Two Towns. A social researcher tells the story of two towns. Located near Tulare Lake in California, Allensworth was the first community founded by formerly enslaved African Americans in California. Today, the mostly Latino and Black community is facing the impact of air, water and soil pollution and the damaging consequences of extractive, single-crop farming. Leaders in the community are now working on a plan to turn Allensworth into a hub for regenerative agriculture. Community activists in Firebaugh, another disadvantaged farming town in the same valley, are struggling to find support for revitalization zones, access to land for small farmers, pesticide-free zones around communities, and incentives for climate-smart transitions for small farmers. This is a special Indigenous People’s Day edition.

Guests: Dr. Ángel Fernández-Bou, Western States Senior Climate Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists, Merced, CA; Jose Armando Munguia, Project Manager, Agriculture Enterprise Development, Los Angeles, CA.

Photo: Astro/Adobe Stock

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