What is the name of your organization?
East Coast Native Seedkeeping Network
What is the name of your solution?
East Coast Seedkeeping
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Seeds are the solution. Two Indigenous communities develop a multi-layered method to recover plant ancestors and grow them–and our communities–again.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Atlanta, GA, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
United States
What type of organization is your solution team?
Other, including part of a larger organization (please explain below)
If you selected Other, please explain here.
This collective is headquartered at Emory University, where Malinda Lowery is a faculty member, but collaborators are located in New Jersey, Delaware, and North Carolina. We have joined together to create a solution to a shared problem.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Indigenous communities of Delaware/Lenapehoking (the Nanticoke) and southeastern North Carolina (the Lumbee) are exercising their sovereignty by reviving foodways which have been taken out of our hands. Since earliest contact with Europeans, we have endured theft of land and cultural resources; we face additional hurdles because we lack acknowledgement of our sovereignty from the federal government. The consequences to our physical, mental, and spiritual health have been dire, yet we derived strength from remaining on our lands, growing our own food. The most significant disruption to our food system has been felt within our lifetimes, as the U.S. food system has become excessively corporatized and fresh, healthy, local ingredients have become inaccessible to many of us. Those ingredients were grown from seeds saved by our relatives and ancestors. Some of those seeds have been taken out of our hands, co-opted by others to claim they are the ones saving our food system. This ongoing theft means that connections to ancestral seeds can be threadbare, cords worn thin or broken by colonization. We are reigniting relations between people and seeds in ways that ensure the seeds are not exploited in the same way our people have been exploited.
What is your solution?
Seeds are the solution; they’re ancient technology that help correct problems stemming from an anomic, extractive, destructive food system. Access to the right seeds– seeds cultivated and adapted over generations by Indigenous communities–will help heal the Earth and our people. “The seed knows this area and knows what it needs to do,” according to team member, farmer, and researcher Millard Locklear (Lumbee). Locklear means that seeds are locally-specific, regionally-adapted technologies (or wise beings and tools) that are foundational to a more resilient and culturally-appropriate set of foodways. Our team members have already identified ancestral seeds from our communities. We are growing them and sharing the seeds and fruits with our people. The results are transformative. Reconnecting with seeds and foodways that we’ve heard about in stories like the Three Sisters has brought us together in gardens and around tables. The Solve Challenge fellowship will empower us to formalize our process and work systematically across and within each of our communities to document our process, develop thoughtful methodologies that ensure we trace our histories back to the right seeds, and share the work to mentor and encourage other Indigenous communities in their own processes of reconnection.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
We belong to and actively collaborate with the Nanticoke Indian Tribe of Delaware and the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. Our project serves these communities first, as they are the proper stewards, originators, and cultivators of the seeds of their homelands. Our documentation and methodology are designed to be replicable in Black and Indigenous communities across the East Coast and Southeast who recognize the physical, mental, and spiritual healing that comes from growing and eating food that belongs to you. Indigenous seeds benefit everyone. People from all over the world live in Lenapehoking and Lumbee land, and Indigenous seeds can help heal Earth and revitalize shared foodways. Seeds are the foundation for stronger food systems, bringing economic benefits like increased income, localized infrastructure, and healthier relationships with land. Our team members, through Native Roots Farm Foundation in Delaware and New Ground Farms in North Carolina, are cultivating those benefits for their wider communities. We need to know if the varieties promoted as ancestral truly belong to the specific lands and Peoples they connect to. Specificity is required to accrue the resilience and fulfillment available through rematriation, which requires a well-documented, Indigenous-centered method to guide.
