EP 5: For Tribes, Food is Economy

Food desert is a term that is used in reference to the absence of good quality, nutritious food in a particular geographic area. But as Chef Bleu Adams of Indigehub says in this episode of Against the Grain, a more appropriate term is "food apartheid" because there's nothing natural about the absence of good food for Native Americans. For Tribal producers and eaters, the legacy of colonization and land theft carries on in the structures of food apartheid on what is, ostensibly, tribal land. As Kari Jo Lawrence and Abi Fain of the Intertribal Agriculture Council tell us, a variety of forces - from infrastructure to bureaucracy to lack of credit to land and soil issues - make it difficult for tribal communities to produce and distribute their own food. But people like Kari Jo, Abi, and Bleu work tirelessly to find solutions. Listen to this episode to find out more.