Seeding Food Innovation - Awarded Project 2019

Intensifying Manomin (Zizania palustris) Growth in Environments Altered by Colonial Settlement in Ways that are Responsive to Anishinaabe Knowledge and Values

Project Description

Manomin, also known as wild rice, grows in water and is maintained by Indigenous harvesters. For generations, the plant was a staple in Indigenous diets and an important source of food and habitat for animals.

The Anishinaabe people and others associate a drastic decline in manomin growing in the bays along the Upper Winnipeg River with changes in land use, altered water levels due to the construction and operation of hydropower dams, and the introduction of pollutants and invasive species after World War II. This two-year project investigates the activities and conditions affecting manomin productivity in partnership with Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation. The Manomin Research Project will develop strategies to restore wetlands that support manomin growth.

Agricultural intensification in northwestern Ontario is challenging because of climate, soils, and other factors. Our success will demonstrate that food production can be increased by restoring wetlands and using water and nutrients already available in the system. This type of solution to agricultural intensification is essential for feeding the globe’s growing population while protecting the health of the planet.

Food Innovation

The Manomin Research Project will raise awareness of the nutritional and economic value of manomin while revitalizing cultural practices associated with growing, processing, and eating it. Public events co-hosted by academic researchers and community members facilitate intergenerational knowledge transmission. They also help to heal the generation gap created when children were forced into residential schools by federal agents and lost the opportunity to learn about manomin from cultural educators during harvesting season.

To restore crops and revitalize cultural activities, we have developed an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and community-engaged approach to research. Historic and cultural knowledge is intertwined with field data collected by community and university partners. Multi-disciplinary academic researchers and Indigenous knowledge keepers co-construct meaning from project findings in order to co-develop a culturally appropriate management strategy. The strategy will explore management of water levels and invasive wetland plants and practices for seeding and harvesting manomin.

Outcome

The study approach and findings are expected to have relevance throughout northwestern Ontario and adjacent areas, with good opportunities to stimulate agricultural intensification generally while addressing economic and food insecurity and serving cultural revitalization initiatives in Anishinaabe communities specifically.

The strategy to restore manomin crops may require action by other stakeholders that influence environmental conditions at Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation. The project outcomes will be shared with these stakeholders to initiate dialogue about living, more sustainably, together.

Grantees:

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