Working Group on
Indigenous Food Sovereignty

Mobilizing knowledge and networks.
Research, action, and policy.
Activate ancestral knowledge, wisdom and values.

“Food will be what brings the people together.”

Secwepemc Elder, Jones Ignace. (Wolverine)

Shift the paradigm.

Building power for food justice.

Knowledge Power

Mobilizing knowledge and facilitating transformational
learning in networks. Participatory action-oriented research,
policy, planning and governance “From the Ground Up.”

Cultural Power

Upholding the complex system of Indigenous biocultural heritage.
Cultural resurgence, activating ancestral foodways, Conservation
‘in action’. Observing ancient earth-based practices, protocols
and principles guiding our ancestral foodways.

Economic Power

Addressing gaps in access to land, water, funding and institutional
capacity to navigate the fourth world reality. Navigating the wicked
system problem of making small-scale markets work for subsistence
hunters, fishers, farmers and gatherers.

Political Power

Creating ethical spaces of engagement in policy, planning and
governance. Implementing a new accountability framework
towards deep systems transformation. Upholding grassroots
voices and visions in decision-making matters impacting Indigenous
land, language, culture, spirituality and future generations.

Get to know our work

Watch our video here:

What is Indigenous Food Sovereignty?

Critical response

IFS has emerged as a critical response to settler colonial narratives and western science-based techno-bureaucratic frameworks for science and technology development in agriculture, forest, land, water, and resources.

Address the wicked systemic problems

IFS seeks to address the wicked systemic problems underlying food insecurity in Indigenous communities. IFS centers Indigenous methodologies and ways of knowing in a transformative approach to food justice by building power under four pillars of knowledge, culture, economic and political power.

Grounded in biocultural heritage

IFS is grounded in a complex system of biocultural heritage where Indigenous Peoples' subsistence harvesting strategies and practices are the oldest living memories of how to live in 'right relationship' to our ancestral land and territories.

Response to our own needs

Indigenous food sovereignty increases our ability to respond to our own needs for healthy, culturally adapted Indigenous foods and provides a basis for transforming policy driven by practice.

“The best way we can defend our grandchildren’s future is to protect, conserve and restore the health of the forests, fields and waterways where we hunt, fish, farm and gather our food.”

Dawn Morrison, WGIFS Founder/Research Curator

Charting a Transformative Pathway:
Decolonizing & Indigenizing regenerative land and food systems

Mission:

Creating key conditions necessary to address
imbalances of power and privilege in the fourth-world reality.

Mandate:

Implement a new accountability framework for achieving
Indigenous Food Sovereignty “From the Ground Up”

The late George Manuel coined the concept “the 4th world reality” to describe the disparity experienced by Indigenous peoples living in 3rd world conditions within a 1st world country like Canada.

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