Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News + ICT
PORTLAND, Ore. — A group of Indigenous organizations around the Portland metro area felt inspired by the first Indigenous foods expo last year in the Northwest. They decided to bring something similar to their own city.
Starting with a budget of zero dollars, and less than a year to plan, that dream has turned into a reality with the inaugural Indigenous Food Summit on Sept. 9 and 10. The event will be held at the Native American Student & Community Center at Portland State University, hosted by the Northwest Indigenous Food Sovereignty Alliance and other community groups.
Expecting around 300 people, the conference is completely free and open to the public.
Beyond programming, such as “wild food preparation” and “cougar hide tanning,” meals, coffee and snacks will also be provided to attendees; highlighting local Indigenous-owned companies. There will also be a marketplace of Indigenous vendors.
Over the course of the two-day summit, community members are invited to come learn and share knowledge focused around food sovereignty.
“I think it’s really important for folks to have those conversations about what food sovereignty looks like for themselves in their own communities or their organizations, whatever that looks like,” said Emma Johnson, Cowlitz, Indigenous Traditional Knowledge & Cultural Knowledge coordinator at Portland State University. Johnson helped organize the summit.
“I think that’s the power behind that term is that you get to define it for yourself, and it boils down to, in some form, managing your own food systems.”
Planning the summit
Over a dozen organizations are involved, including the university’s Indigenous Traditional Ecological & Cultural Knowledge program, Native American Youth and Family Center, OSU Extension and many others.
Organizing this summit meant putting together different sources of funding, Gina Mengwasser, Western Cherokee Nation of the Baysville Band, Health Equity manager at the center. This came primarily through grants, and organizers volunteering spare time to turn the vision into reality.
“It’s been chaotic, and not in a bad way. It’s just in a ‘whoa, are we going to pull this off way?’ And we’re pulling it off,” Johnson said.
The agenda includes dozens of different workshops for attendees such as pressure canning, growing first foods, tea blending and so much more.
The day before the summit Growers Food Safety Training will offer a course geared toward supporting Indigenous food growers in learning safe practices to grow, harvest and handle produce.
Planning a free summit was also crucial to organizers.
“This is a shared knowledge. We don’t want to charge for our knowledge,” Mengwasser said. “It’s supposed to be shared, and we want to do that for our community. And if we have the ability with some of our funding, we want it to be free.”
While this event is the first of its kind in Portland, organizers are aiming for this to become an annual or biannual event.
Organizers hope the summit is also a place of building community connections and continued food knowledge sharing beyond this event. And a space to learn about other resources and spaces in community centered around food sovereignty.
“I’m hoping for joy,” Johnson said, “obviously more connections and just like that inspiration to know that different avenues for food sovereignty projects are possible.”
For questions about the summit email NIFSA503@gmail.com.
This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.
