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Food Sustainability through Seed Preservation

Electa and team (From left to right: Electa Hare-RedCorn, Deb Echo-Hawk, and Sonny Howell. Photo provided by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Reprinted with permission.)

Fourth-year PUBP student, Electa Hare-RedCorn, was recently highlighted in Yes! Magazine for her work with the Pawnee Seed Preservation Project. Herself a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, Hare-Redcorn joined the project in 2012 as a corn seed-keeper. These seeds connect the Pawnee to their ancestors who traveled from Nebraska to Indian Territory in the mid-1870s, several decades after the Trail of Tears.

After being forced off their ancestral land, the Pawnee took their corn seed into what is now Oklahoma. Unfortunately, however, the corn did not flourish in the Oklahoma soil.

Ronnie O’Brien, a former educational director of the Great Platte River Road Archway in Kearney, Nebraska, offered to bring some seeds back to the tribal nation’s home state for planting. The second crop planted in 2005 was successful. Consequently, the preservation project was officially born.

For those interested in learning more about the project, you can access the original article For a Sustainable Food System, Look to Seeds.