Our People Were Food Secure Before the Treaties
Founding Member of the Co-operative, Joe Munroe elborates: “Our people were food secure at one point, before the Treaties. We put ourselves under the Care of the Crown, and have been living in poverty and hunger since, so our people know that they can be food secure and food soverign and that we can take care of ourselves.”
Though Man was last in order of creation, he was given the greatest gift.
The Power to Dream.
“Muskoday Organic Workers Co-op was set up four years ago to facilitate their learning the skills of gardening. They grew 7 acres of potatoes this year and 3 acres of vegetables, all certified organic. Our philosophy is caring for the Earth.
The potatoes that are not grown organically are sprayed about six times for bugs and for weeds, and everything that gets into these leaves gets into the potato, and then we eat them. There’s been a marked increase in the last 30,40,50 years in cancers in this community and they’re blaming the pesticides.”
Before Chemicals, Pesticides and the Rise of Cancer
Daniel recalls “..when we first farmed, we didn’t use pesticides, we had no chemicals. My grandfather started in 1895, he was growing a small – about two acres of wheat, corn, squash and other plants that they used for food. My grandfather was over 100 years old when he passed away in 1954 they say he was about 106 or round there, 105.”
The Creator then made the Great Laws of Nature for the welbeing and harmony of all things and all creatures.
“Well, Grandpa always had good produce, because – “its like this”, he said “everything has Life and everything interacted with one another. Everything required each other, plants will actually co-ordinte with the air, the wind, the insects and the birds and everything had an association.
Every plant has a spirit, every plant species, like this grass here.. there’s millions and millions of grass, but they only have one Spirit that looks after it. The Spirit of the plant will talk to you, that’s why he sat in his garden – you have to get it to like you as a fellow Being.
You’re there because they’re there, and they’re there because you’re there, and so that relationship begins to expound into a relationship of love and kindness. Be good to your plants and they will give you in return – they’ll give you love.
But when we spray the land, we kill everything in it. Insects, living things and that is very destructive.
“People mostly get their food now from the supermarkets, and they believe that they’re getting good food and that it will always be there.” says Joe. “..the future doesn’t bode well for them. Not at a low price anyway, the food’s going to be out of reach of most people.
We need to be the caretakers of Earth, because that’s who we are.
So we see value in people learning how to grow their own food. We will be farming all of Muskoday ourselves, with all sustainable farms, organically, at some point. Feeding ourselves and feeding people locally.”
“We need to be the caretakers of Earth, because that’s who we are. The Caretakers of the Land.” says Elder William Ermine with conviction “Not to destroy it, not to pollute it, but live in harmony with Earth, because this is where our Strength, our Knowlege, our Wisdom and our Voice, our way of life comes from.”
“Well Grandpa, he had these theories that the Spirit of the plant wants to be praised, and so you talk to the spirit of the plant, it will then appreciate and give you much sustenance. It was all about sustenance, sustaining the interaction of that whole world in which he relied on in order for him to pick a good living.”
