Sustainability is an ideal. Its principles reinforce the fact that everything you do has consequences, even when they’re hidden from view. Its worldview imbues you, as either a consumer or producer, with a clear, undeniable sense of responsibility. It gives you a role to change how you think, what you make, what you buy, and how you live. Finally, it reinforces that humans are not only the cause of societal ills, but also the solution. Only you can decide which path to follow.

Location: DOUGAN FALLS, SKAMANIA, WASHINGTON

Featuring: RUNNING SQUIRREL, NATIVE CHEROKEE

Sustainability means to him: "Respect mother earth. Respect the land. Learn from the animals. When foraging always leave something behind for whoever comes next. In this way you’re sure to find something when you come back.”

Running Squirrel forages for plants such as wood sorrel. He says, “If only the top three leaves are taken, a plant will regrow. If cut off at the ground, it dies. Most people, they want the whole plant. When the Indians came upon a new land and didn’t know what to eat, they asked Mother Earth for guidance. Her answer was to eat what the animals eat: elk, eat ferns, skunk cabbage and licorice root. Deer search for miners lettuce and wood sorrel. Rabbits like licorice root." Running Squirrel mixes it all together for his famous wild salad: lemon balm, mustard and wood sorrel for a “dry taste”; and miners lettuce, wood violets and chick weed for “moistness”.

“U.S. agriculture is at a crossroads. The path we’ve been on, industrial food production, is a dead end. It damages air, water and soil, harms rural communities, and limited future productivity.

But there’s a better way. Scientists call it agroecological farming. We call it healthy farms. Healthy farms can be just as productive as industrial farms, but they’re better for the environment, the economy, and the people who grow (and eat) food.”

The Healthy Farm principles are focused on productivity, economic viability, and environmental stewardship. To achieve these goals, farmers focus on building their farm’s characteristics to be multifunctional, regenerative, biodiverse, and interconnected. An approachable way to maintain Healthy Farm practices is by maintaining the landscape, using crop diversity and rotation, integrating crops and livestock, and by planting cover crops.

All in all, the Health Farm reduces the needs for chemical inputs, increases biodiversity, reduces the environmental impact, and builds upon drought resilience.

To give us a glimpse of the vast biodiversity in one region of our country, SARE has organized this publication with the hope of inspiring “further documentation, recovery and community use of these foods within the region.” In this report, you will find something that inspires your inquisitive chef, avant-garde farmer, and cultural enthusiast. In collaboration with Native American communities, Place-Based Foods of Appalachia dives into the deeply rooted history of Appalachia, the longest continuously inhabited mountain range in the United States. The extensive history of indigenous agricultural heritage can be experienced through the region’s 1,412 food landrace varieties.

Educate Yourself About the Most Diverse Foodshed in the U.S.

Dr M Jahi Chappell and Juliette Majot set out to make one thing absolutely clear: Climate Smart Agriculture and agroecology are not interchangeable concepts. Agroecology "boasts a scientifically valid response to climate change and is designed for the purpose of rebuilding decentralized, just, and sustainable agricultural systems” while Climate Smart Agriculture is "designed to expand carbon markets and serve the interests of agribusiness and the financial industry” and "incentivizes destructive industrial agricultural practices by tying it to carbon market offsets based on unreliable and non-permanent emissions reduction protocols.” For a further outline on signifiant developments in the debate between Climate Smart Agriculture and agroecology, follow the link below.