Putting Down Roots

Meet Jessika Greendeer-a farmer, seed saver and advocate for Native food sovereignty.

- By Rachael Liska

What are seeds? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, they are the grains ... of plants used for sowing.” But to Jessika Greendeer, seed keeper and farm manager at Dream of Wild Health, their meaning and significance go so much deeper than the soil they're planted in.

“Seeds are one of the reasons we still survive in this world,” Jessika says. “They have a gift and an ability to do what we cannot, and that is to nourish the world.

LAND OF PLENTY

Dream of Wild Health is a 30-acre farm located in Hugo, Minnesota. It's one of the oldest and longest-running Native American-focused nonprofits in the Twin Cities. To the 11 federally recognized tribes in the state, it's a sacred place—the farm's crops and initiatives nourish the community both physically and spiritually through youth programs, tours, indigenous food tastings and cooking classes. This is where Jessika, a Ho-Chunk Nation tribal member originally from Baraboo, Wisconsin, shares her lifework of growing and protecting indigenous plants. A U.S. Army combat veteran and former agricultural division manager for her Nation, Jessika believes that she was always meant to do this work.

“I had a strong calling to locate my own ancestral seeds—to do my part for future generations so that they can spend their precious time growing these seeds instead of finding them,” says Jessika.

Known as seed rematriation, the growing movement aims to reunite plants that were separated from their mother communities through the forced removals of indigenous people and colonization.