By Jay Gabler for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

When it comes to good nutrition, Sharon Day believes in starting early. 

“Our goal is to begin our babies with an Indigenous diet,” Day explained. Traditionally, “we had corn, beans, and squash. Those were our foods, along with wild rice, and if we ate meat, it was very lean, low cholesterol.” 

That’s very different from “the foods they began to feed us,” said Day, referencing European colonizers. “The commodity foods, white flour, white sugar, these foods high in cholesterol.” 

The Indigenous Peoples Task Force (IPTF), a Minneapolis organization Day co-founded in 1987, is now making an effort to hit reset on that unhealthy diet. The first jars of Indigi-Baby food were released in 2023, providing families with a wholesome and sustainable alternative to commercial products. 

The IPTF has been developing its baby food for nearly a decade, said Mike Neumann, the program’s agroecology coordinator. There was extensive testing of the recipes, which were created by Lori Watso — a chef and nurse from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Community. That was followed by a national search for a partner to help produce and package the foods, as well as a struggle with pandemic-era supply chain delays. 

“It’s much more complicated than we imagined in the beginning,” said Day. Indigi-Baby bucks the status quo for 21st century baby food: the products need to meet not only government regulations but also the IPTF’s own high standards for food quality and back-to-basics packaging. 

“Most of the baby food on the market these days comes from these little plastic pouches,” said Day. “We didn’t want to do that, so ours is actually canned in jars — and so we have to get licensed for the process.” 

The food’s integrity begins at the source. Ingredients are grown locally, using heirloom seeds and methods that forgo the extractive approach of industrial agriculture. “The strategies we use,” said Neumann, “are geared towards improving soil health, helping to attract pollinators, bird and other life.” 

“We don’t use any herbicides, any pesticides, none of that,” said Day. 

“There’s a sweet potato and Hopi black bean,” said Day, grabbing different Indigi-Baby jars to list the varieties. “Gete okosomin and butternut squash. Wild rice and apple juice; a little bit of lime juice and maple syrup. Sweet potato and rutabaga, and in this one there’s also super tender rutabaga apples and a little bit of lime juice.” 

The first batch of Indigi-Baby food was produced in association with North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems, an organization founded by famed Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman. IPTF is currently exploring more options for partners to produce future batches.

In distributing the first jars of Indigi-Baby, IPTF prioritized community health clinics and food shelves, in Minnesota and elsewhere. “Our goal is to get it to as many Native babies [as possible],” said Day. 

“The goal,” she elaborated, “is when young mothers give birth, they would nurse their babies. And then from the nursing, give them this baby food, which doesn’t have any of the sugar, fats, or salts, or flour — the [ingredients] that are killing us.” 

Neumann said grocers are already asking when they can stock Indigi-Baby products, which may start appearing on regular store shelves as the project’s capacity increases. 

Nationally, there’s at least one other brand of baby food informed by a similar philosophy: Bidii Baby Foods, a New Mexico company based in the Navajo Nation. According to its website, Bidii Baby Foods wants to challenge the assumption “that traditional foods are reserved for times of ceremony or celebration (mainly because they are expensive and hard to come by).” 

That accords with a larger goal of increasing access to traditional foods, for the health of the community and of the earth. The crops that become Indigi-Baby food have proved more resilient to climate shocks, and because more carbon is stored in the soil compared to at heavily-tilled conventional farms, said Neumann, “it’s also helping in a very small way to reverse climate change.” 

Regarding IPTF’s more crop-diverse, less invasive farming practices, said Neumann, “We know it works in other places, and we’re seeing it here as well. It’s something that we’re hoping to do more to promote as part of Indigi-Baby foods: these Indigenous-based, regenerative agroecology methods.” 

And the babies like it, too, said Day. “So far, so good,” was how she described families’ reactions to the first shipment of Indigi-Baby. During the testing process, Day couldn’t resist trying a spoonful or two herself. 

“It tasted pretty good to me,” said Day. “I think you could take the same ingredients and make smoothies with them. That’s how good they are — and they’re very healthy.” 


Jay Gabler wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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A Nevada grassroots organization has launched its inaugural endorsement process for the 2024 elections in an effort to champion indigenous voices in the Silver State.

Taylor Patterson, executive director of the Native Voters Alliance Nevada, said the state is getting better about tribal and indigenous representation but contended there is still a long way to go. Nevada is home to 21 federally recognized tribes and 28 reservations, but only one Native legislator.

Patterson explained they saw the need to be more engaged with issues from the top to the bottom of the ticket.

"I think very easily we can forget that Native people are everyday people," Patterson observed. "I think it has been painted in a very specific way of 'still is very much a person of the past,' but there are people who are in all different spaces that are engaging with the government in a multitude of ways that need to be represented."

Patterson acknowledged the state does have elected officials who understand the needs of the Native community but hopes the new initiative will give those who are not familiar with the Native space an opportunity to learn more.

Last summer, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo expanded Nevada's Effective Absentee System for Elections program program, which requires election clerks to meet with all tribes located in their respective jurisdictions to coordinate voting locations prior to elections.

Patterson noted they have had a good response from candidates and she is pleased to know officials are starting to realize the meaning and value of an endorsement from Native Voters Alliance Nevada. She said her organization can help provide politicians with access to Indigenous communities.

"In recent years there has been so much made of sort of this 'BIPOC' label," Patterson emphasized. "I very often have to remind all sorts of people, whether those are federal agencies or elected officials, you're not truly working with the BIPOC vote share or BIPOC people if you're not working with the 'I.'"

Patterson added the endorsement process will be instrumental to shaping policy and governance in the Silver State.

Next week, Native American leaders from the Midwest will go before a United Nations panel with their concerns over a controversial oil pipeline they say is trespassing on tribal lands.

Enbridge's Line 5 operation in the Great Lakes region is expected to be a topic when the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues convenes Monday in New York.

In the Midwest, the law firm Earthjustice represents some Tribes contesting the rerouting of Line 5 in Wisconsin. There, managing attorney Debbie Chizewer said climate change is affecting the region and tribal nations' ability to exercise their treaty rights.

"The perpetuation of this fossil-fuel infrastructure will only worsen that," she said, "and will affect their special tribal resources, like sugar maple and loons, and whitefish and other species that are an integral part of Bay Mills and other tribal nations."

The pipeline runs through Wisconsin and Michigan, traversing the treaty-reserved territory of tribal nations, including the Bay Mills Indian Community and Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Enbridge rejects those claims and has said it isn't trespassing on tribal lands.

Similar cases have been filed in other parts of the Midwest. In Michigan, opponents have said they're worried about Enbridge's plan to construct an oil tunnel beneath the Great Lakes. The company has claimed it would be safer than the existing pipeline, but Native American Rights Fund senior staff attorney Wes Furlong said he sees it as a disaster waiting to happen.

"There is a likelihood that if a leak happened within that tunnel, it would cause a catastrophic failure," he said. "Essentially, the tunnel could explode underneath the Straits of Mackinac, pumping crude oil into the strait and into the Great Lakes."

Furlong said pushing back against Line 5 aligns with calls to reduce the use of fossil fuels, citing its connection to climate change and the impact on treaty-reserved resources in the Midwest, on which Tribes rely.

"There's pending litigation over the State of Michigan's order to shut down the pipeline, and ordering Enbridge to vacate the state-owned bottomlands of the Strait of Mackinac," he added. "So, that would spell, I think, the end of Line 5 as we know it."

The Nebraska Winnebago Tribe's Ho-Chunk Community Development Corporation, or HCCDC, has been awarded $2 million through MacKenzie Scott's Yield Giving company.

Some 6,300 nonprofits applied to Yield Giving's open call for grants. The HCCDC was among 279 to receive a top tier rating. In the next-highest tier, 82 organizations each received $1 million.

Kristine Earth, executive director of the corporation, said the Tribe has a lot to be proud of but a lot of work left to do.

"We're so excited and are so thankful for this generous gift for our community," Earth stated. "We do have a lot of issues; we have a lot of health disparities. And so, a donation like this really is going to make an impact for our entire Tribe as a whole."

HCCDC marks its 20th anniversary this year, working to improve economic, educational and social opportunities for tribal members. Earth pointed out they have five key initiatives: housing development, commercial development, financial services, quality of life and food sovereignty.

The Winnebago Tribe has experienced huge growth in its middle class in the past few decades but roughly 30% of its members still live in poverty. HCCDC created a farmer's market, which Earth says is helping them address both health disparities and food sovereignty.

"Through our farmers market, now we're able to touch on not only agriculture and tribal farming, but also our health care system," Earth outlined. "Offering the fresh fruits and vegetables and the Indian corn; things that will restore the health of our people."

Earth added Winnebago is in a "food desert," making food security a major focus for the Tribe.

"It's hard for people to access fresh fruits and vegetables, and we have such a growing community," Earth stressed. "We are all coming together to grow our own food and to feed ourselves, so we can be sustainable in the future."

On the website, MacKenzie Scott called all the open call grant winners "vital agents of change." Scott's Yield Giving organization has donated more than $17 billion to 2,300 nonprofit organizations since 2019.