Linkages: Agriculture and Our Future
In 1985, several Iroquois traditionalists and reservation farmers asked
members of the American Indian Program (AIP) at Cornell University to
initiate work that would help revitalize the productive use of Indian
lands. Native communities in other states and in several Central
American and Caribbean countries had made similar inquiries. Staff from
AIP, in conjunction with a Native advisory group and several Cornell
scientists, responded by volunteering their support for an agricultural
research and development program that would respond to the request. Two
projects, the Indigenous Preservation Networking Center (IPNC) and the
Cornell American Indian Agriculture Program (AIAP), independent of each
other but cooperative, were started.
Both AIAP and IPNC are based in non-profit institutions and are
dedicated to research, development and training. However, they are
designed to serve, with some overlap, different publics. AIAP is housed
in a major academic institution, wikth an expandable and rigorous
research base, distinguished faculty and graduate students in many
fields. At Cornell, too, the AIP has a significant roster of Native
students and draws upwards of a thousand Cornell students into its
roster of courses. The IPNC, with a Native American Board of Directors,
is sepcifically focused on establishing a land base with its own traiing
program for Native and non-Native people (not necessarily enrolled in
college), for which purpose it is developing a liveing/learning
conference facility.
This newsletter, published by the AIAP, will report on the rationale,
goals and some of the activities of these two related projects. The
follwoing people, all associates in the agricultural preservation
projects, contributed articles to this first issue:
Jane Mt. Pleasant, PhD, Dept. of Soil, Crop & Atmospheric Sciences
Jorge Quintana, PhD, Dept. of Soil, Crop & Atmospheric Sciences
Margaret Smith, PhD, Dept. of Plant Breeding
Tom Scott, PhD, Dept. of Soil, Crop & Atmospheric Sciences
Dr. Gould Colman, PhD, Cornell Archivist
Jose Barreiro, MA, editor-in-chief
Ron LaFrance, MA, Director, American Indian Program
Katsi Cook, midwife, IPNC Women and Environment Program
American Indian Program, 300 Caldwell Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY 14853; 607-255-6587
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[as my time permits, I will enter the articles in this first issue of
the Native Corn Report and post them as responses to this topic.]
-- for a green and peaceful planet, the turtle
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