Endangered Eating by Sarah Lohman

Author:Sarah Lohman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

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IN THE 1960S, RESEARCHERS AT the University of Minnesota began breeding wild rice, selecting for traits that would thrive in a manmade, machine-harvested paddy. By the 1970s, farm-grown wild rice had flooded the market, and by the year 2000 Minnesota was producing $40 million worth of paddy rice annually. California produces even more paddy-grown rice than Minnesota. In 1999, geneticists at the University of Minnesota mapped the wild rice genome, with the intent of using it for “cloning and crop improvement studies.” But Winona LaDuke wrote in her pamphlet Our Manoomin Our Life: “While the future uses of such scientific data are at present unknown, we can be relatively assured as to who will most likely reap the benefits of this knowledge. The $21 million wild rice business is largely dominated by just a few paddy rice firms. Their interest in genetic work on wild rice stems largely from their own economic interests, not environmental, humanitarian, or tribal interests.” Today, more than 95 percent of the rice on the market is paddy-grown, and NORCAL Wild Rice in Woodland, California, has patented a wild rice variety for the first time.

Many Native people believe that labeling paddy rice “wild rice” is simply dishonest. True wild rice is often three times the cost per pound of paddy rice; and if a consumer is not educated to know the difference—or if labeling isn’t controlled to emphasize that difference—Native wild rice harvesters have difficulty finding a market for their product. Minnesota and Wisconsin require paddy rice be labeled as “paddy” or “cultivated,” but there are no labeling laws of this kind at the federal level.

Most important, the Ojibwe feel that it isn’t right for humans to breed wild rice. The rice, many of them believe, was a gift to the Ojibwe from the Creator. It is sacred in its wildness; it is not a farm crop and should not be treated as a commodity. In the Ojibwe mindset, the rice you have harvested is your own, while the rice in the lake belongs to all.

Not all Ojibwe share this view. The Red Lake Nation, considered one of the most traditional Ojibwe bands (“When you want to learn things about being Ojibwe, the language or the ceremonies, you go up there,” Tracy told me), also cultivates and sells paddy rice. They dub their product Minnesota Cultivated Wild Rice. I had reached out to Red Lake for a visit, but they were unavailable in the busy ricing season. Tracy told me she was also curious to visit. We had this conversation on my last day in White Earth, a sunny Tuesday morning, as we drove to Dewandeler, one of the processors that handles the hundreds of thousands of pounds of wild rice White Earth brings in. As the golden September sun streamed between the reddening leaves, a bald eagle swooped across the road. Tracy whispered “Bozhoo, migizi!” She always said hi to the eagles, she told me.

We rolled down a gravel drive behind a farmhouse,

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