INDIGENOUS SEED KEEPING: A CULTURAL FOOD AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION PRACTICE

The document examines Indigenous seed keeping in Canada as a critical tool for climate adaptation and food sovereignty. It highlights how colonialism and climate change jointly threaten the preservation of culturally significant seed varieties and the transmission of traditional knowledge. The analysis reveals a significant gap between the needs of Indigenous seed keepers—who require multi-year, flexible, and self-determined funding—and the prescriptive, market-oriented models used by Canadian government and philanthropic actors. It specifically critiques the National Adaptation Strategy and the Sustainable Agriculture Strategy for failing to recognize seed adaptation as a key climate action. The report concludes with recommendations for Indigenous-led governance models and low-barrier resource distribution to support the resilience of Indigenous food systems.

• Indigenous seed keeping is a distinct climate adaptation practice where seed keepers develop and adapt ancestral seed varieties to respond to regional growing conditions, creating more resilient seeds and successful harvests in the face of climate change.
• The ability to adapt seeds to climate change is severely hindered by the interruption of knowledge transmission between experienced seed Knowledge Holders and emerging seed keepers, a gap caused by both colonial history and current structural pressures.
• Current funding and lending models from government and philanthropic sources are often paternalistic and prescriptive, failing to recognize the multi-year nature of seed adaptation or the cultural value of seed keeping beyond commercial production.
• Canadian federal climate and biodiversity strategies, including the 2023 National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) and the 2020 National Biodiversity Strategy (NBS), largely erase the importance of food crop seed adaptation and fail to meaningfully engage Indigenous seed sovereignty groups.
• Federal funding programs for climate response have failed to resource food adaptation; for example, none of the 40 projects funded by the First Nation Adapt Program in the 2022-2023 cycle were dedicated to food adaptation.
• The Sustainable Agriculture Strategy (SAS) is criticized for prioritizing market-based perspectives and commercial yields, which marginalizes the non-profit Indigenous initiatives that lead much of the cultural seed climate adaptation work.

APA

Canadian Climate Institute (2024). INDIGENOUS SEED KEEPING: A CULTURAL FOOD AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION PRACTICE. https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/indigenous-food-climate-sovereignty/

Chicago

Canadian Climate Institute. INDIGENOUS SEED KEEPING: A CULTURAL FOOD AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION PRACTICE. 2024. https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/indigenous-food-climate-sovereignty/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Canadian Climate Institute |title=INDIGENOUS SEED KEEPING: A CULTURAL FOOD AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION PRACTICE |date=17 June 2024 |url=https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/indigenous-food-climate-sovereignty/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{canadianclimateinstitute2024indigenous, author = {{Canadian Climate Institute}}, title = {{INDIGENOUS SEED KEEPING: A CULTURAL FOOD AND CLIMATE ADAPTATION PRACTICE}}, institution = {Canadian Climate Institute}, year = {2024}, month = jun, url = {https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/indigenous-food-climate-sovereignty/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }