indigenous – RegeNErate Nebraska

WINNEBAGO RESTAURANT SPECIALIZES IN NATIVE EATS AND OFFBEAT TREATS

by Laura PriestNovember 6, 2023 on

In a small restaurant located inside the Ho-Chunk Plaza, Reggie Frazier makes some of most mouthwatering food on the Winnebago Reservation.

So, what’s on the menu? On a recent Friday, it was an Alaskan Po’ Boy Sandwich, served with a zesty Cajun sauce and a Creole-inspired cole slaw that was the midday special.

“The Po’ Boy is one of the most popular lunchtime offerings,” Frazier, who owns R-EATZ, a 504 Ho-Chunk Plaza café with his wife Rita, explained. “It’s almost as popular as our Chinese Beef and Broccoli or our Pulled Pork Nachos.”

Wait, New Orleans-style Po’ Boys, Asian cuisine and South-of-the-Border fare? That wasn’t what we were expecting from an eatery inside of the Native American Reservation in Northern Thurston County, Nebraska.

INDIGENOUS FARMERS HOPE THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF REGENERATIVE PRACTICES CAN INFLUENCE OTHERS

by Laura PriestNovember 6, 2023 on

On a recent summer day, Timothy Rhodd fearlessly opened the lid on a box of bees and pointed out the hive’s complicated systems.

“It’s pretty cool once you start learning what these insects do for the whole world. And they’re dying and it’s agriculture that’s causing it,” said Rhodd, the chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.

Not only do the bees produce honey that is sold, but the tribe’s agricultural operation, Ioway Farms, also uses the bees to pollinate its orchard. It’s all part of the work the tribal nation is doing to better farm the land. Rhodd said just a few years ago they used the same row cropping practices as the rest of the Midwest.

“What folks didn’t see was the financials of our operation. We were spiraling downwards,” Rhodd said. “Financially we weren’t a profitable farming operation, and it’s due to the mindsets that’s been instilled in us.”

As Nebraska’s Regenerative Farming Movement Grows, Omaha’s Maya Youth Lead the Way

by Laura PriestFebruary 6, 2023 on

In Burt County this summer, rows and rows of identical corn fields painted a familiar and quintessentially Nebraska landscape — until you reached a quarter of an acre of land teeming with a diversity of crops near Lyons, about 70 miles northwest of Omaha.

12-year-old Evelyn, who did not share her last name for privacy, crouched down in a small patch of budding plants on a Saturday morning in June. With pale blue plastic gloves on her hands, she yanked weeds out of the earth and left the varied leafy crops between them rooted.

“We’re looking for the ones that are thicker,” Evelyn said in Spanish. She was among 14 other youth and adults of Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim in the field separating invasive weeds from budding vegetables for the First Acre Milpa summer program.