by This spring, a torrent of rain sent a river rushing over a field on the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin, wiping out most of what was in its path, including the traditionally important white corn crop.
Families tried to plant a second time, but it was too wet; many seeds dissolved in the water-soaked soil. The corn that grew was haphazard and restless.
He looked “anemic,” said Lea Zeise, one of the coordinators of Oheláku, a non-profit company that works with the families who grow crops. “Really thin and very weak.”
A few members picked what was left at the end of August in its early form, called green corn, but there was hardly enough to go around. The annual food boxes sent to the tribal elders next year will not contain any of their white corn. And the autumn moon event, traditionally an important time for ceremonies and community gatherings, has been cancelled.
It’s a stark reminder of the uncertainty facing Indigenous farmers as the planet warms and seasonal weather patterns become more unpredictable. The food that connects the Oneida people to their culture, the land and each other is likely to be threatened by many hard years. Oneida white corn ranchers and other Native growers want to adapt, and are proactively incorporating sustainable land management techniques like using cover crops to try to improve soil health and strengthen their land against future droughts and floods. But years like this remind them that it’s not always enough.
“We’re really up against some serious odds with climate change. There is a lot at stake. And it feels very personal like that,” Zeise said. “It’s very hard not to go out on the field and feel very sad.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series on how tribes and Indigenous communities are dealing with and responding to climate change.
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White corn is not just food for the Oneida people; it is part of their story of creation and caring for a relative. It is also an annual, seasonal reason for people to come together, and that was the philosophy behind Ohe·láku, which translates to “among the corn stones”.
Braiding corn husks is the favorite activity of 10-year-old Lucia Stevens, who was awarded this year’s Lil’ Miss Oneida and whose name Oneida Tehwahshútyahks means “She breaks the night.” She has been harvesting white corn for as long as she can remember, but this has been the hardest year of her life, said her mother Stephanie.
“We tried our best,” said Lucia. “The reason we didn’t get as much corn is because it kept getting too hot days, and then it kept getting too rainy days, and it kept going back and forth like that.”
Zeise and her mother Laura Manthe, who helped found the organization, said families can learn from each other by growing corn in community. All of them can add chips to the labor-intensive processes of planting, weeding, hand-picking cobs, winnowing to separate the chaff from the grain and other tasks, Manthe and Zeise said. The group can still have a significant crop even if the animals manage to harvest some of it, and they have a better chance of surviving extreme events if they are growing on a larger area of land.
But even growing together was no match for this year’s spring tide. Drive around Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan and there are a lot of farmers “whose corn looks terrible,” Manthe said. But commercially grown corn, which uses more uniform varieties than heirloom ones and is often genetically modified, looks good this time of year, she said.
Oneida and commercial farmers also take different approaches to dealing with smut – a type of fungus that can grow on corn. While many commercial growers consider it a disease to be eradicated, some Mexican growers use it for cooking and consider it a delicacy. Ohe·láku members took inspiration and are just starting to use it as the wetter seasons are more prevalent, but by now the corn smut is already too ripe to use.
Becky Webster, who grows with Ohe·láku, is also the executive director of other Oneida farms and the nonprofit Ukwakhwa, where she plants white corn in smaller plots and in two different ways. She plants some of it in rows, and some of it in a method called Three Sisters, where corn, beans and squash are planted together in mounds. She said the Three Sisters corn wasn’t submerged because it was protected by the mounds, but an unseasonal windstorm of late blew over many of the stalks. She thinks it can be saved but it’s not in a great place. And she can’t remember ever seeing the weather this wild.
“Our springs have been pretty steady before, apart from storms here and there. But we had to deal with extremes. Last year was very droughty and this year the rain was very heavy,” said Webster. She said it is more difficult to predict which planting methods will be most effective, and described the challenge of strategically saving seeds because those that did well in one year will not do as well wet in a dry year and vice versa.
All of the Oneida growers emphasized the importance of continuing traditional farming knowledge, which is even more important because many tribal members are cut off from their own culture. It’s a way to return to their roots after families lost land to colonists, children were forced to attend residential schools and land was leased or sold to non-native farmers. But the new seasonal unpredictability makes it harder to revive past knowledge.
“Even if we knew everything our ancestors learned, we have to do it in a turbulent and changing climate,” Webster said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Ph.D. Candidate Daniel Hayden thinks more research will be needed to understand the science behind sustainable indigenous farming techniques that go back generations. He has been working with Ohe·láku for several years now trialling sustainable methods such as interseeded cover crops, which involves planting other crops in the same field to improve soil health, balance moisture levels and prevent erosion. It’s a work in progress, and this year it wasn’t enough to keep most of the corn from being cleared out, even though his research made it white corn.
He acknowledged that while Oneida growers are willing to focus on stewardship of land and improving soil health — not necessarily maximizing yields — commercial farmers have different priorities. He hopes his research will increase the conversation about including indigenous practices in mainstream agriculture, which he doesn’t think has received enough attention yet.
As Webster said, “Indigenous practices are no longer plan B, they have to be the plan. Because we are very attentive to all the things around us.”
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Follow Melina Walling on X at @MelinaWalling.
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