"Modern agriculture needs Indigenous wisdom," says Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a researcher at the University of Arizona and a member of the Hopi tribe in Arizona.
He's offering that wisdom in the form of four "time-tested principles": "Do more with less," "Ask how we can adapt our practices to fit our places," "Change our definitions of innovation and ownership," and "Challenge the paradigmDe-emphasize resource-intensive farming practices, survival seed vaults, and land and seed manipulation."
Kotutwa Johnson, who was born on a Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona, says he's been inspired by his own grandparents and great-grandparents, who raised crops on land that received only 10 inches of rain per year, the Arizona Daily Star reports.
He's also studied how climate change is affecting native seeds, which he says need to "grow alongside us, getting the nurture they need to keep up with the changing environment."
To that end, he's been growing indigenous seeds at three locations: on UArizona land in Tucson, at Arcosanti in Yavapai County, and on his relatives' clan land on the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona.
He's tested how different environmental factors affect the crops' nutritional density Read the Entire Article
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Vertical farms are designed in a way to avoid the pressing issues about growing food crops in drought-and-disease-prone fields miles away from the population centers in which they will be consumed.