Looking Toward Food Sovereignty: Assessing the Roadblocks to Reintroducing Traditional Agriculture to the Tohono O'odham Food System

Abstract

"In a very real sense, the destruction of the traditional food system is killing the Tohono O'odham" (Fazzino 2008). Among a tribe of Native Americans living in southern Arizona, a public health crisis has been unfolding for years. The Tohono O'odham tribe experiences some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world. This fact is even more concerning when considering that among the tribe, diabetes was virtually unknown among their population prior to the Second World War (di Cintio 2012). This naturally begs the question: what changed for the tribe? The answer is their food system. [From Introduction]