Native America

(birds chirping) -

Narrator

Today the Haudenosaunee are beginning their harvest. The crew is led by Angie Ferguson. She's on a mission to keep the food of her ancestors alive and the health of her nation strong. Through colonization, we grew away from eating what our bodies were accustomed to. And not only are those foods part of our health and nutrition, but those are part of our spiritual entities that keep us who we are. -

Narrator

Angie is returning to traditional seeds and farming methods developed over thousands of years. -

Angie

In a lot of our teachings, food is at the basis of the entire Haudenosaunee community. (reflective music) -

Narrator

For the Haudenosaunee, corn is more than a crop. It's a teacher. Roger Cook was taught one of its most important lessons by his grandfather. When making decisions, always look to the seventh generation. All the things that we do in the garden, we're always thinking about that seventh generation. It's a lot of hard work to put into the corn so that our children that we don't even know yet, our grandchildren will have this. That's how far ahead we have to look. -

Narrator

Haudensaunee ancestors didn't simply focus on feeding themselves and their children. They planned centuries ahead. (tribal drum music) It's a strategy that changed the world. (tribal drum music) Ten thousand years ago there was no corn. Only a tiny weed called teosinte. Over hundreds of generations of careful observation and seed selection it was developed into corn. And that's only the beginning. Native Americans feed a population of a 100,000,000 people by developing new foods from wild plants. The potato. The tomato. Peanuts. Chocolate. And dozens of varieties of beans and squash. Today these crops provide 60% of the world's grown food. But for Native America, corn is king.