2nd Wednesday Lecture : Aaron Lowden

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Join traditional farmer, land-based skills instructor and seed caretaker, Aaron Lowden, for a discussion on Indigenous Seeds and Rematriation.

Seeds are the source of life. Since time immemorial the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island have been cultivating and caretaking precious seeds adapted to their bioregions. Colonization and historic disruptions to each Indigenous nation’s food systems have called an intergenerational movement to grow, protect and reclaim seeds and land based ways of knowing. Aaron Lowden, an Acoma Pueblo farmer, land based skills instructor and seed caretaker will host a talk about his work in Acoma Pueblo and the emerging Indigenous seed reclamation and rematriation movement.

Aaron Lowden (He/Him/His) is a traditional farmer, land-based skills instructor, and seed caretaker from the Pueblo of Acoma. In 2010, Aaron began working with Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps where he recruited, managed, and mentored crews to collaboratively complete land-based service-learning projects including tribal historic preservation, environmental restoration and public recreation infrastructure development. In 2012, Aaron established the Acoma Ancestral Land Office’s flagship program: the Acoma Farm Corps. As a lifelong student of the Tribe’s traditional ecological and agricultural knowledge systems, he has led, developed, and instructed the program’s agricultural initiatives to restore Acoma’s traditional food systems. Through Acoma Farm Corps, Aaron has taught local youth skills central to Acoma traditional food practices including cultivation preparation and design; dryland, irrigated, and drip irrigation techniques; seed selection, saving, and banking; and traditional food preparation. With a strong passion for this work, he has created and facilitated the Acoma Ancestral Lands Seed Bank as well as food sovereignty gatherings and workshops for the Acoma community and tribal partners. Aaron is now working with the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance as the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN) Program Coordinator. The ISKN program seeks to nourish and assist the growing Seed Sovereignty Movement across Turtle Island by providing educational resources, mentorship training, outreach and advocacy support on seed policy issues, and organizing events and convenings to connect many communities who are engaging in this vital work.

Auto-generated captioning will be available.

This program is free but we welcome donations to help offset programming costs.