Food & Land Sovereignty

Restoring balance, growing futures

About Our Work

Understanding that land is health, our Food & Land Sovereignty initiatives bridge ecological, cultural, and public health systems.

Knowledge Foundations:

Building on Indigenous scholars including Dr. Valarie Blue Bird Jernigan’s foundational framework linking food sovereignty and health, IHEI advances this work through community-led evaluation, measurement development and advocacy. Our approach centers connectedness, intergenerational knowledge transmission, and relationality  as living Indigenous practices  of health for sovereignty. 

Building Collective Power Through Food & Land

This work heals the land and the people while propelling us toward life-affirming, generative futures.

From the beginning, IHEI has been deeply engaged with Indigenous food sovereignty. In 2020, our COVID-19 response efforts brought together traditional harvesters, healers, and seed keepers to provide culturally appropriate food and medicine to Indigenous families experiencing food insecurity. From that collective community formed the Northwest Indigenous Food Sovereignty Alliance (NIFSA), a coalition of over 100 Native farmers, gatherers, fisherfolk, and cultural leaders representing more than 20 Indigenous-led organizations across Oregon. As a core member, IHEI supports NIFSA through constellation map framework by providing technical expertise in data collection, evaluation, and advocacy.

In partnership with NW Food Sovereignty/Land Back stewards and Across the Medicine Lines, IHEI builds collective power by weaving shared visions to cultivate the foundations for community-based food–land wellness systems.

Our Projects

Our dream is to build a community-led data infrastructure and advocacy strategy that reshapes health policy through Indigenous self-determination.

  • Building Measurement Architecture for Indigenous Healing: In collaboration with IHEI’s Data and Advocacy Council, IHEI is developing the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Health and Wellness Impact Assessment Too. This innovative tool will address profound gaps in the research, policy, and climate-health justice work. First, it will be embedded within IHEI’s Self-Determination Framework and Domains, ensuring alignment with Indigenous governance, relational accountability, and cultural continuity. Second, it offers a structured, culturally grounded measurement module capable of documenting the health impacts of food sovereignty participation and land-based advocacy, including recovery stabilization, chronic pain management, mental health resilience, and collective well-being.

    Paired with an Institutional Readiness Toolkit aligned with OCAP® and CARE principles, this initiative ensures that public health agencies are prepared to responsibly collect, govern, and interpret Indigenous-defined indicators. Together, these tools position food sovereignty and Land Back advocacy as measurable, evidence-generating determinants of healing—without sacrificing Indigenous epistemological integrity or self-determination.

  • Across the Medicine Lines: