A bulldozer beeps intermittently as it clears land for traditional Native American farming. Ten minutes away, customers clink forks, stir drinks and chitchat in a bustling café in Sells, Ariz.
The farm and the café are both part of Tohono O'odham Community Action's effort to introduce healthy eating and lifestyles to the members of the nation.
"In Indian populations diabetes is everywhere," said Noland Johnson, farm manager for Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA). "We have people to be educated, to know what's out here and to actually have it available so we can have a choice. That's what [the farming] program does."
More than 29 percent of southern Arizona's Native American adults have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and up to 65 percent of Native Americans are obese, according to the American Obesity Association.
These epidemics are "the main inspiration" behind nonprofit TOCA's push for a healthier O'odham community, said Terrol Dew Johnson, co-founder of TOCA, which has been operating for 14 years.
Desert Rain Café
Midday on a recent Friday, the Desert Rain Café is packed – the tables are full and a line forms at the register.
Customers are not only there for the healthy food the café serves, but also a touch of traditional O'odham culture. All the food served has at least one element of the O'odham's native foods – desert hummus is made from the white "bawi" tepary bean and wheat pancakes are served with prickly pear agave syrup.
Desert Rain Café has been open for a year and is located in the same building as TOCA's offices. Across a small hallway from the café is a store filled with handmade baskets, books and figurines depicting O'odham traditions.
Desert Rain Café is both a restaurant and a place for community members to volunteer their time, for example, by making tamales served in the café.
"The café's a big part of [TOCA's goal of a healthier nation]," said Amy Juan, a TOCA intern. "It's a way for the community to have an option to be healthy... A lot of other places to eat here are [offering], like, hamburgers."
Traditional Farming
Far from the immense mass-producing farms that yield most of the country's food supply, TOCA's farm is currently only four acres but is expanding. Right now, the farm is mostly dirt waiting for summer monsoons to quench the land so the O'odham community can farm in the traditional way of their ancestors.
Although the farm has only been operating for one season, the Tohono O'odhams have always been farmers. Due to the World Wars and the federal government's efforts to have O'odhams work and study off the nation, the traditional farming methods haven't been widely practiced in the past 50 or so years.
Therefore new food sources, like McDonald's and fried foods, were introduced into the community's diet.
However, last year, the "bawi" tepary bean crop produced at TOCA's farm fed customers at the café and local students.
Noland Johnson's grandfather had fields where the TOCA farm now sprouts traditional crops like corn, squash and tepary bean below a wide, expansive sky dotted with birds of prey. Noland even received some "bawi" seeds from his grandmother, he said.
"It's too bad that we couldn't keep [the traditional farming] up and provide for our school's lunches or for our own families now," Noland Johnson said. "But I'm slowly seeing a movement where ... youth now know that we were farmers. They actually see and eat and taste what we used to grow."
The crops and farming methods are not the only traditional aspects of TOCA's farms.
"The farm hits many levels," Terrol said. "It hits the fact that we are able to learn the songs and practice the ceremonies that go with planting seeds, working on the farm, ... the products that come out of the farm. So the farm is actually a tool to help us get into the community, also to preserve the language and the culture of the O'odham people."
School Lunches
In the end of March, with the help of a three-year W.K. Kellogg Foundation grant, TOCA served 1,000 meals to students of all ages that featured the traditional O'odham "bawi" or tepary bean, said Karen Blaine, the grant's program director.
Students in the Indian Oasis-Baboquivari Unified School District ate white-tepary-bean and green-chili chicken stew and brown-tepary-bean quesadillas, she said. Next school year Blaine hopes the traditional foods will be a weekly event in all schools on the nation, including private schools.
By introducing traditional Native American foods to schools, TOCA also hopes more people will learn to farm the traditional O'odham crops.
"We can't produce the food if we don't have the farmers," Blaine said. "So, we're really trying to encourage more young people or even just community members to learn more about farming and how it can be sustainable [and economical]."
