Forging New Means to Promote Heritage Foods
In Their Agricultural Homelands
by Gary Paul Nabhan

Arizona has more heritage food diversity and a longer history of farming than any other state, but it will take implementing new strategies to help rural and tribal communities more fully benefit from this legacy. That message is among the conclusions of a new book by Northern Arizona University’s Center for Sustainable Environments, introduced and endorsed by Governor Janet Napolitano: Linking Arizona’s Sense of Place to Its Sense of Taste: Marketing the Heritage Value of Arizona’s Place-Based Foods.

In her introduction, Governor Napolitano noted that ”some of heritage foods have the potential to prevent or reduce diseases, including diabetes. Others hold promise for sustainable food production, which will be a victory for state environments and state economies alike.”

The book, written by the Center’s Gary Nabhan and Patty West in collaboration with Rich Pirog of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, provides the first-ever list of 160 heritage foods that have been harvested from Arizona’s farmlands, ranches and wildlands since before statehood n 1917. It notes which of these plant and animal foods already have commercial outlets, which have been recently honored on Slow Food’s Ark of Taste, and which are still at risk, according to a national consortium called Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT). This RAFT consortium, founded by Nabhan at the Center, was recently touted in the New York Times Thanksgiving feature, “Native Foods Flourish Again.” The RAFT consortium organized a regional workshop December 5th at Desert Botanical Gardens where 36 Native, Hispanic and Anglo American chefs, conservationists and food folklorists are developing a “Foods at Risk in Chile Pepper Nation” strategy plan for the entire Southwest.

“Our statewide surveys indicate that 1.2 million Arizonans are willing to pay premium prices for these heritage foods because of their health, cultural and environmental benefits,” explained Dr. Nabhan, Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments, “There is also a ready market among the ten million tourists who come to our state, seeking a ‘taste’ of the Old West.” He cited the recent commercial revival of products such as saguaro cactus syrup, Navajo-Churro lamb, tepary beans, prickly pear pads and chiles as success stories in niche markets.

Among the other recommendations of the book, available through the Center for $14.95, are the following:

1. Integrate the promotion of Southwestern heritage foods into interpretation, education and sales at parks, museums and visitors’ centers.

2. Establish state and tribal programs to do place-based marketing of these foods using collective trademarks, brands, ecolabels and geographic indications such as those which protect Chimayo chiles, Bordeaux wine and tequila.

3. Develop protocols to promote and ensure the sustainable harvests of wild foods on public lands, giving deference to tribes which have traditional gathering grounds in certain areas.

4. Using new national and international designations such as National Heritage Areas and Globally-Important Agricultural Heritage Landscapes to protect and promote products from Arizona’s historic and culturally-significant farm and ranch communities.

For further information, contact

Patty West or Gary Nabhan
Center for Sustainable Environments
Northern Arizona University
PO Box 5765
Flagstaff, AZ 86011
928-523-0637

Back to information about the book.
 

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