Hopi Farm Talk, is another of Natwani Coalition's projects that help to educate and provide outreach for the Hopi community. Hopi Farm Talk is catered to addressing and discussing various
aspects of Hopi farming with the public via KUYI radio. Starting September 20th, 2012,
Natwani Coalition initiated Hopi Farm Talk, solidifying a consistent time slot
of being every 3rd Thursday at 8:30 am of every month. Natwani Coalition was also fortunate enough
to even have the opportunity of having our own Community Advisory Board member,
Bruce Talawyma "Tawatiyo" (DJ handle) to host the show with us.
Examples of Shows to Date
September - Recapping the 2012 Hopi Agriculture & Food
Symposium
This show gave us
the opportunity to reintroduce ourselves as Natwani Coalition to the
world. We chose to recap the very
successful and recent Hopi Agriculture and Food Symposium because of the energy
and momentum it had amongst the community. Still new and fresh in people’s
minds, we wanted to continue the rich conversation going. The show also served
to share what topics and issues the Hopi community is talking about when it
comes to Hopi Food and Agriculture. It
was a great time to get Samantha and Kyle comfortable in being on air as we are
to be co-hosts from time to time.
Overall it was a great reintroduction to Hopi Land and we were met with
great feedback and praise for the show, along with praise on the kind
of work Natwani Coalition is doing in the community.
October 18th - Harvesting for Men & Women
This show was a
more traditional Farm Talk, as the content was catered around Hopi
agriculture. We were fortunate to have Community
Advisory Board member, Leonard Talaswaima, Hopi Foundation Board of Trustee
member, Beatrice Norton, and Natwani Coalition Founder, Andy Lewis on the show
(picture on previous page). The topic
was harvesting and what it looked like for Hopi farmers and families. Leonard spoke on the aspects as a Hopi man
and what harvesting a field represents while Beatrice shared on what harvest is
like for a Hopi Woman and what receiving and storing the harvest
represents. Andy also spoke on his
experience with harvesting for industrial farmers as seen in California and
pointed out the big differences ceremonially and culturally between harvesting
of industry and Hopi. Our hope for the
show was to help remind and educate our Hopi people of the agriculture
activities that are taking place throughout Hopi. In addition, we also wanted to give the
listeners a glimpse to how unique we are as dry farmers and show that Hopi
truly puts culture in our AgriCULTURE, and find some honor in that.
November 15th - Meats & Thanksgiving
Our last show was
fun to host in that as we were the mindset of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
We examined the foods we all usually eat during this time. We also took a look at the current industrial
food system of meat production and shed light on the process of which it takes
from the “farm” aka feeding lot to the grocery store. We concluded the show reflecting on how most
of Hopi will all be participating in Thanksgiving and although it’s not a Hopi
holiday we encouraged our community to take the time and try to have a Hopi
dish this thanksgiving. We felt it’s important to get our community open to the
idea that traditional Hopi foods are healthy and is regarded as medicine by
many and should be part of our diets more than just during ceremonial
happenings. We even had an anonymous
caller during the show to tell us he was happy of the work Natwani Coalition is
doing. The caller also shared with listeners on Farm Talk how as a cancer
survivor, he agreed that Hopi foods are medicine and that during his treatment,
Hopi foods was the only food he was able to consume without which he probably
wouldn’t have survived. Though it was
one more caller than last time, it’s still 1 more call that shows a sign of
progress and promise for Hopi Farm Talk.
