Prior to the arrival of the first European settlers early in the 17th Century, an estimated 50 million Native Americans tilled the land in the area that became the United States, gathered food in the forests, hunted bison and other wild ruminant animals and generally lived good lives. There were no domesticated draft animals native to the region, so whatever cultivation they undertook was generally in small plots and tilling took place by hand or with fairly primitive tools.
In some of the earliest settlements in North America, specifically in Jamestown (in modern-day Virginia), and the Plymouth colony (in modern day Massachusetts), the original settlers that survived their first winter in North America did so at least in part due the assistance of local Native American tribes. The settlers obtained significant amounts of food from their neighbors and also learned more appropriate farming techniques for the terrain and climate they were now living in.
During this period, a widely used agricultural practice among Native American tribes in both Central and North America was to raise three crops in combination, the so-called Three Sisters farming practice. This practice involves growing corn, squash, and beans together on small hills in fields in a mutually beneficial manner. The corn stalks provided structure for the beans to climb as they mature and grow, the beans (a legume crop) provided nitrogen in the soil for the corn to use, and the squash provided ground cover for the other two crops, which helps to suppress weeds and conserve moisture. When grown together, the Three Sisters yield up to 20 percent more produce than being grown separately while using a smaller plot of land that requires less water and less fertilizer—all good for the environment.
This practice was first developed in Mexico where the ancestral crop to corn called teosinte originated, and gradually migrated northwards over several centuries. It was being used widely by tribes in what became the U.S. Northeast, like the Iroquois Nation, when the Pilgrims first arrived to found the Plymouth Colony in 1620.
Together, the complementary amino acids of the Three Sisters crops form complete proteins, which virtually eliminated the need for meat in the Native American diet prior to the arrival of European settlers. In addition, traditional white corn also contains a slow-release carbohydrate that is now known to help prevent and regulate diabetes – a quality today’s more popular yellow corn lacks. Diabetes was almost unknown among Native Americans until the 20th century, but now the ailment is more prevalent among that community than in the U.S. general population.
The Three Sisters practice was an early version of what is now called intercropping or companion planting, in which multiple crops are raised in the same field to generate complementary benefits for each other. Intercropping is now considered to be a highly regenerative agricultural practice that is approved for adoption under USDA’s conservation programs (Code E328N), although it is still seen by most U.S. farmers as an experimental practice that they might try on a few fields but not their entire operation.
Prescribed burning is another practice that was widely used by Native Americans, especially in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest that helped them manage their local forests, meadows, and prairies for select species. They viewed it as a cultural responsibility, due to its role in maintaining the spiritual continuity of the Native American communities by creating the biodiverse, sustainable growth that made their landscapes more resilient.
Unfortunately, Native American tribal members were barred from using this practice on their lands for much of the 20th century. The U.S. Forest Service, established as a separate entity in 1891 as part of the Interior Department (and moved to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1905), describe themselves as fighting wildland fires for more than 100 years on their website. For most of that period, their focus was on suppressing fires as soon as they broke out. With that priority, they failed to recognize for many decades the preventive role that a modest prescribed burn to achieve fuel reduction in a given forest or prairie under controlled conditions could serve in reducing the possibility of massive wildfires later on. The utility of this practice was officially acknowledged by the Forest Service in 1978.
The frequency and scope of wildfires has increased exponentially in recent decades, not only in the Western U.S. but in parts of the country not used to the phenomenon. Today’s wildfires are burning nearly twice as much tree cover as they did in 2004, resulting in an additional three million hectares of tree cover loss per year. Climate change and the spread of invasive species in coniferous forests (such as the bark beetle) have both been significant contributing factors to the increasing severity of this problem.
The number of acres treated with prescribed burns has grown steadily in the last decade or so. Based on data collected by the federal Interagency Fire Center, there were less than 900,000 acres treated with prescribed burns in 1998, increasing to more than 9 million acres in 2020. The largest number of prescribed burns are typically conducted by state government agencies or other non-federal entities (about 70 percent as of 2019), and the U.S. Forest Service was the largest federal entity involved in this activity, accounting for about 20 percent in 2019.
Members of Native American tribes are now being allowed to use this practice on their lands, although they are required to apply for and receive permits and submit an approved safety plan to state or federal agencies before doing so.
Variations of both intercropping and prescribed burns are prime examples of how agricultural practices used long ago by Native Americans are now being embraced by contemporary conservation experts, and why so-called Traditional Ecological Knowledge (or TEK) should be explored as a reservoir of timeless ideas and concepts that can be adapted for modern agriculture.
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