What does it mean to be Sovereignty?
I started my path to knowing my food source, learning to grow food, and producing what I consume just 7 years ago. I keep learning more each day from books, mentors and observing the garden. My partner and I started the Regenerate Your Reality Project where it is our mission to restore the relationship between humans and the earth in order to build a regenerative present. We focus on seeds, growing our own food and discovering a regenerative lifestyle!
To me, food sovereignty means having the power of production in our own community and our own hands. The dictionary defines authority as, “supreme power or authority.” In the context of supply chains, I think sovereignty is about not relying on any other authority than our own.
This word gets thrown around all the time and is now a buzzword. I began my path to sovereignty realizing in my twenties that many of my choices, dreams, and aspirations were not mine. They were the product of my society, cultural norms, and my education and upbringing. I encourage you to look at your life and see how it, too, might be influenced by your society, media, education, or upbringing.
I reclaimed my power to choose when I dismantled my life, quit my job, and claimed my sovereignty through the production of my food supply, entertainment and household necessities.
On my family’s homestead, we produce kombucha, kraut, vinegar, salsas, sauces, soups, and medicinal herb blends each week.
Claim your sovereignty!
How to Achieve Food Sovereignty
With the current fragility of our global food production systems, it is important to get our families and communities prepared and food secure.
Food security, for me and the Regenerate Your Reality network, is the most important part of sovereignty. To begin your path to food security, first become abundant in your greens, veggies, herbs, roots, and fruits. Then think about more complex products. First and foremost, keep and propagate seeds. This applies no matter where you are in the world.
We recommend planting perennials, which will have a longer life cycle. All flowering plants have similar life cycles. Annual plants finish their life cycles in one growing season and need to be planted again the following season, whereas perennials live on for many years.
Here in the tropics, perennials help us to be more efficient with our time, as they grow in two summer seasons each year: dry season and wet season. Many perennials can be propagated by making a cutting, which makes it fun to reproduce abundance. Perennial plants are companions to fruit trees in a food forest.
In the tropics, some of the perennials we love to plant are: fruit trees, cranberry hibiscus, chaya/mayan spinach, mulberries, katuk, new zealand spinach, and okinawa spinach, to name a few.
If you are in the tropics, all of the following crops will produce within the year: plantains, pineapples, papayas, and bananas, as well as roots like yuca, sweet potato, potato, malanga (taro), ñampi, ñame, turmeric, and ginger.
We highly recommend that you plant your herbs and medicinals plants close to your home to easily access for daily use in teas, infusions, soups, and more.
Here is a list of trees and perennials and perennials you could plant within a hectare of land. Your wait time can vary broadly depending on which trees you choose to plant. Some fruit trees such as citrus, biriba, guanabana, pitanga (surinam cherry), dragon fruit and breadfruit will produce in as little as three years, whereas durian and mangosteen could take up to 10 years, for example.
Here is a day of harvest fully from farm as we choose to go raw for the day:
In addition to securing your own food production, we believe that partnering with local farmers and establishing a relationship with them is a key part of food security. We have our farmer on messenger and text them ahead of time which products we want and where we will pick them up each week! This activates the local economy and supports our community’s abundance.
We believe that each of us has the potential to be food secure, know where our food comes from, and to become producers of our life. It starts with awareness, questioning, planting, and knowing your farmer!
About Regenerate Your Reality
This book will inspire you to take action, ignite your passion path, and move you to adopt a more regenerative lifestyle.
When we find our passion, it attracts abundance. When we embody a loving and thriving state of being, we attract that back to us. My passion path is regeneration in every way—through mind, body, environment, and community. I believe that if enough of us take small actions, that effort magnified by millions can create real change in this world at a time when we need it most.
The Regenerate Your Reality book recently became a best seller and was featured in over 100 media outlets. Check out the article by Global Tribune, or check out some of the other articles published about our work here!
Our connection to the earth is related to everything else in our lives, and so this book offers suggestions for how to regenerate yourself, your communities, and the environment.