Agriculture This Week: Healing wounds: Treaty Land Sharing Network builds bridges

Jun 09, 2023

YORKTON - We all need to be willing to change if the efforts of truth and reconciliation are going to heal old wounds and build a better foundation for our future.

Part of the process is recognizing what treaties are.

While I am in no way an expert I do recognize they are far more than the First Nations giving up their lands in exchange for small tracts of reserve land.

For many non-aboriginals it is sadly what they think the treaties were, although to be fair, given the history which shows treaties ignored and broken, it would be difficult to fully appreciate the documents. Even history taught in the classroom has been decidedly whitewashed for decades.

Clearly it is time for a change, and one small step in that effort seems to be the Treaty Land Sharing Network.

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Video: How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Across the open plains of North Dakota and South Dakota, sunflower fields turn the American landscape into a sea of gold. In this farming documentary, we go inside modern sunflower farming to see how farmers plant, grow, harvest, clean, dry, process, and transform sunflower seeds into valuable products used every day.

In 2024, American farmers harvested about 1.15 billion pounds of sunflowers. This video follows the full journey from warm spring planting to combine harvesting, seed cleaning, storage, oil extraction, refining, roasting, packaging, and animal feed production.

You will see how sunflower seeds are processed into cooking oil, roasted snacks, bakery ingredients, birdseed, livestock feed, and useful byproducts. From golden fields to modern processing plants, this is the story of how a beautiful flower becomes one of America’s important oilseed crops.

Watch until the end to discover how sunflower farming connects farmers, machines, factories, food production, and sustainable agriculture.