InHospitable

Phoenix — America's hottest and fastest-growing big city — is on the frontlines in the fight against drought, extreme heat, and wildfire. We bring you stories of how these global problems affect real Arizonans, and what is being done to solve them. This podcast series is supported by the Arizona Community Foundation and Intel.


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A Better Food Future: PhD Researcher and Hopi Farmer

Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a PhD researcher and Hopi traditional farmer
Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a PhD researcher and Hopi traditional farmer, advocates for the restoration of the American Indian food system. "Out of that beautiful things can happen," he said.
Resources
Colored Corn
Heirloom Hopi corn has been grown for millennia in Northern Arizona. Indigenous-grown corn and other vegetables have more minerals and greater nutritional density than conventionally grown produce. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)
Hopi Field
Michael Kotutwa Johnson splits his time between his home on the Hopi reservation, where he grows corn with traditional methods, and Tucson where he works as an extension specialist with the University of Arizona.(Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson
Planting Traditionally
When Michael Kotutwa Johnson attended Cornell, he was taught it takes over 30 inches of rainfall to grow corn. He knew that was wrong because using traditional methods, they grow corn on the Hopi reservation. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)
Contributor
Anthony J. Wallace

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Food production is responsible for 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions and in the Western United States, 80% of water consumption—but it could be done more sustainably. Michael Kotutwa Johnson is a Hopi traditional farmer, PhD researcher, and opera singer—and he is a proponent of applying Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (or ITEK) to agriculture. Indigenous people across the world have fine-tuned methods for living sustainably in their ecosystems and those methods hold powerful solutions for our biggest environmental problems.

Producers
Anthony J. Wallace