Across the Global North, agroecology is emerging as a response to national and international food system crises driven by industrialized food production and the global corporate food regime (Holt-Giménez and Altieri, 2013; Méndez et al., 2013; Gallardo-López et al., 2018; Isaac et al., 2018; Bless et al., 2023). Born out of the Green Revolution, for decades industrial agriculture has dominated farming practice, restructuring farms and food systems in the process. With the promise of higher yields and access to expanded markets, farmers have adopted proprietary technologies such as genetically modified seeds and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, they have mechanized their operations, and have adjusted to value chain integration and corporate consolidation of lands and resources (Kilby, 2019; Sumberg and Giller, 2022; Clapp, 2023; Magnan et al., 2023).

Although industrial agriculture has delivered some short-term yield gains for select crops and increased farmers’ access to global commodities markets, it is also a leading source of the global greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis and the collapse of planetary boundaries that sustain environmental and human health (Conijn et al., 2018; Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change [IPCC], 2019). Studies show that mechanization as well as use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides contribute to soil degradation, water contamination and biodiversity loss (Daum et al., 2020; IPCC, 2019; Sumberg and Giller, 2022). They also have human health impacts ranging from immune system, respiratory, and neurological disorders, to nitrate toxicity, and cancer (Jote, 2023; Blair et al., 2025). Social and economic justice issues connected to this food regime, such as exploiting migrant worker rights, foreign and corporate land purchases, dismantling of marketing boards and corporate consolidation within the food value chain are coming into focus amidst increasing household food insecurity and rising food prices (Isaac et al., 2018; Dale, 2020; Laforge et al., 2021). As protectionist trade policies are being adopted among global powers, we are witnessing a retraction of the neo-liberal free trade agenda, the consequences of which are catastrophic for farmers and food systems as they face deteriorating global commodities markets.

To address the multiple and constantly evolving challenges we face globally to feed our communities, we are presented with diverse agrifood system narratives that contrast industrial agriculture and the global corporate food regime. Organics, permaculture, biodynamics, and agroecology, as well as regenerative, conservation, and climate-smart agricultures all have global footprints with varied histories, ideologies, and power dynamics in their struggles to challenge the dominant food system model (Isaac et al., 2018; Bless et al., 2023). Agroecology, which began among Indigenous and peasant movements in Latin America, has resonated with a global contingent of food actors (Holt-Giménez and Altieri, 2013; Isaac et al., 2018; Bless et al., 2023) as a social movement, a science, and a practice playing out across agrarian landscapes (Wezel et al., 2009). As a movement, agroecology questions the motivations of the existing political and corporate powers and their influence on sustainable rural livelihoods (Gliessman, 2013). As science, it seeks to address environmental, social and economic challenges across scales from the farm to the food system (Wezel and Soldat, 2009). As a practice, it embeds inclusive community building in extension and knowledge sharing to facilitate solidarity, shared values, and transformative action (Méndez et al., 2013; Laforge and Levkoe, 2018; Laforge et al., 2021). Agroecology’s ideological roots draw on the global food sovereignty movement, championed by the Via Campesina (VC), a grassroots collaborative of Indigenous and peasant farmers, pastoralists, fishers, and labourers promoting agroecology as an alternative to industrial agriculture, globalization and corporate control (Desmarais and Wittman, 2014; Isaac et al., 2018; Dale, 2020).

In Canada, where this research is situated, agroecology is slowly emerging from a mosaic of sustainable production practices, characterized predominately by organic agriculture and localized value chains that connect farmers and consumers through shared values of equity and environmentalism (Isaac et al., 2018; Nicholls and Altieri, 2018; Gliessman, 2019). The movement is finding a diverse audience with farmers and farm workers through the efforts of national VC members, Union Paysanne and the National Farmers Union, to connect agriculture to broader environmental, social and economic justice, food and land sovereignty, and Indigenous reconciliation issues and to support farmers as they seek solutions to reverse agriculture’s environmental impacts with agroecological practices (Desmarais and Wittman, 2014; Isaac et al., 2018; Dale, 2020; Laforge et al., 2021). Regional expressions of agroecology reflect the diverse contexts, cultures, food systems and landscapes of the country (Isaac et al., 2018). For example, on the Prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), where industrial agriculture and global markets drive the regional economy, climate change and the politics of the global market are forcing farmers to adapt to mitigate risks. Prairie agroecology is driven by a concern for the well-being of Prairie lands, families, and communities, and is practiced through sustainable farming that supports ecosystem health (Bowness et al., 2024).

In the Canadian North, agroecology is being imagined amid settler discussions of the potential contributions of a commercial agriculture sector to local food security and regional economic development contrasted by discourses on Indigenous self-determination, reconciliation, Land and food sovereignty, sustainable livelihoods, and economic diversification amidst an on-going climate emergency (Wilson et al., 2020; Johnston and Spring, 2021; Lemay et al., 2021; Price et al., 2022; Spring et al., 2025). In 2023, 19 of the Northwest Territories’(NWT), 33 communities were evacuated as wildfires burned 3.4 million ha of boreal forest (MNP, 2024). In Kakisa, home of the Ka’a’gee Tu First Nation (KTFN), fires came within 14 km of the community boundaries. KTFN community leaders remained to protect traditional lands and community infrastructure. Isolated for several weeks and without access to a store, community members consumed vegetables from the community garden to supplement reserves of traditional foods such as moose and fish.

Northern agroecology, put forth by KTFN, Sambaa K’e First Nation (SKFN) and Price and colleagues (2022), is characterized by land stewardship, collective governance, diverse economies, and food sovereignty rooted in Indigenous values of the region. These principles stem from an Indigenous culture of care for people and the Land and over a millennium of building relationships with and knowledge about the surrounding environment and the traditional food system (Price et al., 2022; Spring et al., 2025). Traditional food systems in the North are characterized by harvesting food sustainably using subsistence practices—hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering— that incorporate sharing and reciprocity among kin to balance land stewardship with community food security (Spring et al., 2018; Ross and Mason, 2020; Natcher et al., 2022). These activities have long played a central role in the collective well-being of Indigenous people, supporting cultural continuity, social cohesion, food security and sustainable livelihoods (Berkes and Ross, 2013; Council of Canadian Academies [CCA], 2014; Gutierrez et al., 2023; Kuhnlein, 2014; Lemke and Delormier, 2017; Spring et al., 2018). Intimately connected to the food system, Indigenous relationships based on reciprocity have maintained healthy people and healthy environments across generations (Johnston and Spring, 2021; Price et al., 2022; Spring et al., 2020, 2025; Wilson et al., 2020). These relationships ensure food system sustainability by balancing community food security with habitat and species conservation (Raja et al., 2017; Spring et al., 2025).

As climate change increases the risk and uncertainty of successful harvests, Indigenous communities are looking to sustainable food production to reverse the nutrition transition to highly processed retail foods (Damman et al., 2008; Kuhnlein, 2014). This nutrition transition contributes to high rates of food insecurity, diet-related illnesses, and weakened food sovereignty across the region (Luongo et al., 2020; Loukes et al., 2021; Mobetty et al., 2025; Slack et al., 2025). An agroecological transformation in this context therefore involves revitalizing traditional food harvesting activities and adopting new, alternative forms of sustainable food production to ensure local food activities remain central to community well-being and sovereignty (Price et al., 2022). As Kuhnlein (2014) notes, “for Indigenous Peoples to reverse the deterioration they see in their food systems, and to contribute to food system sustainability, activism for cultural renewal and ecosystem restoration is an important part of that picture” (p. 2418). Agroecology offers a way to realize these goals through social mobilization, and sustainable practices rooted in science and place-based knowledge.

This article showcases insights from a community-driven, food systems planning initiative in Kakisa, NWT Canada that incorporates agroecology rooted in Indigenous values, principles, and Traditional Knowledge of the region. Taking a participatory action research (PAR) approach, the KTFN designed a vision and action plan for their food system using the Community Agroecological Values Framework (CAVF) (Temmer et al., 2025). The CAVF was developed through an iterative process with KTFN during the development of their food system action plan. Principles of agroecology adapted for the northern context (Price et al., 2022) were incorporated into the research in response to community-identified shortcomings of existing analysis frameworks to incorporate community values when framing food system actions and outcomes (Spring et al., 2018; Snider, 2021). The result was a novel approach that integrates the systems logic and holistic nature of the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) (Emery and Flora, 2006; Flora et al., 2016) and Indigenous values embedded in northern agroecology (Price et al., 2022) to foster a community-oriented approach to food systems planning. In this article we outline the participatory planning process KTFN used to develop their food system action plan, and we describe the plan’s goals and objectives highlighting their connection to the CAVF dimensions. Finally, we discuss agroecology’s role in fostering healthy northern communities and environments and how the CAVF as a conceptual framework and a participatory planning tool can facilitate agroecological transformations for Indigenous communities across the North and potentially elsewhere.

This research highlights work in Kakisa, a Dene community in Denendeh (NWT, Canada), describing their progress toward sustainable food system transformation and climate change adaptation as they work to conceptualize an agroecology model that aligns with Dene worldviews and is suited to local context. The Dene are also known as Athapaskan peoples whose ancestral homelands are spread across Northern Canada, Alaska, and parts of the Southern United States. Across Denendeh, Dene communities are connected through common language, identity, relationships, and shared struggles for land and food sovereignty (Dene Nation, n.d). Located in Denendeh’ s Dehcho region, Kakisa is KTFN’s sole settlement. Figure 1 depicts Kakisa’s location in the region. Like many northern communities, Kakisa is characterized by its remoteness, small population, and mixed land- and wage-based economy CCA, 2014; Ross and Mason, 2020; Hancock et al., 2022). The community of approximately 40 people is located about 140 km northwest of the Town of Hay River, and has a band office, a community hall, a one-room K-9 school, and a cultural camp located near the mouth of First River, a small tributary flowing into Kakisa Lake, to the south of the community. Newly constructed emergency cabins are also situated throughout KTFNs territory to enhance safety for land-based activities.

KTFN’s traditional food system is intimately connected to the community’s identity and well-being. Many people in Kakisa participate seasonally in land-based activities such as hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering berries and medicinal plants. Community members fish a variety of lake fish including Walleye (Sander vitreus), Arctic Grayling (Thymallus arcticus), and Suckers (Catostomus commersonii) (Spring et al., 2025), and eat moose which is harvested in the winter and fall seasons. Harvesters also hunt wild ducks, geese, beaver, caribou, bison, rabbit, grouse, and muskrat (household interviews, June 2023). Traditional foods are shared among Kakisa families and regionally through Traditional Food Sharing Networks consisting primarily of relatives and friends (household interviews, June 2023). While the traditional food system plays an important role in community and regional food security, climate change is placing pressure on traditional lands and making it more difficult to access these important food sources (Spring et al., 2018).

To adapt to these landscape and climate changes, KTFN has begun growing food to diversify their diet and contribute to their land and food sovereignty goals. Since 2014, the community has maintained a small garden, expanding efforts exponentially in recent years. Currently, garden infrastructure includes two greenhouses, a 0.10 ha garden plot, raised beds and a tool shed. All garden food is shared with households at no cost. Although the garden has produced significant benefits, for some community members, growing food has been met with unease. Until the 1950’s Kakisa families, like other Dene in the region, migrated seasonally to harvest food and had strong relationships with the Land (KTFN, 2024). In the early 1900’s agriculture was introduced to the Dene through church and colonial government initiatives such as residential school education, settlement policies, and community agriculture programs designed in part to assimilate Indigenous people in the region (Price, 2023). For many who have experienced these policies and programs, the traumas associated with this colonial legacy are intertwined with the practice of growing food. In KTFN, the urgent need to address climate change impacts on their traditional food system, have prompted on-going conversations about how to ensure growing food is culturally reaffirming and contributes to community betterment (Johnston and Spring, 2021; Price et al., 2022; Spring et al., 2025).

For over a decade, KTFN has partnered with researchers from diverse fields to study climate change impacts on their land (Day et al., 2020; Dixon et al., 2020; Greuel et al., 2021; Bysouth, 2023; Jorgensen et al., 2023) and traditional food system (Simba and Spring, 2017; Spring et al., 2018; Johnston and Spring, 2021) and tested community-oriented solutions that incorporate sustainability principles inherent in local Dene values and principles (Kok, 2020; Jayaratne, 2021; Snider, 2021; Malandra, 2023; Woodworth et al., 2024). These relationships are an essential component of the research as they built trust, facilitate knowledge sharing and promote the scaling-up of successful local food system innovations (Spring et al., 2020). Through this partnership, KTFN continues to explore new and innovative food projects aimed at increasing access to healthy foods and supporting self-determination based on local values of land stewardship, care for others, and cultural resurgence.

To date, research initiatives including traditional place name mapping and hunter safety education and participatory mapping for landscape resilience (Kok, 2020; Jayaratne, 2021; Kerubo Ombwori, 2025), recycling and composting (Snider, 2021), soil analysis (Bysouth, 2023); gardening (Malandra, 2023; Temmer, 2025), native berry species transplanting in the fuel break (Johnston, in progress), food distribution (Rodriguez Reyes, 2024; Rodriguez Reyes et al., 2025) and on-the-land camps (Woodworth et al., 2024). Despite its small population, the community is a regional leader in sustainable food systems transformation and climate change adaptation.

In 2013, KTFN and university researchers initiated a community-based research partnership to understand and address climate change impacts on KTFN’s traditional food system. An output of this initial community-research partnership was a food security action plan including suggested steps and action research projects to strengthen food system sustainability (Spring et al., 2018). KTFN’s food system research, including the present work, takes a participatory action research (PAR) approach with the community partners guiding the process. PAR is ideal for Indigenous communities engaged in research as it embeds the research in local realities, and facilitates new ideas, actions and relationships for community benefit (Kemmis, 2010; Castleden et al., 2012). It also drives active collaboration among research partners emphasizing co-learning to solve local challenges (Méndez et al., 2017). In practice, PAR is cyclical process that involves multiple iterations of posing questions and planning, acting, observing the process, and reflecting on the processes and outcomes (McTaggart et al., 2017). Using this approach, over time KTFN and researchers have established relationships built on the four Rs of Indigenous research (respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility) that are further nurtured by subsequent projects, research, and friendships, solidifying this into a partnership (Castleden et al., 2012; Leeuw et al., 2012).

The framework used to guide the action plan, the CAVF, builds on two complementary theoretical frameworks—the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) (Emery and Flora, 2006; Fey et al., 2006; Spring et al., 2018) and agroecology adapted to a northern context (Price et al., 2022). The CAVF is a systems-based, values-oriented framework that enables communities to assess their current food systems, envision a desired future state, and develop action plans grounded in Indigenous values and worldviews (Temmer et al., 2025). Using this framework, the research characterizes the community’s food system, details its current state and future vision, and identifies local strengths, gaps and challenges, and opportunities within the current food system to develop a community plan that supports food system sustainability and community self-sufficiency goals.

By addressing the limitations of the CCF’s technical language and incorporating dimensions modelled on agroecology in the North, the CAVF integrates local knowledge systems and Dene cultural values into food systems assessment. This approach expands existing community-level planning paradigms by emphasizing dimensions such as Land and Water Stewardship, Healthy Relationships, and Traditional Knowledge and Culture. Building on the participatory values-based approach of the CCF and northern agroecology, the CAVF addresses the unique needs of northern Indigenous food systems. The CCF has been widely used in rural development and community resilience initiatives globally (Emery and Flora, 2006; Gutierrez-Montes et al., 2009; Sseguya et al., 2009; Pigg et al., 2013; Spring et al., 2018; Cafer et al., 2019; Natarajan et al., 2022; Spring et al., 2023). Derived from the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), the CCF focuses on empowering communities by leveraging existing resources for sustainable development (Scoones, 1998). The CCF identifies seven capital categories—natural, social, cultural, human, political, financial, and built—that contribute to community resilience and sustainability outcomes (Emery and Flora, 2006; Pigg et al., 2013). However, KTFN has noted that the CCF’s language was difficult for community members to understand, and the capitals categories did not fully resonate with their holistic understanding of their food system, which emphasize relationships with people, nature, and more-than-human elements (Spring et al., 2018; Snider, 2021; Spring et al., 2023). These findings align with broader critiques of the CCF’s limitations in capturing Indigenous cultural values and relationships (Kamal et al., 2015; Huambachano, 2018; Rosset et al., 2021; Natarajan et al., 2022; Tsuji et al., 2023).

To address these limitations, the CAVF integrates the systems-oriented structure of the CCF with the values-based dimensions modelled on agroecology adapted to a northern context which was developed in partnership with Indigenous communities in the NWT (Price et al., 2022). The CAVF expands on the CCF by incorporating seven relational dimensions: Skills and Capacities, Traditional Knowledge and Culture, Land and Water Stewardship, Economies, Governance, Healthy Relationships, and Supportive Infrastructure. These dimensions, grounded in Dene laws and worldviews, emphasize self-sufficiency through collective decision-making, stewardship of the Land, and the importance of maintaining harmonious relationships for community well-being. This approach to food systems planning offers a contextually relevant framework for Indigenous communities in northern Canada, supporting their efforts for self-determination, food sovereignty, sustainability, and resilience in the face of external pressures of modernization, colonial governance, and climate change (Grey and Patel, 2015; Kamal et al., 2015; Daigle, 2019; Kepkiewicz and Dale, 2019; Dorries, 2022).

In, 2023, the partnership celebrated 10 years of research and relationships. In June, a workshop was organized in Kakisa, where researchers and community members gathered to reflect on the progress made toward their goal of building a more resilient food system and developing a new vision for the future. During this workshop, community members reflected on the previous 10 years of food systems work and mapped a vision for the future based on new knowledge and understanding generated through their experiences during the previous decade.

The authors include both researchers and KTFN community members. JT and AS are non-Indigenous researchers of European descent from Southern Canada. JT is an early career researcher and rural community planner who has collaborated with Indigenous communities in Central America and Northern Canada supporting action research on sustainable agri-food systems through agroecology. AS has worked closely with communities across Northern Canada for over a decade to design and implement community-driven solutions for food system sustainability. Both researchers have lived in Kakisa and have strong relationships with the community through their on-going community-led research on food system and climate change adaptation. This research was conducted in collaboration with KTFN and is part of a doctoral research project for JT. LC and RS are Dene and KTFN community members living in Kakisa. Both have key leadership roles- LC is KTFN’s longstanding chief, and RS is the band manager- and both spearhead community initiatives for greater food system sustainability and community well-being.

This case study presents the findings from a local food system planning process involving KTFN, a Dene community in northern Canada. As a PAR study, it supports KTFN’s efforts to create and implement a vision for their food system that accurately reflects their values and perspectives and respects their ways of knowing, being, and doing. The food system action planning process represented a significant milestone in an ongoing community-research partnership aimed at addressing and adapting to climate change impacts on KTFN’s traditional food system (Spring et al., 2018). The KTFN community food system action plan was designed using the CAVF; a food system framework developed in collaboration with KTFN that takes an approach to food systems planning that draws on the strengths orientation and systems structure of CCF and integrates value perspectives of agroecology in a northern context. The CAVF presented KTFN with a broad framework to establish connections among a range of community priorities that intersect with their food system activities such as taking action on climate change, sustainable livelihoods, safety on the Land and within the community, environmental stewardship, cultural resurgence, social cohesion, appropriate infrastructure, and food sovereignty. The plan illustrates the interdependencies among cultural, natural, and social components within the food system and their contributions to community well-being. It also emphasizes the importance that community members place on relationships and responsibilities between people and the Land, a recurring theme found within many Indigenous worldviews.

Case studies of this nature are essential as they provide researchers, planners, and advocates for Indigenous food sovereignty with critical insights into food systems planning with Indigenous communities and agroecology’s contributions to driving sustainable transitions by integrating local values, perspectives, and priorities into the development and implementation of food system initiatives. Community-led food system planning and interventions yield considerable impacts when they adopt bottom-up approaches at the community scale and are vital for advancing Indigenous objectives related to self-determination. As food systems are place-based, they require tailored strategies that consider local context. The CAVF was designed in collaboration with KTFN and has supported food system transformation in the community. However, it remains to be seen whether this framework resonates with Indigenous communities across the North and elsewhere. Nonetheless, this case study provides insights into how northern agroecology can provide guidance for building healthy food systems. Furthermore, such case studies address a significant gap in the existing literature and have the potential to inspire communities aiming to develop food system action plans with Indigenous communities in rural and remote settings.