Polycropping
Polycropping is an Indigenous regenerative agriculture practice where complementary plants are grown together to create strategic allyship — a thriving, interconnected ecosystem in which each plant contributes to the wellbeing of the others. The growing of corn, green beans, and squash together, called the Three Sisters, is one well-known example, and gives the Office of the 3 Sisters its name. The Office uses polycropping as the model for how its three sister organizations grow side by side.
The agricultural practice
The source overview describes it plainly: complementary plants are grown together so that each contributes to the wellbeing of the others, rather than competing for the same resources or growing in isolation. The Three Sisters — corn, beans, and squash — are the Office's own naming example, and the source of its name.
The organizing metaphor
The Office of the 3 Sisters names itself after this practice: a polycropping of three organizations which grow together for mutual support and allyship rather than compete or operate in isolation.
- CoALA (CoALA and the Hampina Path) — Eldest Sister; community-conscious lifelong learning and ethical livelihoods.
- HWSY (HWSY — Hampina Wasi Sacha Yachay) — Middle Sister; Indigenous ways of knowing, sanctuary, and language honoring.
- CDRR (Center for Decolonial Reparatory Research (CDRR)) — Youngest Sister; decolonial reparations research and relational repair.
As the HWSY and CDRR pages put it, each Sister supports the others' root systems: HWSY provides the epistemic and spiritual grounding that CoALA's curriculum and CDRR's research both draw from and return to, and CDRR's research connects directly to the Community Research Keepers and Community Research Stewards roles within the Earth Stewardship Program. None of the three Sisters is a self-contained program — the polycropping framing is meant literally, not just as a name.
Related pages
- Office of the 3 Sisters — Wiki — the wiki index and organizational overview
- CoALA and the Hampina Path — Eldest Sister in the polycropping
- HWSY — Hampina Wasi Sacha Yachay — Middle Sister; describes the Office as "modeled on polycropping"
- Center for Decolonial Reparatory Research (CDRR) — Youngest Sister; describes its place "in the polycropping"
- Glossary — Quechua-Kichwa and Office Terms — glossary entry for Polycropping
Type: concept · Also known as: Polycropping