Don't Change The Wild Rice

Manoomin, or wild rice, is a sacred food to the Anishinaabeg, and a key part of the ecosystem of the Northern Minnesota Lakes region. Over the past decades, plant breeders have developed wild rice for paddies in Minnesota, and today most of the wild rice on the market comes from rice paddies, and indeed sixty-seven percent of it from California Each fall, millions of pounds of California wild rice comes into the state to be processed, some of that rice, if genetically engineered would irreversibly contaminate our manoomin. Minnesota is the center of the biodiversity of all wild rice. There are over 60,000 acres of natural wild rice growing throughout the lakes and rivers. Today, new work on wild rice threatens the genetic integrity of this plant. We need your help to stop any potential genetic contamination of wild rice. Go to our Action Page to see how you can help protect manoomin for the next seven generations.