The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture

According to Chavonda Jacobs-Young, Ph.D. Administrator, Agricultural Research Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture, "in agricultural parlance, 'The Three Sisters' are crops planted together in a shared space: maize, beans, and squash…. Developed through [I]ndigenous agricultural practices, these three plants protect and nourish each other in different ways as they grow and provide a solid diet for their cultivators."

For many years, scholars in anthropology, history, agriculture, and food studies have studied and described the intercropping method of planting corn, beans, and squash together, commonly called the Three Sisters. While this practice is often cited in current sources as a way to improve small gardens for individual use, its historical value lies in larger-scale implementations designed to nurture and sustain entire communities.

The great majority of this research has been created by scholars who were not members of the Indigenous communities that originally developed and maintained this tradition. Thus, this short review will strive to elevate Indigenous authors and practitioners whenever possible while acknowledging that the bulk of the available publications originate from work that did not center their voices.

USDA National Agricultural Library

Three Sisters image by allispossible.org.uk is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License (CC BY-NC 2.0)

As our climate becomes more unpredictable, specific trends are beginning to reveal themselves. Water distribution is becoming problematic, and areas of the center of our country are becoming increasingly arid. The Three Sisters will assist in reducing aridity.