Felix Clary
ICT + Tulsa World
With the Native Farm Bill expiring in a few days, and food package delivery delays to Indian Country still persisting, tribal leaders are advocating more than ever for the bill to be reauthorized.
Tribal leaders said in a recent House Committee on Agriculture hearing in Washington D.C. that reauthorizing the farm bill, with expansions of the 638 programs, could solve these delays.
The bill not only allows tribes, including the Muscogee, Cherokee, and Osage Nation, to partake in food package delivery programs, but it helps provide funding for sustainable agricultural strategies, conservation efforts and rural development.
“Whoever is going to be controlling the food during a crisis has way too much power,” Standing Bear said at a traditional meal on the Osage reservation in Pawhuska, as he explained the tribe’s reasoning for operating Harvest Land Farms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their farm contains a 40,000-square-foot greenhouse and a 44,000-square-foot building that houses a large aquaponics system, a food processing area, and a water lab. Osage citizens are provided fresh produce year-round, as well as eggs and meat from chickens, cattle and bison that the tribe owns.
The pressure has ramped up to get the bill reauthorized since the USDA consolidated three national warehouses into one location in Kansas City, Missouri, causing food package delivery delays that have plagued tribes across the country since May.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, Chickasaw Nation, said at the Sept. 11 hearing that these delivery delays are a “failure” on the USDA’s part to listen to tribal concerns during a February tribal consultation the USDA hosted. The USDA told the tribes at the consultation that the three national USDA warehouses that deliver food packages to Indian Country will be consolidated into one location in Kansas City, Missouri.
“There is a treaty and trust responsibility to provide this product, and it wasn’t provided,” said Cole. “I am extremely disturbed by these failures that we have learned were completely preventable.”
The tribes expressed concern about this plan, but were told to just “stock up” on food items in April, as delivery delays may happen in May.
“The USDA knew there were concerns in opposition when they announced their decision… Nevertheless, they did it anyway, causing the situation at hand. It’s more than a mistake, it’s gross negligence,” Cole said.
The delays did not end in May, however, and continued into the fall, according to the tribal representatives at the Sept. 11 hearing: Marty Wafford, under secretary of Support and Programs for the Chickasaw Nation, Mary Greene-Trottier, Spirit Lake Tribe and president of the National Association of Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations, and Darrel G. Seki, Sr., chairman for the Red Lake Nation.
All three leaders also expressed that the solution to these delays may not be to undo the warehouse consolidation, but rather to make sure the farm bill is reauthorized, and that two 638 programs–the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations and Commodity Supplemental Food Program–the bill allows are expanded and made permanent.
Chief Legal & Policy Officer at Intertribal Agriculture Council Abi Fain said in a Tulsa World and ICT interview that food distribution program was one 638 programs added to the 2018 bill as a temporary test model in favor of tribal self-governance. “638” refers to programs that adhere to Indian Self-Determination, Education and Assistance Act, meaning they allow tribes to source their own food package items from local vendors, which are usually individual tribal citizens, local farmers, and other tribal nations. When the farm bill was extended in 2023, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program program adopted the 638 pilot model, meaning tribes who made use of the program could also locally source their food products.
The NFB has the option of being reauthorized every five years, the last time being in 2018. Last November, Congress had the chance to reauthorize the bill for another five years, but instead enacted a one-year extension for the current bill which expires Monday, Sept. 30. Fain said that the bill must be reauthorized before the dairy cliff date, Jan. 1, which is the last day that it can be reauthorized before being vetoed.
Wafford said at the hearing that like most Oklahoma tribes, the Chickasaw Nation’s solution to the delays has been individual citizens, employees, other tribal nations and local vendors stepping in to provide food for the citizens who are program users. She said some people would drive long distances just to deliver food items to the warehouses.
“Having this 638 program, it has been reliable. It has been successful. And during this crisis, that has been evident,” she said.
Wafford also said that the Chickasaw Nation even has its own semi-trucks that could go to Kansas City and pick up the food packages, but that the USDA denied the offer.
“We know how to feed our people,” said Wafford. Her proposed solution was to “expand self-governance. It has been proven that we know how to run our own programs.”
She also said that the Commodity Supplemental Food Program funding was designed to last a tribe three years, and that the emergency funds provided during the delays would last less than two months. Her proposed solution was to expand the 638 programs by making the funds permanent and greater.
Greene-Trottier said that the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations and Commodity Supplemental Food Program allowed the Spirit Lake Nation to use their own herd of bison for the meat packages, meaning they could offer a wider variety of meat cuts and healthier products.
“The flexibility and the variety has been outstanding and popular for our program,” she said. “But at the same time, our CSFP recipients who don’t receive FDPIR are bashing us because they’re not getting that product in their food box.”
Greene-Trottier said that if the Commodity Supplemental Food Program was expanded and permanently had a 638 model, this would offer incentive for more tribes to utilize the program.
Seki from Red Lake said that he believes with the 638 programs set as the ideal standard, his tribe would not experience these delays again.
“At Red Lake, we are fully embracing 638 for FDPIR and CSFP programs, the electronic tracking system, regional sourcing and local vendors,” he said.
This story is co-published by the Tulsa World and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Oklahoma area.
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