Our Communities

Our Communities are suffering from food insecurity.  Today, most Native communities import the vast majority of food consumed. On the White Earth reservation, for instance, over $8 million is spent annually on tribal food purchase off reservation, just by households and tribal food programs. This represents a significant drain to our tribal economies.  We can transform this through land and farm reform:  According to the United States Congress, 

“…almost 47 million of the more than 54 million acres of tribal and individual Indian trust lands are rangeland and cropland, an enormous potential food resource. Seventy percent of cropland is leased to non-Indians, and 20 percent of rangeland, reducing Native control of tribal food systems at their source. More than 8,000 Native farms operate on reservations, but they produce few crops for consumption by local households.”

(Retrieved May 30, 2007 from http://www.firstnations.org/publications/NAFSIFinalPR92903.pdf)