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- By Chez Oxendine
- Food | Agriculture
The Native Farm Bill Coalition (NFBC) is challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture over what it calls a flawed cost estimate for making a popular food sovereignty pilot program permanent.
In an Aug. 9 letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, the coalition expressed “complete shock” about the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) $380 million cost estimate over eight years for the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) program. The coalition, which represents more than 170 tribes and tribal organizations, claimed that the figure starkly contrasts estimates provided in the 2018 Farm Bill, raising concerns that the discrepancy could undermine the program’s future.
The letter sharply criticized the USDA for providing data that suggested the cost of food procured by tribes would be substantially higher than if purchased by the USDA.
“It is unclear to us how USDA and CBO came to a cost of $380 million over an eight year period when we are witnessing firsthand the progress being made with the 638 FDPIR pilot sites, which are procuring food locally and building sustainable regional food economies,” NFBC Co-Chairs Cole Miller and Kari Jo Lawrence said in a statement. “This analysis clearly ignores the fact that Tribal governments and producers alike have been building local agricultural capacity to best maximize the use of federal dollars supporting FDPIR through 638 agreements.”
The letter was sent in reaction to an Aug. 2 CBO analysis of the House Agriculture Committee’s 2024 Farm Bill proposal, H.R 8467, or the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024. That bill includes a provision, Section 4102, which would permanently allow tribes to administer FDPIR themselves. Through self-determination contracts with the USDA, tribal governments could source more local or culturally appropriate foods for their distribution packages.
These contracts are built on the Indian Self Determination And Education Assistance Act of 1975, which allows tribes to administer federally allocated resources and programs. These contracts are sometimes also called “638” contracts, owing to the section in the act that authorizes them.
Should section 4102 be enacted, the CBO analysis estimated that FDPIR would cost $380 million more in direct spending between 2025 and 2033. The report states that food procured by tribes would cost roughly 70 percent more than food procured directly by the Department of Agriculture.
The estimate represents a sharp increase in spending compared to the $34 million allocated for eight such “638” pilot projects launched in the 2018 Farm Bill. These demonstration projects, which allowed an initial set of tribes more sway in choosing foods in their FDPIR food packages, have largely been deemed successful, per prior Tribal Business News reporting.
The NFBC has made 638 programs such as the ones laid out in the House Farm Bill proposal a central part of their advocacy efforts. The group has filed a letter with the Congressional Budget Office requesting access to the supporting data. The letter also puts forth questions about which Department of Agriculture data was used in the analysis, as well as concerns over the role of inflation in cost increases.
In a joint statement, NFCB co-chairs Miller and Lawrence pair said CBO’s analysis ignores indirect savings through self-determination programs already evidenced through the 638 pilot programs. Miller and Lawrence emphasized that the FDPIR program would help reduce transportation, environmental, and healthcare costs because it would give tribal citizens access to high quality, nutritious, traditional foods that only tribal governments can provide.
That last point was echoed by Mary Green Trottier, director of FDPIR for the Spirit Lake Tribe, which began sourcing portions of their food packages from local bison producers in October 2023.
“We have had tremendous success in providing a healthier option of Tribal-grown bison as well as an enhanced variety of products to select from,” Trottier said in a statement. “And we have done this all without spending more than the federal government would have spent on serving our Tribal members. USDA’s data and CBO’s analysis is misguided.”
