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UPDATE
The witness list for the September 11, 2024, hearing has been updated to reflect the participation of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the leader of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He will appear as a witness on Panel II.

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Tribal leaders, joined by lawmakers from both parties, are demanding answers from the Biden administration about a food shortage crisis that has hit the most vulnerable in Indian Country.

The Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) serves more than 50,000 people in tribal communities every month. But tribes have been dealing with delayed deliveries, empty shelves and even expired products since the start of the summer.

“Tribes and FDPIR program staff are facing food shortages and unknown wait times of to get food orders filled,” said Mary Greene Trottier, a citizen of the Spirit Lake Nation who serves as president of the National Association for Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations, which represents more than 100 tribes impacted by the crisis.

Tribes have long relied on FDPIR to feed their elders and their children. So the timing of the crisis, which began at the end of the most recent school year, has created significant challenges in Indian Country.

“This program serves some of the most vulnerable populations across the U.S., with around 30 percent of served households in Indian Country including children under 18,” said Carly Griffith Hotvedt, the interim executive director of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative, housed at the University of Arkansas. “Another 42 percent of those households have elders over the age of 60.”

“Children are our future, and elders are knowledge keepers of our tribes,” added Griffith Hotvedt, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. “These groups are critically important to us and should not be expected to endure or go without.”

Members of Congress have sent three separate bipartisan letters to the USDA, urging the agency to uphold its trust obligations to Tribes by addressing this situation in a timely manner.

Read all of the letters on our blog: https://t.co/t87hL25kVA pic.twitter.com/DhZasLO9GY

— Native Farm Bill Coalition (@NativeFarmBill) August 26, 2024

According to information shared by Greene Trottier’s organization, tribes expecting FDPIR deliveries in June didn’t see them until July. Then in July, deliveries were delayed again amid efforts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program, to address the problem.

“Tribes are deeply worried about when food will arrive and when USDA will resolve this situation,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation who chairs the powerful House Committee on Appropriations, said in an August 26 letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

“It is the federal government’s responsibility to uphold its trust and treaty obligations to tribes, and this situation must be resolved immediately,” Cole said in the bipartisan, bicameral letter, which was joined by Republican and Democratic Appropriations leaders in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

The USDA has been well aware of the crisis, according to a letter sent to FDPIR participants on June 18. The agency traced the problem to its decision to change how food is delivered to Indian Country.

According to the letter, the USDA decided to award one single contract for the receipt, storage and distribution of food shipments to tribes. Previously, FDPIR had been supported by two contractors — each with warehouses serving different parts of Indian Country.

But starting on April 1, only one contractor — identified in the letter as Paris Brothers, Inc. of Kansas City, Missouri — became responsible for FDPIR deliveries. So while the company already had experience with tribes in 16 states, the addition of 12 more states, many with larger American Indian and Alaska Native populations, to its workload resulted in “last minute delivery cancelation notifications, and unacceptable redelivery timeframes that may impact your local food inventory levels this month and potentially next month,” senior USDA officials acknowledged.

“We explicitly extend our deepest apologies to you, your tribal leadership, program staff, the community at-large, and most notably program participants for the disruption this has caused,” senior officials from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service and the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service wrote in the June 18 letter.

Yet with youth in Indian Country already back in school for another year, the FDPIR problem lingers. And lawmakers are still waiting for answers.

“Participating households have not had consistent food deliveries for over four months. This is unacceptable,” nearly two dozen members of the U.S. Senate, Democrat and Republican alike, said in a letter to Secretary Vilsack on August 27.

But Vilsack, who serves in the cabinet for outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden, will finally be publicly accounting for the FDPIR crisis at a hearing on Capitol Hill this week. Just a few days ago, the USDA secretary won praise for his work.

“Tom is doing a hell of a job as Secretary of Agriculture,” Biden said of his cabinet member at an event in Wisconsin last Thursday.

Officials from USDA Food and Nutrition Service and the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, the agencies that signed the apology letter to Indian Country, are also slated to testify before the House Committee on Appropriations, which Rep. Cole leads, and the House Committee on Agriculture. The hearing takes place at 10am Eastern on Wednesday.

The witness list for the hearing follows:

Delayed, incomplete, and missing FDPIR deliveries have become the standard under the Biden-Harris @USDA, leaving Tribes and seniors without vital nutrition access. These disruptions are unacceptable. Chairman Cole and @HouseAgGOP will hold a joint oversight on these failures. pic.twitter.com/arhjWzfuuE

— House Appropriations (@HouseAppropsGOP) September 4, 2024

The hearing comes one day before the USDA hosts an urgently-called tribal consultation on the FDPIR crisis. A framing paper outlines some of the steps the agency is taking to provide food to Indian Country — while acknowledging that the issues with the sole contractor have not been fully addressed.

“On August 26, 2024, in response to supply chain disruptions and delivery delays, USDA executed an emergency contract with Americold to provide urgent supplemental capacity in support of the FDPIR and CSFP programs,” the document states. The latter acronym refers to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program that also provides food to tribes.

Prior to USDA’s decision to consolidate the FDPIR contract, Americold of Nampa, Idaho, had been operating one of the warehouses that served Indian Country. The company is now back on board for at least six months, according to the framing paper.

“Under this contract, Americold will provide warehousing, picking, and transportation services from two locations,” the document states. “Paris Brothers will continue to provide service to both programs.”

“At this time, plans are underway to expeditiously get food to the new warehouses so that deliveries can begin as soon as possible,” the USDA asserts.

The tribal consultation on September 12 is taking place in-person at the USDA South Building in Washington, D.C., as well as virtually. Attendees are required to register at zoomgov.com/meeting/register/vJIsfu2sqj4sHOA_CTC1GquPCdm7OFfQ62Q.

Information about the USDA tribal consultation can be found at usda.gov/tribalrelations/tribal-consultations.

The USDA is also maintaining a page about the food supply disruptions at fns.usda.gov/usda-foods/supply-chain-disruptions.

Severe Food Distribution Shortages in Tribal and Elderly Communities (September 11, 2024)