Longmont’s First Nations secures $300,000 USDA grant

LONGMONT — First Nations Development Institute has received a two-year grant of $297,506 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to assist Native American farmers and ranchers in Arizona. First Nations will match part of the grant amount from other sources, bringing the total project budget to $371,883.

The goal of the “Business Development with Native American Beginning Farmers and Ranchers in Arizona” project is to provide training and technical assistance, as well as networking opportunities, to three groups of Native American farmers and ranchers to build their business capacity and help them expand and improve the management of their ranching operations on Native American reservations. The project will culminate in August 2019. Through a previous grant from the Walmart Foundation, First Nations has already worked with the farmers and ranchers, and the new NIFA grant will allow additional training and development of their enterprises and individual skills.

Priority topics to be addressed include basic livestock, land-management and crop-farming practices; entrepreneurship and business training; natural-resource management and planning; diversification and marketing strategies; basic food safety; and other items that are relevant to recent or beginning farmers and ranchers.

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First Nations will work with Grasshopper Livestock Association (serving the White Mountain Apache Tribe); 14-R Ranch Inc. (serving the Navajo Nation); and Point of Pines Livestock Association (serving the San Carlos Apache Tribe).