Grant to help Fort Belknap feed locally

Officials have announced another grant aimed at having residents of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation growing, marketing and consuming their own food.

The Fort Belknap Community Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit on the reservation, has received a grant to study the impact a planned trading post and food pantry will have on the reservation community, it said in a press release.

Harlan Mount, executive director of the corporation, said Monday it is all part of an effort to get community members to grow, market, sell and consume their own food.  

“We want to encourage them to grow their own food, and if there is any overflow or more than they need, they can take it to the store and the store can probably purchase it from them and resell it,” he said.

The press release said the group has received a one-time $20,000 grant from First Nation Development Institute, a Colorado-based economic development organization.

The assessment will examine the local food system and ways to expand access to healthy and locally grown foods.

Mount said that, given Lodge Pole’s remote location, distance can be an obstacle in accessing healthy food.

“If you want fresh ones, you have to go to Havre, you have to go to Great Falls and Billings,” Mount said.

He said that to get any groceries, people in Lodgepole must travel to Harlem, a 90-mile trip both ways.

The trading post will consist of a pantry, grocery store and a kitchen that will be utilized for classes on canning and food preparation, Mount said.

Crops from the community garden will also be sold at the trading post.

He added that the trading post and pantry will function as a co-op with community members as stakeholders.

The Red Paint Creek Community Council first proposed the idea for a co-op. Mount said a board will manage the trading post, which will be located at Monument Peak Road.

Ray Gone, tourism director with FBCEDC, said the trading post will likely open sometime next spring.

The development corporation’s grant is separate from another effort to increase farm-to-table offerings at Fort Belknap along with four other Montana tribal groups. Billings-based Native American Development Corp. announced last week that Fort Belknap, along with Crow, Fort Peck and Northern Cheyenne reservations and Little Shell Tribe, will participate in a three-year $800,000 federal grant that will be used to create a vertically integrated system where food raised by producers on the reservation is sold at farmers markets, convenience stores, grocery stores, small retailers and trading posts.

Mount said the $20,000 grant and the Red Paint Creek Trading Post and Pantry effort is completely independent of that project.