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WASHINGTON, D.C. – For several months, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) has been experiencing significant issues with delivery delays across the country. FDPIR is utilized by low-income families on reservations to receive fresh food. Due to USDA consolidating the program into a single distributor, incomplete, delayed, and missed deliveries have left families without a vital source of food. The program serves 276 tribes, including those in North Dakota.

U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) met with Mary Greene-Trottier to discuss how the delays have impacted the Spirit Lake Tribe. Greene-Trottier serves as Director of the Tribe’s Food Distribution Program and President of the National Association of FDPIR, and prior to the meeting with Cramer  before the House Committee on Appropriations to discuss the critical role the program plays in the Spirit Lake Tribe’s food security safety net.

“Secretary Vilsack may have called this a mistake, but it was in fact a massive failure,” said Cramer. “Participants were promised a smooth transition, but instead were met with disruptions and shortages of staple items like flour and canned goods. Despite warnings from tribal partners about the implementation timeline for distributor consolidation, USDA ignored them and proceeded anyway. I appreciate Ms. Greene-Trottier taking the time to testify before Congress and shed light on this shortcoming. USDA needs to step in to rectify these delivery problems, and ensure families can depend on FDPIR.”

“Our program sites are among the most remote sites in the United States,” said Mary Greene-Trottier in her testimony. “We feed some of the most vulnerable people in the United States who have, in most cases, extreme limitations on their ability to access food. NAFDPIR predicted that at some point we would find ourselves here – experiencing food shortages. We never wanted it to happen – but we also knew that our supply chains and our communities we feed are impoverished and remote. Let us all decide here today that we will work together to solve these problems – right the ship – and fix the long-standing concerns that NAFDPIR has warned FNS [Food and Nutrition Service] of for years and years.”

Earlier this month, Cramer  U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), John Hoeven (R-ND), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) in a bipartisan letter to USDA pressing the agency to address the delays.