DoomsdaysCW#NorthDakota tribe goes back to its roots with a massive greenhouse operation
By The Associated Press
Published: Jul. 6, 2024 at 2:17 PM EDT
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — "A #NativeAmerican tribe in North Dakota will soon grow lettuce in a giant greenhouse complex that when fully completed will be among the country’s largest, enabling the tribe to grow much of its own food decades after a federal #dam flooded the land where they had cultivated corn, beans and other crops for millennia.
"Work is ongoing on the #Mandan, #Hidatsa and #Arikara Nation’s 3.3-acre greenhouse that will make up most of the #NativeGreenGrow operation’s initial phase. However, enough of the structure will be completed this summer to start growing leafy greens and other crops such as tomatoes and strawberries.
" 'We’re the first farmers of this land,' Tribal Chairman #MarkFox said. 'We once were part of an aboriginal trade center for thousands and thousands of years because we grew crops — corn, beans, squash, watermelons — all these things at massive levels, so all the tribes depended on us greatly as part of the aboriginal trade system.'
"The tribe will spend roughly $76 million on the initial phase, which also will include a warehouse and other facilities near the tiny town of Parshall. It plans to add to the growing space in the coming years, eventually totaling about 14.5 acres, which officials say would make it one of the world’s largest facilities of its type.
"The initial greenhouse will have enough glass to cover the equivalent of seven football fields.
"The tribe’s fertile land along the #MissouriRiver was inundated in the mid-1950s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the #GarrisonDam, which created #LakeSakakawea.
"Getting fresh produce has long been a challenge in the area of western North Dakota where the tribe is based, on the #FortBerthold Indian Reservation. The rolling, rugged landscape — split by Lake Sakakawea — is a long drive from the state’s biggest cities, Bismarck and Fargo.
"That isolation makes the greenhouses all the more important, as they will enable the tribe to provide food to the roughly 8,300 people on the Fort Berthold reservation and to reservations elsewhere. The tribe also hopes to stock #FoodBanks that serve isolated and impoverished areas in the region, and plans to export its produce.
"Initially, the #MHANation expects to grow nearly 2 million pounds of food a year and for that to eventually increase to 12 to 15 million pounds annually. Fox said the operation’s first phase will create 30 to 35 jobs.
"The effort coincides with a national move to increase #FoodSovereignty among tribes."
Paul Mindeman