U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced in July a plan to reorganize the Department of Agriculture, citing the need to decrease spending and bureaucracy. That plan is not final, but the current proposal includes consolidating tribal relations programs and personnel, according to the memorandum of the decision.
Leaders of the First Alaskans Institute, one of the state's largest Native advocacy organizations, said the reorganization could diminish tribal voices and harm regional agriculture and food security.
Last month, the statewide nonprofit submitted a comment to USDA about the plan asking the agency to consult with tribes.
“We're calling on the USDA to honor its trust responsibility by engaging in formal government-to-government consultation with Alaska's 229 federally recognized tribes, before finalizing its organizational plan,” the president of the First Alaskans Institute, Apagruk Roy Agloinga, said in an interview.
“Food security for Native communities, it's not just a policy issue,” Agloinga added. “It's really a matter of survival, cultural continuity and self-determination.”
Another major statewide organization, the Alaska Federation of Natives, also urged the USDA to hold a tribal consultation on its plans, stating that the public comment period does not meet the requirements for consultation with tribal governments.
The USDA Office of Tribal Relations was created in 2010, after tribal farmers argued in court that the department discriminated against them.
Tikaan Silas Galbreath, the chief operating officer of First Alaskans Institute, said that the USDA’s reorganization plan might move the Office of Tribal Relations down from the higher-up secretarial level of the department. He said the change could diminish tribal access to USDA programs.
“It needs to be at that secretarial level to really have the influence that is required to really provide the services to the tribes,” Galbreath said.
Another USDA change that the First Alaskans Institute is concerned about is the consolidation of the Natural Resource Conservation Service program, which includes relocating its offices out of Alaska. Galbreath said the program has been helping Alaska tribes manage land and water resources and access traditional foods.
Galbreath said that access to USDA programs, whether to advance tribal agriculture or reindeer herding, is especially important in light of the changing environment.
“The change in the migratory patterns and the decline for many of the species has raised the question for a lot of our communities of, ‘How do we continue to provide protein security for our tribal members?’” he said. “The USDA and the programs available through the USDA are some of the solutions that are being looked at by the tribes.”
USDA did not respond to the comment the First Alaskans Institute submitted last month. However, the department did respond to a request for comment from KNBA, calling the proposed plan a first step to “right-size USDA’s footprint.” It added that the agency’s critical functions would not be affected.
The department has extended the public comment period on reorganization to the end of September and encouraged sharing feedback by emailing reorganization@usda.gov.
