Tribes in Montana lose millions after USDA kills farm grants

Kim Paul, executive director of the Piikani Lodge Health Institute, a nonprofit on the Blackfeet Reservation that promotes health and well-being, saw the email notification flash across her computer screen as she was working late last week.

It was the U.S. Department of Agriculture saying a nearly $9 million grant contract with Piikani Lodge had been terminated.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that awards under this program involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and wasteful spending that did little to further lawful agricultural land purchases,” the USDA wrote.

Paul was stunned. Piikani Lodge had planned to use the grant to improve operations for Native and non-Native farmers and ranchers in the region. The nonprofit had already separately acquired 600 acres on the Blackfeet Reservation, and planned to use the USDA funds to build a training hub for food producers and support about 300 farmers and ranchers in Glacier and Pondera counties.

Paul said she became short of breath when she saw the email. She dreaded sharing the news with her team.

“It was horror,” she said. “The horror of losing stability for our community.”

Funded through the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Increasing Land, Capital and Market Access Program was designed to support “underserved” farmers and ranchers. It awarded about $300 million to 50 grantees in 2023. Forty-nine of those grants were terminated last week.

At least two additional projects in Montana were affected by the cancellations: a Chippewa Cree Tribe project to purchase land and train young farmers and ranchers how to manage it; and one run by South Dakota-based Four Bands Community Fund that would have trained and financially supported at least 25 low-income agricultural producers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

Montana-based awardees called the terminations “devastating.” They also say the grant cancellations were based on a false presumption that tribal initiatives fall under the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) rubric, and that USDA claims of wasteful spending are baseless.

Asked for comment, a USDA spokesperson said Thursday the agency “has worked to clean up the mess left for us by the last Administration. To no surprise, a peek behind the curtain of this Biden-era program revealed the egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.”

Piikani Lodge Health Institute leaders say they will have to restructure budgets and reconfigure staffing to keep some semblance of their project going. The Chippewa Cree Tribal project may be halted altogether. Four Bands Community Fund did not respond to an interview request by publication deadline. Awardees say the terminations hinder economic progress, not just in their communities, but across the state.

MONTANA PROJECTS CUT

The Chippewa Cree Tribe in north-central Montana was awarded a grant of nearly $6 million for a land acquisition project.

Chippewa Cree planning director Neal Rosette said the tribe planned to purchase agricultural land on and around the reservation and train prospective farmers and ranchers how to manage it.

Though reservation land can be used for farming and ranching, Rosette said, land prices can keep people from entering the industry. The Rocky Boy’s Reservation is home to almost 3,400 people, about 35% of whom live below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census data. The median household income on the reservation is $49,550, almost $26,000 less than the state’s average.

“We are trying to give opportunities to our young folks to make a living,” Rosette said.

Rosette said people working on the project had been trying to close on a 320-acre reservation property for months. The land costs about $400,000, but according to Rosette the tribe has received only about $50,000 of the nearly $6 million grant since 2023. The tribe, he said, asked USDA repeatedly to release the funds, but received minimal communication from the federal agency.

“They drug their feet, drug their feet, and then finally they pulled the rug out from under us,” he said.

Rosette has written many grants for the tribe in the past. He said receiving the termination letter from USDA marked “the first time I’ve ever got to the point where I felt like crying.”

“It’s so, so, so cruel,” he said. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. It was devastating for everybody. We were so proud of this project. We were so happy that we were finally going to be able to recover some lands for the benefit of our young people. And now it’s gone.”

Micaela Young, development director at Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said the canceled grant will delay construction on the community training center on the Blackfeet Reservation.

The Piikani Lodge project included building an industrial community kitchen where agricultural producers could prepare and process products like jams and jerky.

In its termination letter to Piikani Lodge, the USDA cited a “$20,000 allocation for a barbeque smoker” as an example of funding for items “outside the program’s mission of increasing land access.” The USDA has also mentioned a “$20,000 barbeque smoker” in statements to other media outlets as an example of “inappropriate spending.”

Paul said the characterization is hurtful.

“We did all this work, we spent so many years on this,” she said. “To say this was built on fraud? It’s a travesty. This was going to be five years of jobs for our people. Can you imagine the economic development that would come from that?”

‘DEI IS THE NEW BUZZWORD IN D.C.’

Paul and Rosette both took issue with the USDA’s assertion that programs benefiting tribes fall into the category of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). It’s well established in federal law that tribal citizenship is a political classification, not a racial one. In a May 2025 memorandum, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins acknowledged the distinction, writing, “the Department’s unique government-to-government relationship” with tribes and their members “are legally distinct from policy-based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.”

“We are a sovereign nation,” Rosette said of the Chippewa Cree Tribe. “We have a political relationship with this government.”

Democratic state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Tribe who is running for Congress in Montana’s eastern district, called the agriculture department’s DEI reasoning “ludicrous.”

“DEI is the new buzzword in D.C.” he said. “Why isn’t our delegation protecting the sovereign status of the tribes? The bottom line is we don’t have representation in D.C.”

Asked for comment on the grant terminations, a spokesperson for incumbent eastern district U.S. Congressman Troy Downing said his “office is aware of the rescinded grants and welcomes input from community members regarding their impact.” A spokesperson for Sen. Steve Daines said the senator “is looking into the grant cancellations and will always work to support Montana’s tribal communities.”

Sen. Tim Sheehy and Rep. Ryan Zinke did not respond to requests for comment.

Walter Schweitzer, president of the Montana Farmers Union, said that as land, livestock and equipment prices increase, and as more farms are purchased by corporate entities, it becomes increasingly hard for young people to enter the agriculture industry.

“The average age of a farmer or rancher is somewhere around 60,” he said. “We need to encourage and incentivize any way we can to get young people involved in agriculture. And having diversity in who gets into agriculture is a positive thing because they bring a diverse set of ideas.”

Micaela Young, of Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said ag producers living on tribal land additionally face unique challenges. A patchwork of historical and sometimes conflicting federal policies have congealed over the course of more than a century into an unwieldy system of property ownership on reservations. Banks have not learned to effectively navigate the legal, bureaucratic and financial peculiarities of that system, making it difficult for prospective producers to access the capital necessary to enter the agricultural industry. Tribes, Young said, are also often located far from markets where they could sell their products.

“These kinds of projects that bring capital into Native communities can really help revitalize their main streets, increase public safety, there’s the opioid crisis, the suicide crisis in tribal communities, and people are really looking for hope,” Young said. “People are looking for jobs. Families need that income. So this kind of work really does lift up our Native communities to strengthen the overall state.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Piikani Lodge leaders said they plan to file an appeal through the National Appeals Division, which reports directly to the Secretary of Agriculture, before the 30-day deadline.

Andrew Berger, director of agriculture and climate adaptation at Piikani Lodge, said the organization is drafting a petition urging restoration of the funds.

“We’re still wrapping our heads around this,” he said. “(The grant) supported salaries and internships and all kinds of things. So we need to fill those gaps with other funding.”

Rosette isn’t sure whether the Chippewa Cree Tribe will file an appeal — an action he said requires time and resources. He said the tribe plans to ask the USDA to reconsider its decision.

“Whether they will listen?” he said. “Who knows.”

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This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.