Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – The Aroostook Band of Micmacs will establish a tribal farmers’ market next year with money it received from the USDA’s 2009 Farmers Market Promotion Program [FMPP]. The Micmacs were one of only two grant awardees in the state to receive federal funds. The local tribe received $31,739.
“We are going to establish a tribal farmers’ market on tribal land on U.S. Route 1, just north of the Presque Isle-Caribou town line,” said Fred Corey, environmental director for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs. “One of the most significant aspects of the project is that USDA is really pushing for electronic benefit transfers (EBTs), which we’ll be utilizing. To my knowledge, there are no EBT terminals at farmers’ markets in northern Maine, so this will be a great opportunity for people who use food stamps and WIC.
“In the days of old when they issued food stamps and WIC nutrition vouchers, there were these paper documents that looked like currency only they were for the food stamp program. They’ve since gone away from that and are now issuing cards which look like debit cards,” he said. “If you use food stamps, instead of getting the paper currency documents you get a debit card and you can go to the grocery store and they can take the money right off the card. The USDA wants to see that used at farmers’ markets which would open up a whole new avenue for people to obtain their produce from locally grown markets.”
Organizers will begin planning the farmers’ market shortly, while the market itself won’t open until next summer.
“It’s a tribal farmers’ market, but it’s actually going to be open to anybody that has products to sell. We invite all the local farmers to participate,” said Corey.
“We’re actually hoping to take it one step further than a traditional farmers’ market,” he said. “We hope to have it be open daily throughout the growing season. We’ll have a tribal staff person there, so some of the farmers wouldn’t necessarily need to be there all day long. Weekends would be a pretty popular time, so I’m guessing if we’re closed any days it would be a Monday or a Tuesday. We’ll figure that out down the road.”
Corey said while there are only a handful of tribal members who are farmers, the market would also feature demonstrations.
“We’re hoping to provide some education to people who are interested, so they can produce goods to sell,” he said. “The tribe is known for making baskets and crafts, but there are a lot of people who have an interest in farming and agricultural but just don’t have the knowledge.
“Along with the farmers’ market,” said Corey, “we’ll be doing some demonstration plots and crops where people who want to produce agricultural commodities can do that, and we’re working with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension on that.”
Recognizing that the tribe has “rampant health problems,” Corey said he quickly recognized the value of providing healthy foods to the tribal community.
“Ten percent of our population suffers from diabetes,” said Corey, “69 percent are obese or overweight, and 50 percent experience hypertension or cardiovascular disease. This data comes directly from our tribal health clinic, so it’s local, accurate data. Those numbers are kind of staggering considering in Aroostook County we have about 750 tribal members.
“We’ve got these massive health problems in our tribal community,” he said, “and part of that – we think – is due to a lack of access to good, healthy food and that they’re expensive and not readily available. It’s much easier to buy a bag of chips or a pizza than it is to buy healthier foods. This problem is not unique to just the Micmac tribe in northern Maine … it’s an epidemic across the entire country.”
Corey said the problem is related to both diet and exercise.
“A tribal farmers’ garden and a community garden can work to address both of those issues,” he said. “Gardening is a good, healthy activity, you get outside, and it requires an expenditure of calories, plus you’re producing healthy foods. That’s the main reason we’re getting into this. Our goal is to get healthy foods into tribal homes. It’s also a good economic opportunity for tribal members.”
The Micmacs have 18 acres of fields on U.S. Route 1. Corey said he’s unsure if all 18 acres will be used for planting or not.
“We’re going to allow the tribal members to go in there and harvest the produce either for their own consumption or sell it at the tribal farmers’ market,” he said. “We’re looking at things like green beans, cucumbers, squash and lettuce … things that produce a large volume of materials over the course of the growing season. We’ll also have some vegetables that are harvested later in the season like corn and pumpkins.
“We’ll open the tribal farmers’ market to everybody … all other farmers that have a product they want to sell because we believe that variety is really important,” said Corey. “The more variety, hopefully the bigger the draw.”
In announcing the grant recipients, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted that farmers’ markets have an important role in “local and regional food systems by helping consumers have access to healthy, nutritious foods.”
“These grants will help continue the recent expansion of farmers’ markets across the country to increase access to locally grown foods for consumers, and increase incomes for farmers,” he said.
Vilsack emphasized that low-income consumers will particularly benefit through the program’s emphasis on increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables through the use of EBTs. This year, USDA exceeded its mandate to fund at least 10 percent of the total FMPP grant funds for new EBT projects at farmers’ markets. Thirty of the 86 grants promote the use of new EBT projects, and funding directed toward new EBT amounts to a little more than 18 percent of the total being announced. These projects will help increase access to locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables by low-income consumers using funds provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
