HOPKINTON, R.I. -- At Ashawaug Farm in southwest Rhode Island, Dawn and Cassius Spears preserve their Indigenous knowledge of agriculture through the cultivation and keeping of three Narragansett heritage crops: white corn, succotash beans and crookneck squash.
They would like to expand their farm's reach beyond their farm stand, but it's challenging. Like many small food producers, the Spears have sought financial assistance through federal programs. Some have been cut or significantly scaled back under the Trump Administration, including U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that helped tribal farmers.
Tribes relied on these programs to grow and distribute culturally-significant foods locally.
“When we go into these federal programs, we’re hoping that they’ll last long enough,” Cassius Spears said. “They usually start out with a good song and dance. And they’re going to last a long time. And then something happens where they get cut.”
The Biden administration started two programs during the pandemic to help states and tribes purchase local food from nearby farmers for food banks and schools: the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS). These programs offered farmers, including tribal farmers, reliable markets for their products. Tribal governments received assistance to purchase food from local producers to distribute to tribal members.
This allowed tribes to get federal dollars directly to small-scale producers, said Carly Griffith Hotvedt, executive director of the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative and a member of Cherokee Nation. The Spears' farm provided food for a tribal farm in nearby Connecticut that used LFPA funds, after an agreement was signed in August 2022.
In some instances, tribes used those dollars to source culturally-significant foods for tribal members such as bison meat, certain types of berries and wild rice that were included as part of a food box distribution. For some low-income tribal members, it was the best way to access these types of foods, Hotvedt said.
“It wasn’t just commodity foods in that box. It was highly local, traditionally relevant, culturally relevant foods that were included,” Hotvedt said.
In March 2025, under the Trump administration, the Agriculture Department ended the two programs that provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks, saying that they no longer aligned with the agency's goals.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, and Sen. Jim Justice, a West Virginia Republican, introduced a bill they say takes the best from the two programs and creates a permanent grant program. It would allow state and tribal governments to buy local foods from local and regional producers to distribute to nearby hunger relief programs and schools.
Reed said he feared that when the USDA programs were cut, families across the country would have a more difficult time getting access to food. And, he said, the access wouldn't be to nutritious, freshly grown produce.
Reed said he’s hoping to get the legislation passed as part of the Farm Bill, the massive, multi-year law that governs agricultural and food programs. The House passed its version of the bill in April, and a Senate committee released its draft in late June. The House version also includes a bipartisan proposal for a permanent program modeled after the Local Food Purchase Assistance program. It would allow states, through the USDA, to establish cooperative agreements connecting local farmers and producers with local food distribution organizations.
Both proposals would set aside 10% of the program’s funding for tribes.
For a new program to succeed, Congress must include mandatory funding in order to help farmers better plan, purchase supplies and hire staff because they know they’re going to sell products through those programs, said Hannah Quigley, a policy specialist with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. The House version would require Congress to agree on funding annually, she added.
Reed said he's advocating for mandatory funding in the Senate because without it very little is funded these days, and because farms are under so much pressure economically. An optional program wouldn't help them as much, he said.
“We really want to punch through the existing obstacles for small farmers and Native American farmers,” he said.
Dawn and Cassius Spears would like to see Indigenous producers prioritized when tribal entities purchase food. And they said they think having dedicated programs that Indigenous producers can access outside of their tribal government would help more Indigenous producers.
Under the canopy of one of her farm’s high tunnels at the start of this year's planting season, Dawn Spears carefully organized her tomato crop, separating the tiny plants before moving them to a field outside. The name of the 6-acre farm is an homage to the Narragansett name of the river that flows through town. It started as a small community garden and food sovereignty project.
One of her grandsons, 9-year-old Giizhig, walked in to ask if she needed help.
“Only if you want to,” Spears replied. “It’s always good to know how to do it, right?”
Teaching the next generation about where food comes from and how to grow responsibly is key for her. But her culture isn’t just about cultivating crops. It’s also about gathering foods they eat from the wild and being able to preserve and access land where those foods are.
She's working to protect the land around their farm as development grows with the hope of introducing native plants into that area that can be foraged for food. Federal funding programs can also help with securing access to land, she said.
“If you take a person away from the land that they come from, then it’s like they’re not whole,” she said. “We have to eat the food that’s naturally from that space that we come from.”
