Food bank shortages caused by high demand and cuts to federal aid programs have some residents of a small community that straddles Idaho and Nevada growing their own food to get by.
For those living in Duck Valley, a reservation of about 1,000 people that is home to the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, there’s just one grocery store where prices are too high for many to afford, said Brandy Bull Chief, local director of a federal food distribution program for tribes. The next-closest grocery stores are more than 100 miles away in Mountain Home, Idaho, and Elko, Nevada. And the local food bank’s troubles are mirrored by many nationwide, squeezed between growing need and shrinking aid.
Reggie Premo, a community outreach specialist at the University of Nevada-Reno Extension, grew up cattle ranching and farming alfalfa in Duck Valley. He runs workshops to teach residents to grow produce. Premo said he has seen increased interest from tribal leaders in the state worried about high costs while living in food deserts.
“We’re just trying to bring back how it used to be in the old days,” Premo said, “when families used to grow gardens.”
Reggie Premo and a small team from the University of Nevada-Reno Extension host workshops on gardening and creating hoop houses, similar to greenhouses, to help tribes statewide increase food security.(Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez/KFF Health News)
Food bank managers across the country say their supplies have been strained by rising demand since the covid pandemic-era …