Navajo Food & Agricultural Collaborative
Resources
Questions Answered
1. As a small producers, who will it be the most effective to sell to?
Local Food Purchase Agreements help improve food and agriculture supply chain resiliency by supporting local, regional, and socially disadvantaged food producers by purchasing local food to distribute in rural, remote, and underserved communities. There are programs available in Arizona and New Mexico. Find out more at the links below:
Aggregators – Aggregators, like San Juan College Harvest Food Hub in Farmington, NM, aggregate food from small producers to sell in bigger lots. Sales are established at local farmers markets, local subscription boxes, and thru contracts with schools and other institutions. The Harvest Food Hub works with farmers and ranchers in San Juan County first, but welcome Navajo producers. Information on the San Juan College Harvest Food Hub can be found below:
2. I want to be a more active producer, who might I contact with questions?
In addition to government resources, we are curating a growing list of producers beginning with Collaborative members. Click on the map below to reach out to one of the many organizations involved with the Food/Agriculture Collaborative.
3. Can I make effective use of technology on a small farm or ranch?
Precision agriculture is a farming management strategy based on observing, measuring and responding to micro environments in the field. It uses technology to enable site-specific crop management. A goal is to conserve resource use - water, fertilizer, etc. There are some other intriguing features to using these technologies among them that they may be very interesting to youth. Download the document below about Precision Agriculture.
Food/Agriculture Resources
Food Production on the Navajo Nation
FARMS/RANCHES
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2017 Census of Agriculture identified over 16,100 farms/ranches on the Navajo Nation. 4037 in the Ft. Defiance Agency, 3600 in the Western Agency, 3400 in Chinle, 2500 in Shiprock and 2445 in the Eastern Agency. Between 2012 and 2017, 2500 farms/ranches were established, and 2600 were established the five years before this. The vast majority of farms/ranches have been established for over 11 years.
REVENUES
Diné farms are largely small. According to the Census, 1500 had sales of more than $5,000, 2600 had sales valued at between $1000 to $4999 with over 11,900 with sales of less than $1000. The category identified as producing less than $1000 in sales may well be producing little or no product. Nearly the entire reservation - 15.7 million of its 17 million acres - is under either cultivation or grazing. Crop sales were 79% of revenue and 21% of sales were of livestock. For all their numbers, however, Navajo farmers weren't particularly successful. As a whole, in fact, they lost money, producing $87,65 million worth of agricultural products but accumulating $163 million in expenses, mostly feed and gasoline.
LAND USE
The Navajo Agricultural Products Industry (NAPI) with its 70,000 acres of alfalfa, beans, potatoes, popcorn and pumpkins, among other crops is the largest producer by far.
Hay and related products were grown on 30,000 acres. Vegetables on 8300 acres, corn on 4900 acres, and watermelon on 800 acres.
Navajo acreage is mostly devoted to grazing. The main Navajo products are sheep and lambs. Cattle, and goats are also raised for sale. Most ranches are small family ranges with an average of 5 to 20 head.