First Nation Hopes Mixed for New Pig Business
US - A federal grant will be used to fund an organic vegetables and pig production enterprise at the Spirit Lake Nation reservation. However, not all tribe members are supporting the plan.Speaking to the Indian Country News, Daryl Dukart, general manager of Cloverdale Growers Alliance, a group of growers who produce for Mandan-based Cloverdale Foods Co., said the reservation project would include nine barns that each could handle about 200 pigs. Each barn would handle three batches of pigs a year, he said.
“We can turn out 4,860 pigs annually,” he said.
The pigs are likely to be imported from Canada, raised in the barns and then shipped to Cloverdale’s processing facility in Minot.
Bill Patrie, director of the North Country Cooperative Development Fund, said the pork could be marketed as “Native American-raised hogs” and sold to tribal outlets in the state.