For larger-scale agricultural ventures at the tribal level for tribes with significant land, varying planting and grazing to a greater degree and identifying additional sales outlets will be easier, but will still carry increased costs. Exploring value-added agriculture and even agritourism ventures (e.g. dude ranches, pick your own, tasting rooms, etc.) can help mitigate those added costs by providing higher price point items for sale. Some tribes will have the ability to increase their vertical integration, moving from simply growing or raising, to taking what is grown and raised and processing it, packaging it and retailing it directly or supplying their own casino and other tourism foodservice operations. Examples already existed or were in development before the current crisis, such as the processing plant developed by the Quapaw for their own beef and buffalo herds or the range of processed and packaged food and beverage products being developed by the Navajo from their own agricultural production. Tribal wineries and breweries are other examples. The tribal consortiums and tribe-to-tribe purchasing already discussed will be important aspects of the recovery of tribal agriculture. Tribes supplying or purchasing from each other, sharing best practices and forming cooperative ventures in the same manner as traditional agricultural cooperatives can provide a means of not only recovering lost business volume, but generating new growth. Because individual tribal farmers comprise such an important part of tribal agriculture, any growth in the sector will have disproportionately higher positive impacts on those individual members, in the same way that the current crisis has affected them even more severely. Other subsegments of the sector include forestry, fishing and hunting. Fishing and hunting have crossover tourism impacts. Both are examples of tourism activities that can maintain close to normal operations even with increased social distancing requirements. When conducted by tribal members or by tribal enterprises, they also have the potential to produce higher price-point, value added products for retail sale and service in dining establishments, not to mention putting food on the tables of individual members. Steps to responsibly increase the intensity of public and private hunting and fishing activities will represent potential growth sectors, provided pressure on the ecosystem is carefully monitored. For forestry, the movement away from reusable bags and packaging coupled with the decline in societal approval for plastic products offer opportunities for increased pulp sales overtime. In the short-term, however, downward pressure will still be dominant due to the continued effects of mitigation efforts on retail and food service. Timber for construction and other uses is also likely to remain under downward pressure as already discussed. This is nothing new for the industry. The challenge is for tribes that rely upon forestry revenue to weather the current downward cycle while still maintaining long-term capacity to renew active production once the tide turns. Within this context, key recommendations and areas of focus include:
∴ PRESCRIPTIONS
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