Tribes: Southwest
Bidii Baby Foods
Across the 17.5-million-acre Navajo Nation, there are just 14 full-service grocery stores.1 In this food desert, where access to fresh, nutritious foods is incredibly limited, residents rely heavily on non-perishable,
highly processed foods to avoid the time and travel costs associated with grocery shopping. These pre-packaged, energy dense foods are linked to higher rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses,2
demonstrating a health justice issue on the Navajo Nation. Additional barriers to quality food include high food costs, which limit what residents can afford to consume, often leaving families to stretch their food budgets as much
as possible. Additionally, there are fewer families maintaining large fields of crops or raising livestock than in the past, creating an even higher reliance on purchased and processed food. Residents relying on the cheapest food
options means that labels like "organic" or "non-GMO" often get overlooked as that can signal high prices, and that traditional foods not sold at major grocery stores are inaccessible. But one family on the
Navajo Nation is trying to change that.
Zachariah and Mary Ben are the co-founders of Bidii Baby Foods, a small family farm in Shiprock, New Mexico in the northeast corner of the Navajo Nation. Post-pandemic, they became pregnant with their first born and sought healthy,
traditional foods to feed their baby. Traditional foods are cultivated and foraged foods that were eaten before contact with settlers. They have drastically diminished as Indigenous people across the nation lost access to traditional
hunting and foraging grounds, through the American government’s agenda to eradicate traditional food sources. Traditional foods were replaced with government-issued commodity foods and were heavily rationed – rarely was there enough
food to go around.3
Realizing traditional food options weren’t available at the few stores nearby, Zachariah and Mary grew their own food using traditional Diné methods passed down from the five generations of farmers in Zachariah’s family. They dedicated
their first season and harvest to their newborn son. The fulfillment of feeding their son locally grown, traditional foods inspired the creation of Bidii Baby Foods LLC, rooted in their desire to create a preference for traditional
foods in young children. The name comes from the Navajo word bid, meaning stomach. In the past, having a big bid meant someone was healthy and wealthy, and demonstrated that they knew how to hunt and farm. Now, at gatherings with
friends and family, if someone goes to get a second or third serving of the food served, they would be called "Bidii," meaning that they are enjoying the food and wanting to fill their stomach. Bidii Baby Foods is working to
return to that original wealth mindset, emphasizing that everyone needs and craves nutritious traditional foods.
Carrying Traditions Forward
Traditional crops may look similar to their grocery store alternatives, but the differences lie in their DNA and the practices used to grow them. Navajo Corn is an heirloom seed derived from maize, originally cultivated by the Mayans.
Through trade and a historical legacy of nurturing these crops, Navajo Corn came to be. It is used in ceremonies and as an offering to deities, extending its relationship to the human hands that nurtured it beyond just physical sustenance.
Its long cultivating in the high desert has made Navajo Corn resilient to drought and high temperatures without genetic modifications – unlike most corn available in grocery stores. Whereas sweet corn found in grocery stores is grown
using industrialized practices, everything grown at Bidii Baby Foods is done so using traditional Diné farming practices that require inherent attentiveness to the crops and the land, demonstrated by their commitment to regenerative
agricultural practices.
Bidii Baby Foods grows corn, melons, squash, and other traditional and specialty crops. Their traditional farming techniques, including weeding and irrigation, are done almost entirely by hand, with the small exception of a tractor to
prepare and cultivate the field, using minimal till practices. They use no fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides on the farm, understanding that pest control and weeding can all be done naturally through regenerative practices. To
further mitigate weeds between rows of corn, Bidii Baby Foods is experimenting with planting vetch and strawberry clover as a cover crop. The strawberry clover outcompetes most weeds but does not pose a threat to the corn.
The Bidii Baby Food’s Farmer-in-REZidenceTM Program welcomes young Indigenous farmers to their farm, hosting them for the duration of the farming season and teaching them traditional farming practices. These young farmers show a desire
to partake in and learn more about traditional Diné lifeways through farming, often finding healing through connecting with the land. Zachariah and Mary not only teach them how to farm traditionally, but if the young farmer is
interested, they assist them in building their own brand and business to better establish themselves following their residency. Bidii Baby Foods hopes that those who complete the Farmer-in-REZidenceTM program not only feel reconnected
to the land and their heritage, but that they pass on these traditional farming techniques and teachings to future generations and have sustained means to do that through an established agribusiness.
While the Farmer-in-REZidenceTM Program provides opportunities for Bidii Baby Foods to teach traditional methods and learn new methods from younger farmers, traditional farming methods are being forced to evolve, largely due
to climate change related environmental factors. The Navajo Nation has a legacy of extractive industries ravaging the region, from open uranium mines left from the Cold War era to present threats of helium plants. Shiprock is situated
in one of the largest natural gas producing regions in the US, in a geologic basin that collects natural gas exhaust. Researchers are still speculating where the sources of this natural gas are from, though some speculate it’s due to
leaks from nearby natural gas drills. As a result, the Four Corners region has the highest methane concentrations over any other region in the US, worsening the greenhouse gas effect in the region.4 This pocket of pollution
and heat creates a low-pressure system that causes incoming storms to separate and bypass Shiprock, exacerbating issues brought on by climate change in the region. This is particularly true of smaller storm systems in the summer that
provide much needed precipitation. Increasing temperatures and drought means that farmers must determine which crops and seeds are the most resilient, and hope that they can produce in yet another season of uncertain weather patterns.
The combination of drought worsened by air pollution, thirsty crops, and increasing temperatures in an already high desert region – all intensified by climate change – leaves Bidii Baby Foods highly dependent on the nearby San Juan River.
This dependency was made abundantly clear following the 2015 Gold King Mine spill. In Silverton, CO three million gallons of toxic water spilled into a tributary of the Animas River – a tributary of the San Juan and part of the larger
Colorado River system – after a crew ruptured a plug of rock and soil at the Gold King Mine. The acidic water was contaminated with lead, arsenic, and many other heavy metals. Despite being told by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and Tribal Governments that the water in the San Juan River was safe, Zachariah and his family chose not to irrigate their crops at that time. Although the farm was unable to operate for several years after the spill, they
narrowly avoided a catastrophe and protected the soil. Independent testing showed that the water in the San Juan contained dangerous levels of toxic chemicals that would have contaminated the farm’s soil, which is why Bidii Baby Foods
continues to advocate for greater fail safes and a warning system in the event of future spills or water contamination in the San Juan basin.
Planning for the Next Generation of Farmers
In the winter, Bidii Baby Foods plans for the coming season and manufactures its value-added food products in the nearest commercial kitchen – 114 miles away in the border town of Gallup. Shiprock is the largest agricultural community
on the Navajo Nation for the production of corn pollen, squash, and corn. However, the lack of processing and manufacturing infrastructure causes the community to lose a lot of supply and farmers in the off-season, as they seek
full-time employment off the reservation, or lack the time and finances to commute to and from Gallup for manufacturing. Mary and Zachariah do all their own manufacturing – milling, weighing, and packaging products according to their
unique standard operating procedures. Bidii Baby Foods then distributes its manufactured product through multiple channels, ensuring that people in different regions and economic brackets can access traditional foods for their children.
While it’s a goal for Bidii Baby Foods to introduce traditional foods as first foods to babies and children, Zachariah and Mary recognize that not all children on the Navajo Nation are fortunate enough to have that experience.
For the dietary needs of older children, Zachariah and Mary worked with a dietician at Tumbleweed Nutrition to compile a recipe book, available online,
that incorporates traditional ingredients with foods that can be purchased with SNAP and WIC at local farmers markets. Combining these familiar, modern staples with traditional foods not only allows older children to develop a taste
for traditional foods, but assists in the affordability of incorporating locally grown, organic, traditional foods into young diets.
To provide these foods to children on the Navajo Nation who can’t afford it, Zachariah and Mary have advocated for state legislation that provides universal school meals to all children in New Mexico public schools. Funding and grant
opportunities through similar initiatives have allowed Bidii Baby Foods to distribute products to food banks and school districts, helping them get food to their target demographic – children aged 0-5.
Bidii Baby Foods hopes that, as operations grow, the benefit they provide to the community grows proportionally. They’re actively fundraising and seeking donations to sustain their existing programs and to assist in growing operations.
Part of that planned growth is building a commercial kitchen in Shiprock so that they can continue operations locally but also so that other farmers can process and manufacture their crops year-round and stop relying on other employment
opportunities in the off-season. Zachariah and Mary know that food security on the Navajo Nation begins with local farmers, and that it requires a craving for traditional foods grown with traditional methods. Their vision is for Bidii
Baby Foods to successfully revive this craving and continue to fill the desire they’re creating.