CDF grantee spotlight: Securing food – and community – for the frontier

Fresh Start Grocery Co-op in Geraldine is among cooperatives reducing food insecurity in Montana's remote and reservation communities. [photo courtesy Montana Council of Cooperatives]Tracy McIntyre knows rural. Scratch that. Rural doesn't even come close to describing the remote areas of Big Sky Country that she serves in her role as executive director of the Montana Cooperative Development Center (MCDC).

"MCDC is working in the middle of nowhere-literally. Glasgow, Montana was identified by NBC as the 'middle of nowhere' in the U.S.," she laughs, then adds more seriously, "but MCDC has a food hub and distribution cooperative forming there right now."

The mission of the Montana Cooperative Development Center (MCDC) is primarily to promote and develop cooperatives to meet the economic and community needs of Montana. Founded in 1999 as part of Montana State University-Northern, MCDC became a separate nonprofit entity in 2003 and moved its headquarters to Great Falls. MCDC now delivers technical assistance to communities and cooperatives in all 56 counties of Montana and is recognized as the official statewide co-op development center.

Through its administration of the Montana Council of Cooperatives (MCC), the center also creates a strong partnership through which many cooperatives now receive additional services including support for annual meetings, research on cooperative impact, networking between cooperatives and state/federal agencies, and promotion and training materials.

Tracy McIntyre was elected to NCBA CLUSA's Board of Directors in May of 2024, adding value for MCDC/MCC through access to national conversations and influence in advocacy, public awareness and thought leadership; and providing the association with an important perspective on rural cooperative development.

MCDC, with its focus on fostering the financial prosperity of communities through cooperation, has unique challenges in serving the rural, remote and reservation communities of Montana-even to meet basic needs like food retail and distribution. The Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) has been one of a number of valued partners in this work.

"We appreciate the support of CDF in helping us lay the groundwork with our rural grocery stores," McIntyre says, adding, "The CDF funds were the starting point for MCDC to complete a couple of studies related to food access, distribution and affordability."

This initiative revealed just how insecure Montana's remote and reservation communities are when it comes to food. "Over the course of the studies," McIntyre noted, "eight rural grocery stores were identified as potentially closing, which is a deep concern when discussing food access."

This motivated MCDC to start working with partners like the Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger and Montana Farmers Union, along with a series of cooperative food hubs, stores and processing centers to explore cooperative-based solutions for food distribution. "The CDF funds gave us the foundation we needed to lead discussions on food access and to understand how to work better with rural grocery stores," she says.

"MCDC works in reservations and remote areas; these aren't just rural, they are frontier communities," McIntyre says, adding, "We often find ourselves discussing how we can utilize the cooperative model to save essential services like grocery stores or community halls and gathering spaces."

The clock is ticking on this important work. "We are currently working in one community whose last standing business is closing-and it's also the only location where community members can gather," McIntyre notes.

Progress is being made through, in part, the support of organizations like CDF-and a lot of hard work by McIntyre and the committed staff of MCDC. "CDF gave us a starting point to incorporate what we have learned into future projects," Tracy says. "MCDC has been able to convert three rural grocery stores to cooperative ownership and is incorporating information we learned into a worker/community conversion program-and we are now working with two more communities that are potentially converting their grocery stores to community cooperative ownership."

And success can be sweet. "Fresh Start Grocery Co-op in Geraldine (population 204) is not only running the grocery store; they also incubated a small ice cream shop and bakery next door called Milk and Honey," Tracy adds, "and I swear by their chocolate milk shakes!"

Now there's an idea with as much potential as that big Montana sky.

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