If you got back for a second and third helping of Christmas dinner in Navajo Nation, you might get teased for being ”so bidii.

“Bidii” suggests abundance, like a baby who just wants to gobble down more of something that tastes absolutely delicious. “It’s a fun, silly word in Navajo,” said Mary Ben, who owns Bidii Baby Foods with her husband Zach Ben.

Bidii Baby Foods is one of the only Indigenous baby food companies in the country. The Bens  use dried, steamed corn that can be reconstituted with hot water to create nourishing and relevant first foods.

Mary Ben grew up in Baltimore and moved to her husband’s hometown of Shiprock, N.M., 10 years ago. They didn’t choose to live in Shiprock for its booming economy: its median per-capita income is only about $20,000.

They chose Shiprock because it is rich in things that can’t be measured. “There’s not a perception of struggle all the time,” said Mary Ben. “What we’re rich in is traditional values and traditional community. We’re deeper on the rez. A lot of people speak the language. There’s a lot of ceremony.”

They farmed for several years before launching their own baby-food business, after struggling to find nutritious baby food for their first child during the pandemic. “It hit home so much, because a lot of baby foods were off the shelf for a long time,” Mary Ben said. “My background is public health, and those first foods, while I’m pregnant, when I’m breastfeeding, at six months, are so important to forming your palate.”

Diabetes is common in Navajo Nation, with a quarter to half of the adult population affected by diabetes or prediabetes. “It’s a lot easier to shape someone’s palate in the ages 0-3 than counsel someone with diabetes at age 40 or 50,” Ben said.

In five years, Mary and Zach Ben have built a business that produces more than two tons of Indigenous food annually and regularly sells out due to high demand. Now, through their Farmer-in-REZidence program, they’re helping other young farmers learn from their experience as farmers and social entrepreneurs.

Young farmers in Navajo Nation and on other reservations need to learn not only how to farm but also how to navigate thorny jurisdictional, logistical and financial issues if they’re going to make a living from the land. 

Bidii Baby Foods earned a USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant totaling $150,000 to develop the Farmer-in-REZidence program. Mary Ben created its curriculum after writing her dissertation on farmer training programs around the country.

“A lot of young Native kids know how to farm,” Ben said. “We live in an agricultural community. What they don’t know is how to access capital, how to manage finances, how to take care of their mental health while they’re doing that.”

Farmers-in-REZidence have access to regular virtual counseling, and the Bens host a traditional healing ceremony. Each Farmer-in-REZidence has two acres for their own use during the program, and crops grown on these acres can provide “seed money” for future farming.

Because reservation land is held in trust, it can’t be used as collateral in traditional loans to purchase equipment or other farming necessities. “The U.S. government owns that land, so you can’t leverage a line of credit,” Ben said. “What’s unique here with our Farmer-in-REZidence program is how to help teach young, beginner, Indigenous farmers how to access capital and resources.”

On Navajo Nation, the tribe issues specific permits for different types of land use. With a two-acre business lease, the Bens hope they can build a processing facility for Bidii Baby Foods. They currently transport crops to a reservation border town an hour and a half away for processing.

The Specialty Crop Block Grant is also funding the construction of a new hoophouse, which Mary Ben hopes can serve as a model for repurposing available infrastructure, namely a large number of greenhouses left vacant after the bust of an industrial-sized marijuana farm near Shiprock.

Some Farmers-in-REZidence want to start selling their own specialty crops and branding their own unique products. Others just want to farm. Ben hopes that these farmers will allow Bidii Baby Foods to grow.

Bidii Baby Foods has seen high demand for their food from food banks, childcare centers and senior centers as an approved supplier with New Mexico Grown. They know their food reaches almost 20,000 children, but their success has made it difficult and sometimes impossible to meet direct-to-consumer demand.

“Everything on our farm is from Indigenous heritage seeds,” Ben said. “Our demand is so high that we can’t keep up. Our goal is to grow other growers that can grow crops to address our supply issue.”

As farmers around the U.S. are impacted by federal funding freezes in 2025, Ben is hanging tight. Their Specialty Crop Block Grant from USDA is largely invoiced during the growing season. “It hasn’t impacted us too much,” Ben said cautiously.

However, changes in the availability of federal funding may force changes to their business plan in the future. The Bens had planned to apply for a Beginning Farmer/Rancher grant, but information on the upcoming cycle has been removed from federal websites.

Bidii Baby Foods also recently submitted a Rural Business Development application for planning their production facility, which they hope will still be funded. “That was our plan to cover expenses for the next couple years,” Ben said.

If they can’t build a production facility in Shiprock, they may have to relocate their business away from the heart of the reservation. “We’ll give it a couple more years,” Mary Ben said. “We’ll see.”