Swords Into Plowshares: Military veterans turn to farming

May 27, 2015 6:17 PM

What happens when veterans trade in their combat boots for muck boots? Sara Creech, a surgery nurse during the Iraq War, is part of a growing movement to help vets transition back into civilian life—and find a measure of peace—by going back to the land (NYT, mentions suicide).

The 2014 Farm Bill designates veterans "as a distinct class of beginning farmers within the U.S. Department of Agriculture," for the first time ever, according to NPR's blog, The Salt (linked above). "The status grants veterans access to low-interest-rate loans to buy animals and equipment. It also allows them to apply for grants to build onto their farm, and it can help them receive extra payments to implement conservation practices on their land." As part of its mission to connect vets and agriculture, the USDA has created the position of USDA Military Veteran Agriculture Liaison.

A growing number of military-to-farming organizations, as well as academic programs, have been working closer to the ground, including:

* Farmer Veteran Coalition (their Resources page)
* Organic Farming for Vets, from Delaware Valley College and Rodale Institute (Pennsylvania)
* Combat Boots to Cowboy Boots (Nebraska)
* Veteran Farmers Project
* Armed to Farm is Sustainable Agriculture Training for Military Veterans
* Archi's Acres (California)
* Veterans to Farmers (Colorado)
* More resources, by state
* More programs, national and international

Agriculture's transformative potential in the lives of veterans is also the subject of a recent film, "GROUND OPERATIONS: Battlefields to Farmfields" (trailer).

posted by MonkeyToes (14 comments total)

Spoiler: they aren't given lands in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, or Yemen after putting in their twenty years. Really would have made the Imperial tie-in complete.

Snark aside, this sort of program sounds awesome and is exactly what I love about everything. I'm emailing my alma mater in Texas and asking what we need to do to get something like this going in my state.
posted by resurrexit at 6:55 PM on May 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

Ploughsharing!
posted by clavdivs at 6:58 PM on May 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Why not give them mill jobs? They're used to the hierarchy, there's no investment on their part, and the jobs are just as likely to be made irrelevant by multinationals and "free trade."

I guess directing them to less population dense areas makes a certain amount of sense.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:17 PM on May 27, 2015

While I like the idea of hooking veterans up with good jobs, agriculture is a really hard field to succeed in. It requires much greater knowledge and skill than one might expect, it's extremely vulnerable to bad luck, and nearly all of the lower-tier jobs pay very poorly. Setting up a veteran with little or not ag background or training with a minimal investment in land and equipment is a recipe for failure.
posted by Mitrovarr at 7:54 PM on May 27, 2015 [11 favorites]

Did Ya actually read the post?

For example. Low cost loans, education, diverse fields with-in AG. Growing...in Colorado. Testing, sales.

What do thnk the next big thing is going to be, computers!
posted by clavdivs at 8:43 PM on May 27, 2015

The examples are interesting. Smaller farms, higher margin items like organic avocados or produce for a CSA. Ag is definitely a tough field but as the one article says, 45% of military members come from rural communities and you can't expect all those people to end up in urban or office jobs. It seems pretty well thought-out as far as government programs go.
posted by GuyZero at 8:57 PM on May 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

45% of military members come from rural communities and you can't expect all those people to end up in urban or office jobs

I thought military training provided people with the skills needed to leave the farm. Isn't that why a lot of people from rural areas volunteer for military service?

I don't see any U.S. Army MOS particularly suited to organic farming so I am a little hard-pressed to see its appeal as an occupation for military veterans.
posted by three blind mice at 1:28 AM on May 28, 2015

I don't know why you would assume that someone who chooses (or gets one chosen for them) and MOS when they are 18 is going to remain married to that interest when they are 25. Or that someone who leaves a place when they're 18 might not change in a few years and want to go back to a similar kind of place.

Really interesting post, MonkeyToes. Thanks!
posted by rtha at 6:24 AM on May 28, 2015

I thought military training provided people with the skills needed to leave the farm. Isn't that why a lot of people from rural areas volunteer for military service?

Well they certainly say so, at least, but it turns out for most of those skills, the US gov't is the only game in town.
posted by corb at 6:38 AM on May 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I find this a really weird program. "Here, let's set them up in a line of work that nobody else wants to do, in which the old timers are dying off, plus it's in the middle of nowhere, with a high rate of failure."

That's a very odd way to thank someone for their service.

Look at all the well-paid jobs in corporate America and nonprofits where, let's be honest, the employee isn't doing much. Surely you know what I am talking about. Why are ex soldiers not being given a toehold in thriving urban areas where the action and opportunities are? "Oh, well, other people want those jobs"?

I dunno, as other people have said in this thread, this seems like exploitation masked as compassion.
posted by jayder at 11:55 AM on May 28, 2015

> Why are ex soldiers not being given a toehold in thriving urban areas where the action and opportunities are? "Oh, well, other people want those jobs"?

Programs like this also exist - there were links in a recent-ish thread, even. This isn't all-or-nothing "go be a farmer or starve and thanks for your service." These are programs offering opportunities in one particular area to vets who might be interested. It's not like they're being forced at gunpoint into this one thing.

A lot of farming and agriculture-related jobs are not in the middle of nowhere and don't require the farmer to go broke. There was a piece on public radio last year sometime (Veterans Day, probably) about some vets who had used the benefits and opportunities offered by their state ag department to start small, organic farms to grow and sell specialty produce to high-end restaurants; another guy decided to go into wine, not as a grower, but as (I forget the term) some kind of specialist soil and water consultant to vineyard owners and managers. So if you're worried about how veterans are being chained to plows and forced to till from dawn till dusk, you can stop.
posted by rtha at 12:09 PM on May 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

Okay - disclaimer, I actually have a significant minority of my veteran friends who are doing this, so I have bias, but I still think this is relevant.

When I talk to them about why they're doing it, a large part is about control. Nobody can fire them. Often, they only need to produce enough to supplement a VA disability check. It's peaceful, quiet, and doesn't push on PTSD the way that working in a hyper-competitive office would.

Sometimes I envy them, to be honest - like every time I have difficult coworkers or a tough boss. In many ways, this is exactly what they want and need. And they're choosing it- it's not like anyone's forcing them.
posted by corb at 12:21 PM on May 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think it's something like 45% of veterans become self employed after they leave the service, so corb is right on.

And like corb, I'm pretty involved in this movement so I'm obviously biased too. I'm part of an intiative working with veterans to train them in farming and really, our goal is to provide them with a way of making a living (we focus on new small scale farming and market gardening projects, raising niche animals, if that makes sense, the like) and to keep them in our community after they leave he service.

I live near a base with a daily population of 28,000. There are an additional 58,000 veterans in the four county region around us. When they leave the service, they typically leave our area and we'd like that to change. This area is rural and prime for all kinds of farming, new and old.

Beyond that, engaging in gardening and farming can be INCREDIBLY therapeutic for wounded warriors and the research backs that up. So, if we're gonna attempt to support our military by not forgetting about them after they discharge, why not do it by training them for a career that might have some therapeutic value to them?

Anyway. Obviously I think these programs are great. And so is this FPP, MonkeyToes :).
posted by youandiandaflame at 5:11 PM on May 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

"I don't see any U.S. Army MOS particularly suited to organic farming so I am a little hard-pressed to see its appeal as an occupation for military veterans."
posted by three blind mice

See how they run. (Repeat)

Deployed into the battle zone
An MOS just labels the solders home.

See how they run.
posted by clavdivs at 9:08 PM on May 28, 2015 [2 favorites]