Vilsack: Farm bill could help rural veterans find future
November 22, 2013 | 01:12 PM
Farming is helping veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan find peace of mind and a new career path and the farm bill could help them, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and activists in a nascent veteran farmers movement.
Groups in several states are helping veterans go into farming, and the Kentucky Agriculture Department has established a “Home Grown by Heroes” labeling program to market their products, Vilsack noted in a telephone news conference on Tuesday.
The Agriculture Department “feels very strongly about having opportunities for veterans,” said Vilsack, who has often noted that a disproportionate number of rural Americans serve in the military compared with people who lives in cities and suburbs.
The USDA has already signed a memo of understanding with the American Legion and made an effort to help veterans get USDA loans and participate in the beginning farmer and rancher program, he said. But the Senate version of the farm bill, he added, would include veterans in an outreach program for beginning farmers and also establish an office for veterans at USDA.
Vilsack’s participation in a call to reporters was part of an effort by activist groups to make Congress aware that veterans, some of them troubled by the wartime experiences, are finding that small-scale farming is a good way to re-enter civilian life.
Michael O’Gorman, executive director of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, said on the call with Vilsack that for veterans who return home “with wounds visible or invisible” and who sometimes find it difficult to be in crowds or work in offices with lots of people, “agriculture is meaningful” because feeding the country “fulfills the loss of meaning” that some veterans have experienced in war. O’Gorman said his mission is “mobilizing veterans to feed America.”
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer noted that his state has a lot of returning veterans and that the “Home Grown by Heroes” labeling program he established with a $250,000 grant from Farm Credit Services has proven popular with restaurant owners, and that he hopes the idea spreads nationwide.
“I get contacted every day by restaurant owners” looking for veteran-grown products, Comer said in the call with Vilsack.
The returning veterans are growing mostly vegetables, ranging from kale to broccoli to peppers to tomatoes, Comer said, with a lot of the produce grown in garden spaces with high tunnels to extend the growing season and in greenhouses.
Vilsack noted that the veterans who want to farm can’t go into commercial-scale commodity operations unless they come from families in that business, because they cannot afford the price of land. That’s why, Vilsack said, the veteran farmers “need a personal relationship with a farmer” and benefit from farmers markets and community-supported agriculture.
Vilsack’s call followed a screening of a film “Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmfields” on Capitol Hill last week and a briefing for congressional staff.
In the film, combat veterans who are now working with both plants and animals in several different states talked about how much trouble they had in the transition to civilian life and how much farming and ranching have helped.
Dulanie Ellis, the film’s producer and director, pointed out that farmers are aging and that the veterans can be among those who are the next generation of farmers.
House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Sam Farr, D-Calif., said in the film that “food has to be a part of national security” and that the veterans are turning swords into plowshares. The film highlights both male and female veterans who have gone into farming and ranching.
Kathy Ozer of the National Family Farm Coalition noted at the film screening that groups representing socially disadvantaged farmers support the addition of the veterans to the outreach program to help historically underserved producers gain access to USDA’s credit, commodity, conservation and other programs and services.
But Ozer said the groups hope the farm bill conference will increase the level of mandatory funding from the $10 million per year in the House and Senate bills to $20 million per year, the amount that was provided under the 2008 farm bill.
“Full, mandatory funding for the Outreach and Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers program will increase farm livelihoods and cooperatives in rural communities, advance intergenerational land tenure and promote familial and community wealth for socially disadvantaged and veteran producers,” the groups recently wrote to President Barack Obama in a letter organized by the Rural Coalition.
Many of the farming efforts involving veterans are near cities in California, Colorado and Michigan, but the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service has also produced a new report on veterans in rural America.
The report notes there are 4 million veterans in rural America and that they are rapidly aging, but that among younger rural veterans the number of women and minorities is increasing.
ERS said younger veterans bring to rural America the skills they learned in the military, are more likely to be in the family-formation stage of life and can help reverse the population decline in rural America, but face many of the challenges of physical and psychological trauma addressed in the film.
Groups in several states are helping veterans go into farming, and the Kentucky Agriculture Department has established a “Home Grown by Heroes” labeling program to market their products, Vilsack noted in a telephone news conference on Tuesday.
The Agriculture Department “feels very strongly about having opportunities for veterans,” said Vilsack, who has often noted that a disproportionate number of rural Americans serve in the military compared with people who lives in cities and suburbs.
The USDA has already signed a memo of understanding with the American Legion and made an effort to help veterans get USDA loans and participate in the beginning farmer and rancher program, he said. But the Senate version of the farm bill, he added, would include veterans in an outreach program for beginning farmers and also establish an office for veterans at USDA.
Vilsack’s participation in a call to reporters was part of an effort by activist groups to make Congress aware that veterans, some of them troubled by the wartime experiences, are finding that small-scale farming is a good way to re-enter civilian life.
Michael O’Gorman, executive director of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, said on the call with Vilsack that for veterans who return home “with wounds visible or invisible” and who sometimes find it difficult to be in crowds or work in offices with lots of people, “agriculture is meaningful” because feeding the country “fulfills the loss of meaning” that some veterans have experienced in war. O’Gorman said his mission is “mobilizing veterans to feed America.”
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer noted that his state has a lot of returning veterans and that the “Home Grown by Heroes” labeling program he established with a $250,000 grant from Farm Credit Services has proven popular with restaurant owners, and that he hopes the idea spreads nationwide.
“I get contacted every day by restaurant owners” looking for veteran-grown products, Comer said in the call with Vilsack.
The returning veterans are growing mostly vegetables, ranging from kale to broccoli to peppers to tomatoes, Comer said, with a lot of the produce grown in garden spaces with high tunnels to extend the growing season and in greenhouses.
Vilsack noted that the veterans who want to farm can’t go into commercial-scale commodity operations unless they come from families in that business, because they cannot afford the price of land. That’s why, Vilsack said, the veteran farmers “need a personal relationship with a farmer” and benefit from farmers markets and community-supported agriculture.
Vilsack’s call followed a screening of a film “Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmfields” on Capitol Hill last week and a briefing for congressional staff.
In the film, combat veterans who are now working with both plants and animals in several different states talked about how much trouble they had in the transition to civilian life and how much farming and ranching have helped.
Dulanie Ellis, the film’s producer and director, pointed out that farmers are aging and that the veterans can be among those who are the next generation of farmers.
House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Sam Farr, D-Calif., said in the film that “food has to be a part of national security” and that the veterans are turning swords into plowshares. The film highlights both male and female veterans who have gone into farming and ranching.
Kathy Ozer of the National Family Farm Coalition noted at the film screening that groups representing socially disadvantaged farmers support the addition of the veterans to the outreach program to help historically underserved producers gain access to USDA’s credit, commodity, conservation and other programs and services.
But Ozer said the groups hope the farm bill conference will increase the level of mandatory funding from the $10 million per year in the House and Senate bills to $20 million per year, the amount that was provided under the 2008 farm bill.
“Full, mandatory funding for the Outreach and Assistance to Socially Disadvantaged and Veteran Farmers and Ranchers program will increase farm livelihoods and cooperatives in rural communities, advance intergenerational land tenure and promote familial and community wealth for socially disadvantaged and veteran producers,” the groups recently wrote to President Barack Obama in a letter organized by the Rural Coalition.
Many of the farming efforts involving veterans are near cities in California, Colorado and Michigan, but the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service has also produced a new report on veterans in rural America.
The report notes there are 4 million veterans in rural America and that they are rapidly aging, but that among younger rural veterans the number of women and minorities is increasing.
ERS said younger veterans bring to rural America the skills they learned in the military, are more likely to be in the family-formation stage of life and can help reverse the population decline in rural America, but face many of the challenges of physical and psychological trauma addressed in the film.
