Turning Veterans into Farmers

There are (at least) two silent crises growing in this country. One is a lack of sufficient health services and career training for veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other is a massive shortage of new farmers entering an aging agricultural career field.

A few inspiring people have figured out that these two problems can help solve each other. Michael O'Gorman, founder of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition, is providing the support and resources to help returning veterans learn farming and move into agricultural careers.

One of the vets he helped, Adam Burke, a Purple Heart recipient, started Veterans Farm in Florida, a set of two blueberry farms where veterans can participate in a 14-week training course and heal their shell-shocked souls in pastoral surroundings.

O'Gorman is a lifelong organic farmer who claims to have grown more organic vegetables than only two other people in the world. For decade,s he managed enormous organic farms in California's Central Valley, having become intimate with so many of the area's fields that he describes driving through central California as "like driving through my farm."

When his son joined the military after 9/11, O'Gorman realized he had to open his mind to what it means to be a soldier and a veteran in our country. He found that returning vets' need for training and jobs weren't being served very effectively by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He also learned that while a mere one-sixth of the American population lives in rural communities, almost half of military recruits come from these communities. What is needed, he thought, is rural agricultural jobs for rurally oriented vets, along with any other vets interested in farming. The solution benefits both vets and America's struggling small-farming system.

"What better place to go look for new farmers than the young men and women who went into the military with a sense of service and came out with the discipline and the leadership and the work ethic, and are looking for something new to do?" he said at a recent panel discussion on rural jobs at a meeting of the Coalition for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans.

Burke, also on the panel, is a young, blonde veteran who grew up on a Florida blueberry farm and, O'Gorman said, wasn't able to walk without the aid of a cane when he returned home from Iraq. He has recovered considerably, enough to establish two blueberry farms under the banner of his NGO, a two-and-a-half-acre farm in Webster, Florida, and an eight-acre farm in Jacksonville set to open in the coming weeks. He chose Jacksonville for the new venture because it's a town with the country's third largest military presence, but conspicuously lacks a VA hospital. Burke believes the farm can offer a constructive, healing influence in a place with tremendous need.

"Our goal is to really help the guys reintegrate back into society," Burke said at the panel. "Go to farmers' markets and sell. Go to commercial markets. Get out in the community. Really work with the community. And then working with the Farmer-Veteran Coalition to provide resources so these guys can go out and start their own farms. Or, if they decide not to do that, we have a pile of farmers who are looking for workers. They need the help."

Photo Credit: Farmer-Veteran Coalition