n August, the Farmer-Veteran Coalition sponsored a “field trip” to a large organic vegetable farming operation in Baja, Mexico.
Vets visit an Ensenada, Mexico, tomato growhouse
Watch a slide show of the vets at school and play on the Baja coast.
Oct 232009
Part of the reason our current food production process is in trouble is that, in the interest of corporate profit we’ve stopped paying attention to what’s good for the land that grows that food. Our practices of planting every available acre, using precious irrigation water as if there was a bottomless supply, fertilizing with petro-chemicals and allowing our topsoil to erode have been the non-sustainable. Eventually, the required resources are depleted and the land stops producing.
Our emphasis at FVC is on promoting sustainable farming practices. Most veterans returning from war and the military, we believe, are looking for something to do that has lasting meaning – that is sustainable and live-giving. 
So we’re grateful to have agencies like the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, that provide beginning farmers and experienced agricultural producers with guidelines, lessons, tips and best practices for planning and managing sustainable farming operations.
Known as ATTRA (it’s original name was Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas), the Information Service is “managed by the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and is funded under a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service. It provides information and other technical assistance to farmers, ranchers, Extension agents, educators, and others involved in sustainable agriculture in the United States.”
We’ve blogged here on several occasions about the emergence of training programs for new farmers. Here, for example, in Lehigh County, PA. And here, in New England. Now there’s a program starting up in Wisconsin, at Stoney Acres Farm in Athens. WSAW reports on the program in a video here on their website.
“We teach them certain skills but we also teach them sort of record-keeping and financial planning and how to plan a farm and show them our spreadsheets and they’re part of the operation, which is a little bit different,” said Catrina Becker of Stoney Acres Farms.
Becker says her and her husband believe training new farmers is important for the future of agriculture.
She feels as people learn more about where their food comes from, that knowledge has the power to transform food systems and allow small farmers to stay in business.
As posted in the Philanthropy News Digest:
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The Pat Tillman Foundation has announced that the new Leadership Through Action – Tillman Military Scholars program is accepting applications.
The new Leadership Through Action initiative continues to support the mission of the foundation to carry forward Pat Tillman’s legacy of leadership and civic action by supporting future generations of leaders who embody the American tradition of citizen service.
Individuals eligible for the Leadership Through Action – Tillman Military Scholars program include veterans and active service members of both pre- and post-9/11 service; service members who wish to start, finish, or further their education; service members of all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, National Guard, and Reserve); service members pursuing undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate, two-year, four-year, public, private, vocational, and trade degrees or certifications; and dependants of service members (children and spouses).
The selection committee will review applications according to unmet financial need, educational and career ambitions, length of service, record of personal achievement, essay question responses, and demonstration of service to others in the community and a desire to continue such service. Please note that applications will be separated into two pools: service members and dependents.
Guidelines and applications are available at the Pat Tillman Foundation Web site.
Contact:
Link to Complete RFP
A program to support veterans helping other veterans is getting close to reality in Washington, D.C.
Published in the Galesburg (IL) Register, this article came to our attention via VAwatchdog.org
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House Education and Labor Committee passed Rep. Phil Hare’s, D-Rock Island, legislation to create a Veterans’ Corps.
It was included as part of the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act.
The Veterans Engaged for Tomorrow Corps Act was coauthored by Hare and Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., his former colleague on the Education and Labor Committee.
It would establish an organization for veterans by veterans, similar to AmeriCorps or Senior Corps.
“President Obama has called for a renewed commitment to national service,” Hare said. “A Veterans’ Corps can be one of the great pillars in that effort.”“Vet Corps provides veterans an opportunity to continue their tremendous service to our nation,” said Sarbanes. “It will also help mitigate the disproportionately high levels of unemployment in the veteran population and provide tangible benefits for disabled or older veterans, as well as the greater community. It is only natural that veterans would be the first to answer President Obama’s call to community service. Vet Corps will allow them to participate in a meaningful way and help smooth their transition back to civilian life.
The primary mission of the Veterans’ Corps will be to recruit and mobilize veterans to serve the needs of their fellow servicemen and women.
It will collaborate with Veterans Service Organizations, Department of Veterans Affairs and other groups to provide education, job training and mentoring to veterans.
“No one understands the challenges facing our veterans better than those who have walked in the very same shoes,” Hare said.
The Veterans’ Corps will be overseen by the Corporation of National and Community Service.
It would be the first of its kind.
Founded 25 years ago to bring vocational training to people, including veterans, in the San Francisco Bay area, Inter-City Services has been ramping up its veteran training programs over the past couple of years. Speaking to a reporter from the Oakland Tribune, Executive Director Mansour Id-Deen revealed that the agency received, last December, $650,000 to train 144 people over the next two years. It has previously been given $500,000 to train 125 veterans.
At its location on 3269 Adeline St., Inter-City Services offers career counseling, office and computer training, computer repair, and GED preparation. If the applicant requires a different area of vocational training, he or she will be referred to another training institution with all fees paid.
All honorably discharged veterans, including those with disabilities, can find a home at Inter-City Services.
Inter-City Services has been receiving state funding for veteran training most years since 1998.
The most recent grant specified that 50 percent of the recipients should be recently separated veterans, that is, those coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq — soldiers like Stercks and Cooper.
“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble at all filling the 144 spots,” Id-Deen said.
On the other hand, Id-Deen observed that, just like Stercks and Cooper, it sometimes takes a while before veterans find the agency. Inter-City Services says its goal is to provide a seamless service from military to civilian employment.
Mar 282009
A COMMUNITY SUMMIT ON THE MENTAL HEALTH & WELLNESS OF VETERANS & THEIR FAMILIES
Date: April 16, 2009 Time: 8am-4pm
The summit is a unique opportunity for California veterans, their families and care providers to critically examine existing networks of care for veterans. At the summit, training will be offered on Post Traumatic Stress, transition for combat to community, housing, employment issues and resources for newly separated veterans. The conference will examine mental health issues and their profound impacts on housing, employment, economic stability and social welfare of our state’s military personnel and veterans.
Please click the following links for registration:
Mar 232009
Programs for training new farmers are beginning to sprout up around the country. It would be great if each county would sponsor a program of its own to build local populations of farmers serving their areas.
In an effort to “to encourage a new generation to learn to make their living off the land,” Lehigh County, Pennsylvania is incubating a program that will team selected “fellows” with mentors with extensive agriculture experience.
Each fellow will be teamed with a mentor farmer and will participate in classroom as well as hands-on training at a county-owned farm that straddles Upper and Lower Milford townships. At the end of the first year of the three-year program, each farmer will be given the opportunity to run his or her own business.
Upon completion of the program, participants who choose to continue their small farm business in Lehigh County will be eligible to apply for a $10,000 Seed Farm expansion grant.
Six fellow will be chosen each year from a pool of applicants who need not have any prior farming experience. Classroom training and mentoring will be provided for both vegetable farming and poultry farming.
The Seed Farm is a 451-acre tract formerly owned by the Seem Family, purchased by the county in 1974. The 25-acre agricultural incubator site includes 10 acres for crops, two irrigation ponds, a site for a pole building, two greenhouses and a small parking area.
The program is sponsored by a number of organizations including the county, the state Department of Agriculture, Penn State University Cooperative Extension and the Wildlands Conservancy.
Startup costs for the three-year project are about $350,000 Cunningham said. The money comes from a combination of federal and state grants and private donations.
Dec 052008
The San Francisco Zen Center is offering the following program, as described on its web site.
Finding the Path of the Warrior on the Journey Home:
A Retreat and Support Community for Returning Veterans
Sunday, March 1 – at Green Gulch
Sunday, April 5 – at City Center
Saturday, May 9 – at City Center
Sunday, June 14 – at Green Gulch
10 am – 5 pm
with Chris Fortin and Lee Klinger Lesser
This four-month group is designed to build a safe and welcoming community for returning veterans. It consists of four monthly one-day retreats, two at Green Gulch Farm (March 1 and June 14), and two at the City Center (April 5 and May 9). Activities will include: meditation and mindfulness practices to cultivate awareness and healing; writing as a practice to develop self-awareness and expression; gardening and farming to engage with the natural vitality of working with the land; weekly mindfulness and stress management practices to integrate skills being learned in the retreats; and weekly phone or e-mail contact with the leaders and other participants. The retreat is non-denominational and open to all veterans.
“In the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone.”—Rachel Naomi Remen
Fee: $10 per day, and the opportunity to offer a teaching donation if desired.
To register, contact Lee Klinger Lesser at leelesser@gmail.com or 415-307-6043.
Neil Hamilton is director of the Agricultural Law Center and Dwight Opperman Professor of Law at Drake University. He also advised the Obama campaign on agricultural issues. So his recommendations in this column in the Des Moines Register carries some weight.
Barack Obama’s election has triggered a new sense of optimism and opportunity across the land. His ability to harness this energy to address our challenges will define his success as president.
From the perspective of Iowa’s cornfields, where his race began, one of the serious challenges America faces is finding the next generation of farmers – the thousands of new families needed to produce our food, steward the land and rebuild the fabric of rural America.
The history of American agriculture is a tale of declining farm numbers. Our rapidly aging farm population and growing concentration of land with absentee owners place the future of farming in doubt. Research by Michael Duffy at Iowa State University shows that today more than 60 percent of Iowa farmland is rented, and 55 percent is owned by people over 65. As the countryside empties and land moves to non-farmer owners, the security and sustainability of our food system is threatened.
Ironically, this is happening as surging interest in local food, the environment and health open new markets for farmers. Janie Simms Hipp, USDA’s national program leader for beginning farmer development, agrees we are at a critical juncture in transferring our farming infrastructure.
In his nomination acceptance speech, Obama said, “America, now is not the time for small plans.” Here is a big plan the president could embrace: Launch a New Farmer Corps and set a 10-year goal of establishing one-half million new farms in the United States.
The New Farmer Corps would link his advocacy for public service with an initiative to plant the next generation of America’s farm families. The program would assist current owners to transfer land and offer new farmers training, capital and markets to make their farms thrive. It would encourage states and counties to plan for supporting new farmers.
As a son of Iowa’s soil and part of a four-generation legacy of farm ownership, I know firsthand how the wealth accumulated by hardworking farm families built our rural society and economy. A renewed Jeffersonian vision can make farming the green career choice for thousands of Americans. Agriculture may have changed, but the promise and potential for farming and land ownership to build our culture and economy have not dimmed.
If anything, consumer demand for better food is creating more opportunities to farm. From Iowa’s cornfields to the urban gardens of Detroit, from New England’s orchards to the ranches of the Plains, America needs new people with ideas and energy to be the future of agriculture. Across the nation, consumers are seeking safe, delicious, and healthy food, grown locally, if possible. A New Farmer Corps would be the president’s call to create the new farms needed to satisfy our demands.
Public efforts to support beginning farmers exist. But the initiatives suffer from lack of funding, little sense of public urgency and no integrated vision to address the challenges faced by someone who wants to start farming.
The New Farmer Corps would build on existing efforts, such as Iowa’s voluntary land-link program, which matches aging farmers with young families seeking a start. It would harness loans offered by USDA and Farm Credit banks, but supplement them with benefits new farmers could earn by caring for the land, conserving energy and producing healthy food. Congress could authorize education, training and health benefits to families investing their sweat, labor and dreams on rural and urban farms.
America has no shortage of people eager to put their hands in the soil to feed us. Thousands of potential new farmers exist – college students laboring on urban farms, farm kids hoping to continue the family tradition, and immigrants and refugees who brought their agrarian legacy to America. What we lack is a coordinated, creative national effort.
The New Farmer Corps could succeed by supplementing current efforts with new funds and tax incentives, such as Iowa’s tax break for owners who make land available to new farmers rather than holding it until death. The New Farmer Corps could offer special training and credit incentives for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, so they can join the ranks of America’s farmers and continue serving, but in more pastoral and nurturing ways.
If Obama asks Americans to support a New Farmer Corps, I’m confident it will unleash an outpouring of interest from new farmers in every corner of America’s fertile land as well as from citizens – the eaters yearning for healthy food and anxious to support a more sustainable future for America’s farms.
