Nadia McCaffery honored her son, who was killed in action, by founding Veterans Village – a second, healing home for veterans returning from the wars. To that end, she has been seeking out land and facilities for these homes. One great potential village has been offered near St. Cloud, Minnesota – the Sauk Center.

An article in the Sauk Herald describes the latest developments in this project.

Veterans project heads in new direction
New leaders focus in on Washington

By Bryan Zollman

The proposed veterans village at Oak Ridge north of Sauk Centre has a new name, new leaders and a new direction.

The project is said to be gaining steam toward Washington, as new leaders have emerged and hope to secure federal funding to not only purchase the $3.6 million property, but make significant improvements to its existing structures.

One of those leaders is Jimmie Coulthard, who was in Sauk Centre March 24, speaking to the local Rotary Club about the proposal.

Coulthard, 64, a Vietnam veteran who has made a name for himself by securing government dollars for veteran housing for the past two decades, is optimistic about turning the Oak Ridge property into “Valley Forge Village,” a 400-unit retreat for veterans and their families where they may stay as long as they wish in a self-sustaining common interest community that offers training and reintegration strategies.

“We could pull it off very quickly,” Coulthard said in a phone interview from his home in River Falls, Wis. “It’s more than shovel ready.”

Coulthard said the facility would be intended as a non-medical facility where veterans can go voluntarily.

“We’re trying to stay away from it being institutional,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a place you are discharged to.”

Coulthard said Sauk Centre is an ideal location because of the vicinity of VA centers in Alexandria and St. Cloud as well as schools such as Alexandria Technical College, which veterans could attend to learn new trades or professions. He said the remodel and construction phase could produce 60 jobs, but he envisions as many as 200 if the project came to fruition.

Funding

While the personnel has changed, one obstacle has remained. Where will the money come from?

“I don’t know where it is going to come from,” Coulthard said. “But for me there is nothing as strong as an idea whose time has come.”

Coulthard has twice visited Washington with colleagues associated with the project. He said he has met with several politicians and is trying to get federal agencies such as Health and Human Services, HUD, the Veterans Administration and the Department of Agriculture (organic farming would be a staple of the village) to work together.

“I’m trying to get them to take a look at this on a national level,” he said. “To me, that is where it makes most sense.”

Coulthard said it’s difficult to put a price tag on the project because the campus is so large.

“It’s such a wild guess,” he said. “I personally think $35 to $40 million would give us a top-of-the-line place.”

Who is Coulthard?

Jimmie Coulthard spent six years in the Army in the 1960s and spent 20 months in Vietnam.

“When I came home in 1968, this country was crazier than a tick,” he said.

He worked on riverboats for awhile before becoming a chemical dependency counselor.

“In 1984 my life fell apart so I went to the VA to get help and changed careers,” he said.

He eventually landed a job at the Hazelden Foundation, a nationally recognized treatment center in the Twin Cities. In 1992 he started a homeless veterans program that eventually led to several housing projects for veterans throughout the state, including Minneapolis and St. Cloud.

He hopes the Oak Ridge project will be his latest success story in helping veterans. He, along with Oak Ridge property owner Jim Jauss, and Nadia McCaffrey, the mother of Patrick McCaffrey, who was killed in the Iraq War, are slated for a visit to Washington April 19-21. He hopes to know more about the future of the project in the next couple months.

“People would love to see it saved, used, run responsibly and create some work,” he said. “With veterans you always feel served. They’re still out there serving. This is a worthwhile project to try and pull off. The stars are aligned for that place. It’s just ready.”

Shepherd Bliss is a strong supporter of FVC and its mission. In fact, his work has been one of the major inspirations for what we intend to do. He spoke last fall at our benefit in Sebastopol, CA and in this essay published by Sonoma West, he expands on the main topic of his speech.

Agrotherapy: Farms Can Heal

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 2:37 PM PST

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” my Uncle Dale used to say when I worked on his Iowa farm as a child. In recent years I have tried to eat something each day that I have grown, or something that a neighbor or someone local has grown.

Such seasonal eating — which we can fortunately do here in West County — can be physically and mentally nourishing. For example, around here from December through February wild miner’s lettuce is abundant, March through November chickens lay eggs. June to August is berry season, and September to November apples abound.

While farming since the early 1990s South of Sebastopol (which some refer to affectionately as Sebysouth  or Sebtati) and sometimes teaching psychology at Sonoma State University and elsewhere, I have come to see that the healing powers of apples, chickens, berries, wildcrafting, and farming itself can be mental, as well as physical. So I have started thinking and writing about what might be called agropsychology and agrotherapy. Farms can heal body, mind, and soul.

Animals, plants, and the elements can be therapists that engage in many healing functions. They can be connective and help break isolation. Pets and farm animals can be funny and help draw someone out of depression. Pruning can rid one of more than unwanted branches, as one’s “stuff” can also be cut. A bright sun can lift one’s spirit and a gentle stream can soothe the soul. Nature heals naturally.

Pet therapy and horticulture therapy are becoming increasingly popular in hospitals, recovery centers, and in work with military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress, the disabled, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease. Europe even has many agricultural operations they call agrotherapy farms.

As I’ve begun to write and talk about agrotherapy people have described their personal healing processes and how gardening and farming help them. “I farm because it is my work, play, church, school, gym, and therapy,” my agrarian Sebysouth neighbor Jeff Snook recently said as we exchanged food and plants. Farms tend to create relationships — with plants, animals, the elements, and humans — which can promote physical and mental well-being.

Such neighborly relationships will be especially important, even for survival, as we head into an economically uncertain future. Supermarket shelves are not likely to be as full in the future as they currently are, nor will gas stations have as much available cheap fuel. Growing at least part of one’s own food can reduce the stress of worrying about where future meals are going to come from.

“I can vouch for what you call ‘agropsychology.’ It saved me in my recovery from a traumatic childhood and now in middle age. I am once again finding great healing, joy, and contentment in growing my own garden and raising my own farm animals for food, fun and deep connection with the cycles of life and death. It is a spiritual, as well as a practical avocation. My husband says he can tell how happy I am by how much dirt is under my fingernails,” wrote Jennifer York, owner of the Bamboo Sorcery:

“The micro-elements of soil are positively impactful in managing depression. I don’t think we can say the same thing for ‘sterilized’ soil,”writes clinical psychologist Dr. Mary McMahon from Massachusetts.

So if something ails you, paying a  professional therapist can be helpful. And you can turn to nature, get down on all fours, get your hands dirty, plant something and then eat it. Farm animals and pets can delight with their beauty and goofiness. When the wind takes a redwood for a spin on the dance floor, it can be a marvelous, uplifting sight.

Shepherd Bliss farms in Sebastopol, teaches psychology part-time at SSU, and has essays on agrotherapy in the book “Enduring War” and the pending “Ecotherapy,” scheduled for publication in May. He can be reached at sb3@pon.net

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.

In a special Food issue of the New York Times Magazine, science writer (and champion of the responsible food movement) Michael Pollan issues an appeal to the new U.S. President to take notice and actively reform the American food industry. His extensive and detailed article provides a good prescription to begin the healing of what has become a very ill situation involving food, health and energy.

Whatever we may have liked about the era of cheap, oil-based food, it is drawing to a close. Even if we were willing to continue paying the environmental or public-health price, we’re not going to have the cheap energy (or the water) needed to keep the system going, much less expand production. But as is so often the case, a crisis provides opportunity for reform, and the current food crisis presents opportunities that must be seized.

In drafting these proposals, I’ve adhered to a few simple principles of what a 21st-century food system needs to do. First, your administration’s food policy must strive to provide a healthful diet for all our people; this means focusing on the quality and diversity (and not merely the quantity) of the calories that American agriculture produces and American eaters consume. Second, your policies should aim to improve the resilience, safety and security of our food supply. Among other things, this means promoting regional food economies both in America and around the world. And lastly, your policies need to reconceive agriculture as part of the solution to environmental problems like climate change.

These goals are admittedly ambitious, yet they will not be difficult to align or advance as long as we keep in mind this One Big Idea: most of the problems our food system faces today are because of its reliance on fossil fuels, and to the extent that our policies wring the oil out of the system and replace it with the energy of the sun, those policies will simultaneously improve the state of our health, our environment and our security.

Pollan’s action points for what he calls a “sun-food agenda” include abandoning monocropping and returning to polycropping of more fresh vegetables instead of only corn and soy, rewarding farmers for planting cover crops to renew and hold the soil, returning livestock to pastures instead of feedlots and ending the routine use of antibiotics for farm animals. This agenda also calls for adding more farmers to manage smaller scale operations.

The sun-food agenda must include programs to train a new generation of farmers and then help put them on the land. The average American farmer today is 55 years old; we shouldn’t expect these farmers to embrace the sort of complex ecological approach to agriculture that is called for. Our focus should be on teaching ecological farming systems to students entering land-grant colleges today. For decades now, it has been federal policy to shrink the number of farmers in America by promoting capital-intensive monoculture and consolidation. As a society, we devalued farming as an occupation and encouraged the best students to leave the farm for “better” jobs in the city. We emptied America’s rural counties in order to supply workers to urban factories. To put it bluntly, we now need to reverse course. We need more highly skilled small farmers in more places all across America — not as a matter of nostalgia for the agrarian past but as a matter of national security. For nations that lose the ability to substantially feed themselves will find themselves as gravely compromised in their international dealings as nations that depend on foreign sources of oil presently do. But while there are alternatives to oil, there are no alternatives to food.

Shepherd was the first speaker at the benefit dinner in Sebastopol. Drawing from his experience as a military veteran, small farmer, poet and psychologist, he talked about the “broken systems” of our country’s veterans affairs and farming industry. Having been working with veterans for many years, he understands the healing potential that comes with working with living plants in the fields. He knows the power that farming holds in the transition from warfare to civilian life.

Nadia McCaffrey is a Gold Star Mother: she lost her son in the Iraq War and is doing something about it. She founded Veterans Village to provide compassionate healing and living environments for returning veterans  damaged by their war experience.

In these clips from her address – following her introduction by FVC’s Michael O’Gorman – she describes the expansion of Veterans Village to sites in Minnesota and New York, where land is avaiable for farming and gardening – important components for both the healing and livelihood of the communities.

Nadia sees a clear connection between Veterans Village and the agricultural training goals of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. We hope to soon be helping vets become the competent farmers and gardeners that they can be.

Adam Warthesen of the Land Stewardship Project sent out an email message describing the potential gains to be realized by beginning farmers from the just-passed Farm Bill. As he wrote:

It’s been a long path and while opinions vary on the overall bill, some key gains were made. Now family farm and sustainable agriculture organizations need to capitalize on those gains and make sure they are implemented in a way that build healthy communities and result in better care of the land.

But he also cautions:

So, just as we’ve worked hard to secure beginning farmer gains in the new bill, we’re planning to put that same type of effort, along with our allies such as the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and others, into making sure these funds and policies really do help beginning farmers and ranchers get started and succeed.

Adam lists the following as measures from the Farm Bill that directly or indirectly support startup farmers:

• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program: Secured $75 million for the first-time ever in mandatory funding for this competitive grants program which supports community-based beginning farmer and rancher training, education, and mentoring efforts. Also secured was and additional discretionary authorization of funds for the program yet they are subject to appropriations.

• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account Pilot Program: Established a new 15-state pilot program to assist beginning farmers who lack significant financial resources or assets to accumulate startup savings and financial management skills; will require appropriations.

• Conservation Set-Aside, Payment Rate, and Advanced Payment: Reserves 5% of total funds from working lands conservation programs for beginning and 5% for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers; also provides a 90% cost-share rate and 30% payment advances under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program for beginning farmer and ranchers.

• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Down Payment Loans: Enables lower interest rates, better lending terms, and higher maximum purchase price on first-time land purchases for new farmers, plus program expansion to also cover minority farmers.

• Higher Loan Limits and Credit Program Funding Levels: An increase in per farm loan limits from $200,000 to $300,000 for both direct ownership and direct operating loans, and an increase in the authorization for appropriations for annual lending funds to $350 million and $850 million for direct ownership and operating loans, respectively.

• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Contract Land Sales Program: A new permanent, nationwide authority for federal guarantees on private land contract sales to assist transfer of farms from retiring to beginning farmers and ranchers.

• Conservation Reserve Program Transition Incentives: Secured $25 million over 10 years in mandatory funding for a new program that encourages owners of CRP land that is returning to production to rent or sell to beginning and minority farmers.

• Conservation Loans: Revised conservation loan program that includes priorities for beginning and minority farmers, and for conversion to sustainable and organic farming.

• Office of Advocacy and Outreach: Creates a new office at the top level of USDA to coordinate implementation of small farm and beginning farmer and rancher policies and programs, as well as socially disadvantaged farmer and farmworker policies and programs.

An article in the Marin County Independent Journal describes how the non-profit, Sebastopol-based organization, California Farmlink, helps new farmers get started with land, loans and education. We learn about two young farmers who have benefitted from Farmlink’s offerings – Annabelle Lenderlink and Jesse Kuhn.

Lenderink’s farm – which rarely comes close to turning a profit – might not have been able to afford its irrigation hose if not for the help of the Sebastopol-based nonprofit California FarmLink, which became a model for a national pilot program in the 2008 federal farm bill passed by Congress on May 15.

Under the savings plan, Lenderink made regular deposits into a special fund; for every $1 she invested, FarmLink promised a $3 match.

The nearly $10,000 Lenderink, 48, netted helped her buy tools such as a tiller, hoes and a ripper, which, she said, “has three shafts that you drag through the soil.”

Without the savings and fund-matching program, purchasing the equipment for her small-scale farm “would have been very hard,” she said. But nearly as valuable as the cash, said Lenderink, was learning how to get a financial handle on her farm.

“The best part about it is there’s a lot of education that goes with it. Financial stuff – margins and figuring out how much cash flow you have, record-keeping.”The educational component of the savings program, called individual development accounts, or IDAs, is a crucial part of the competitive program targeting low-income and minority farmers, said Steve Schwartz, executive director of California FarmLink.

Cash-flow projections, a business plan, tax preparation, cleaning up credit – these requirements of the program help farmers do “all the things to put them on solid financial footing,” Schwartz said.

California Farmlink has been around since 1998, with a primary purpose of connecting startup farmers with affordable land. It has connected itself with a nationwide network of farming advocacy organizations and, as a model program for helping new farmers successfully enter the business, it expects to get additional federal funding under the recently passed Farm Bill.