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Jul 142010
Jul 122010
Here is an article about a farm in North Carolina co-founded by an Army veteran to provide an ecologically sustainable place for aspiring farmers, including veterans.
Written by Sidney Cruze Photographed by Melissa McGaw
Jun 042010
Watch a video of the retreat.
FVC’s Veterans Organic Farming Educational Retreat took place Memorial Day weekend. Sixteen aspiring farmers with military service backgrounds attended and all day Saturday and Sunday they were informed by experts in organic farming, training and certification. FVC provided accommodations, food and transportation to the venues, all around Santa Cruz, CA. Here are most of the attendees and FVC staff, posing amidst the organic berry bushes of Swanton Berry Farm. Jim Cochran, the founder, is in the center rear:
![](http://www.farmvetco.org/"wp-content/uploads//2010/06/MG_34441.jpg "_MG_3444")
Photo by Susanna Frohman.
The University of California provides this online Agricultural Tourism Directory, which allows you to choose a county and find all of the farms, orchards and vineyards that invite the public for tours and tastings.
If you’ve never seen farming up close, this is a great way to meet farmers, ask questions and see how things operate. Just getting out into agricultural territory, like California’s Central Valley and wine-producing regions can be very educational. See where your food comes from and meet the people who grow and process it.
![](http://www.farmvetco.org/"wp-content/uploads//2010/05/agritourism-300x269.png "agritourism")
May 102010
Not that we’re an organic-only organization, but the magazine that helped (re)start organic horticultural practices has recognized the work of veterans who have returned from assignment to become dirt farmers.
This article, Veteran Soldiers Become Novice Farmers, will reach many thousands of readers who are loyal to the Rodale group, which has published OGM for over 50 years.
May 072010
In this interview, Jim Dunlop and his wife Rebecca Thistlethwaite talk about their life raising hogs and chickens in Central California and the lessons they’ve learned. It’s not all fun and glory – it’s hard work and you need not apply for an internship with them unless you’re willing to work at least as hard as the owners. With over 5 years under his belt as a professional farmer, Jim has made plenty of mistakes and learned many lessons. This is part one of a two part interview.
May 052010
Following on its announcement that it has secured a new piece of land for growing its berries, the Veterans’ Farm founded by Adam Burke is now inviting volunteers to help clean up that property in advance of setting up its farming operation.
![](http://www.farmvetco.org/"wp-content/uploads//2010/05/130_0159.jpg "130_0159")
Contact:
Phone: 352-217-1662
Email: veteransfarm@yahoo.com
Where:
5571 Long Branch RD
Jacksonville, FL 32234
When:
Sat May 22nd at 8:00am
Directions:
From jacksonville, FL take I-10 west to 295North to Hwy 228 (Normandy Blvd) heading toward 301. Take a left on McClelland Rd go all the way down until you hit a 4-way dirt road. Take a right onto Long Branch Rd. It’s the 3rd drive on the left – 5571.
Activities:
We will be cleaning up garbage and debris from the old farm house and around the farm. Work gloves recommended, and weedeaters welcomed.
We need to get all of the trash removed from the farm in order for us to start prepping the land for planting.
Bonus byproducts:
This will be a great networking opportunity and give us an opportunity to introduce the different organizations that are supporting us to one another.
Who else will be there:
We will have supporters from Work Vessels for Veterans, Farmer-Veteran Coalition, GreenCare For troops, Truly Nolan, The Mission Continues, and the American Legion.
We hope to have the Patriot Guard Riders participate as well as others.
Apr 232010
When I first met Adam Burke in fall of 2008, it was a windy day in the high desert east of Los Angeles. We sat outside Adam’s trailer that he shared with his wife Michele while she worked as a traveling pediatric nurse and he spent his days in rehabilitation for his war wounds.![](http://www.farmvetco.org/"wp-content/uploads//2010/04/AdamBurkeLarge1.jpg "AdamBurkeLarge")
Adam talked about farming in a way that only a farmer could – what the dirt smelled like, what the birds sounded like, how he liked the way the humidity felt, and how his mind got to relax when he sat on a tractor.
A farmer’s season starts long before the first seed is planted and Adam knew that. Standing outside his trailer, steadying his balance with his cane, he had already begun farming. Five thousand miles away and without a dime, Adam had been planning and constructing every detail of his farm – his plants, the soil mix, the containers, the irrigation system, how the berries would be grown and harvested and sold.
Adam’s body had taken a beating in Iraq but his spirit was strong and he knew he had something that he could focus on and that the hard physical and mental work he needed to farm was going to heal him.
The Farmer-Veteran Coalition was honored to help buy Adam his first plants, pots and potting mix. Our friend Deborah Beebe popped up with the name “Red, White and Blueberry.” As Adam wrote this morning, “The soil is fertile in Florida; FVC planted a seed and now is watching it rapidly grow.” We urge all the public support for Adam’s farm possible.
– Michael O’Gorman, FVC Founder and Project Director
*********** PRESS RELEASE ***********
Farming Project Invites Veterans to Work and Learn
Jacksonville, FL April 23, 2010
Former Army Sergeant Adam Burke, founder and director of Veterans Farm, wants to provide paying work and horticulture therapy for fellow disabled veterans. Last year, Adam and his wife Michele began raising and marketing “Red, White and Blueberries” in central Florida with support from the Farmer Veteran Coalition (www.farmvetco.org), which specializes in helping veterans find livelihoods in the food and farming sector.
This year money raised by Work Vessels for Veterans (www.workvesselsforveterans.org) has enabled Adam to secure 8 acres of land outside of Jacksonville where he plans to expand Veterans Farm to include other berries and organic vegetables while providing more job opportunities for disabled veterans. WVFV serves as Veterans Farm’s non-profit fiscal sponsor.
“Horticulture therapy by way of the blueberry farm helped my recovery so much that I thought it would only be greedy not to share it with others who have suffered so much,” Adam said. “It was nice to have other disabled veterans out there. We stick together and work as a team.”
Adam grew up on a family farm in Central Florida. The first member of his family to not go directly into farming, he joined the US Army instead, serving from 1995-2004. He served in Iraq with Operation Iraqi Freedom from December 2002 until March of 2004, when mortar fire near Balad gave him his second and most serious injury, earning him the Purple Heart.
Adam relates, “When I returned home I found it difficult going through the VA to get help for my TBI and PTSD. The psychologist and psychiatrist kept telling me that I needed to find a way to relieve stress. One of the best things I remember from my childhood was growing up on a farm. I remembered being in the outdoors and enjoying working with others. I remember the sound of the birds and the mist from the sprinklers, the wind and the calming effect it had on me.”
Adam says that his next step in developing Veterans Farm on its new land is to raise money to purchase the blueberry bushes and pine bark so that he can accept his first group of disabled veterans to train and operate the farm. He is also seeking donations of equipment to help complete the project. He plans to make his farm fully self-sustaining.
Adam Burke can be contacted via his website (www.veteransfarm.com) or email (veteransfarm@yahoo.com) or telephone (352-217-1662).
All donations for Veterans Farm through WVFV are tax deductible will go directly to helping disabled veterans and their recovery.
Release by the Farmer-Veteran Coalition Media Project, funded by Lewis Black
From the website of the Ecological Farming Association:
Poppy Davis to be Executive Director of EcoFarmThe Board of Directors of the Ecological Farming Association (EcoFarm) in Watsonville, California is pleased to announce that Poppy Davis will join the organization as the Executive Director in May. Poppy is a California native, returning home after three years at the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. where she worked on Secretary Vilsack’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative, Women and Working Lands, and with Native American farmers and ranchers. No stranger to the EcoFarm Conference, she has counseled financial sustainability to conference attendees for fifteen years.The Ecological Farming Association was founded in 1981 to bring people together for education and advocacy in support of ecologically based farms, food systems and communities. Through educational conferences, training programs, on-farm events and communications initiatives, EcoFarm provides practical tools for building food systems that encourage diverse ecosystems and healthy rural communities.Prior to working in Washington, Poppy worked for three years in the Davis Regional Office of the USDA Risk Management Agency. Her career prior to that was as a Certified Public Accountant working in small accounting firms with a practice emphasis in family scale farms and ranches and related estates, business and not-for-profits. She is a past fellow of the California Agricultural Leadership Program, and has a bachelor’s in Agricultural and Managerial Economics from the University of California at Davis.She says that the best part about being with the USDA was getting to know people from all over the country and working with South East Asian, Latino and Native American farmers and ranchers. She hopes to continue to work with diverse populations in her new position.Poppy is on the board of directors of The Carrot Project and Red Tomato, both in Massachusetts, and the Farmer-Veteran Coalition, in California. Previously she served on the board of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers in California.Poppy Davis to be Executive Director of EcoFarm
Jeremy Lopez, a Marine veteran, worked in American embassies around the world. His specific task was opening and closing the embassies each day, always being mindful of security issues in some countries.
Joe Judge, a member of Sonoma County Farm Bureau and a leader in the county’s wine industry, said because Lopez had shouldered that level of responsibility he had no qualms about putting him in charge of frost protection when he and his wife had to travel to visit an ailing family member. Lopez stayed in the family home, sleeping next to the frost alarm and moving into action when temperatures dipped below freezing.
“It was the first time in nine years that we were able to leave the vineyard during frost season. And it was because of the diligence of ex-soldier Jeremy Lopez,” said Judge.
This season, Jeremy is back, helping Joe with his frost protection preparation. He was originally attracted to working on Joe’s vinyard by his friend, Matt Mcclure, a fellow Marine veteran who served in combat in Iraq. Matt now runs his own farm – Shooting Star – with his partner, Lily Schneider.
