ABOUT

The Farmer-Veteran Coalition – a project of Community Partners – seeks to help our returning veterans find employment, training, and places to heal on America’s farms. At the same time the Coalition hopes that some of these young men and women may help address our country’s critical need for more good, hard-working people entering the field of agriculture.

The coalition is acutely aware of the high number of soldiers entering the military from our rural communities and the need to improve both job opportunities and veteran services in these areas. We believe that our family farms, the sustainable farming movement and growing support for local and regional agriculture could all be well served by people already accustomed to hard work, discipline and dedication. If given the opportunity, our returning veterans can benefit from and help to stimulate the growing green economy, even in these hard times.

Our goal is to start with an initial program focused in California and to move quickly into a national organization.

The organization will hold strictly to being politically neutral and take no position on the war.

Mission

The mission of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition is to mobilize our food and farming community to create healthy and viable futures for America’s veterans by enlisting their help in

1. building our green economy,
2. rebuilding our rural communities, and
3. securing a safe and healthy food supply.

Advisory Board

David Visher (Chair), California Program Manager, Food Alliance, Davis California.

David joined the Food Alliance team in March, 2007 to work in California to support outreach to farmers, ranchers, food packers, processors and distributors regarding Food Alliance certification.

He has been a vegetable grower, a produce seller and spent nine years with the University of California Cooperative Extension Small Farm Program. In 2001 Visher formed a consulting partnership called Farm and Agriculture Collaborative Training Systems (FACTS). David serves on the boards of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and the California Institute for Rural Studies.

Poppy Davis, USDA – Risk Management Agency, Washington DC.

Poppy Davis has more than fifteen years of experience addressing tax and accounting needs for not for profits, small businesses, and individuals, with an emphasis on agricultural enterprises.

She is a graduate of the University of California at Davis with a degree in Agricultural Economics, and a Master’s Candidate in the Journalism program at Georgetown University in Washington DC.  In 2006, she completed the two-year California Agricultural Leadership Program.  Her non-profit board experience includes six years as the treasurer for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers.  She is currently on the boards of Red Tomato and The Carrot Project, both in Boston Massachusetts.

Ms. Davis teaches classes in business planning, introduction to taxation, and not-for-profit governance and accounting in English and Spanish to small producer groups. Prior to joining the USDA in 2004, Ms. Davis worked in public accounting in San Francisco and in the Napa, Willamette, and Sacramento Valleys.

Erin Hardie, Research Associate, California Institute for Rural Studies, Davis, California

Erin has a master’s degree from UC Davis in International Agricultural Development with an emphasis in postharvest handling systems for horticultural crops. She has extensive experience in agricultural training and education and has worked with farmers and farm communities around the world, from Bolivia to Egypt.

Erin is pursuing her PhD in agriculture and science education at UC Davis with an emphasis on how educational programs, research institutions and information systems can best support small and medium-scale farmers, farmworkers and rural communities in California.

Larry Jacobs, CEO, Jacobs Farm/Del Cabo, Pescadero, California.

Larry founded Jacobs Farm and Del Cabo with his wife and partner Sandra Belin in 1980 and has been a leader in the organic farming movement ever since. Jacobs Farm is a California based retail organic herb company. Del Cabo is based in Baja California and Baja California Sur in Mexico where Larry and Sandy have spent almost three decades working with small family growers.

In 2007 Larry and Sandra received the Organic Trade Association’s prestigious Organic Farming Leadership Award.

Todd Koons , CEO and founder of EpicRoots, Salinas, California.

A former chef, Todd helped pioneer the production of baby and gourmet salad mixes beginning in the 1980’s. In 1990 he formed TKO Farms, which brought organic, pre-washed salad greens from around the world to the American public.

Always looking for the newest products, Todd has focused in recent years to introduction of mache, France’s number one salad green, to the US market. When not in one of his fields or salad plant, Todd is busy supporting numerous sustainable farming and human rights causes.

Mark Lipson, Policy Program Director, Organic Farming Research Foundation, Santa Cruz, CA

Mark is also Organic Farming Research Foundation’s ambassador for organic issues in the policy arena. His seminal work “Searching for the ‘O-Word‘” documented the absence of publicly funded organic research and provided the platform for OFRF’s advocacy success. Mark is also a member of the Molino Creek Farming Collective, a multi-family farm producing certified organic tomatoes and vegetable crops for wholesale and farmers’ markets since 1982.

Nadia McCaffrey, Founder of the Patrick McCaffrey Foundation, Tracy, CA

Nadia has been involved in non-profit leadership for several years.  In 2005, her son, Patrick was killed while in Iraq.  His case garnered international attention and led to the creation of the Patrick McCaffrey Foundation to promote mental and  holistic wellness and palliative care among veterans returning from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Matt McCue, Iraq War Veteran and Farmer, Shooting Star CSA, Fairfield, CA

Matt joined the US Army after 9/11 and spent a year of combat in Iraq as well as another year abroad in Korea.  Upon returning home Matt attended the prestigious CASFS apprentice program at University of California at Santa Cruz and went on to teach agriculture in the Peace Corps in Niger. Matt now runs Shooting Star, a CSA farm in Fairfield, California with his partner Lily Schneider.

Gail Wadsworth, Food Systems Consultant, Walnut Creek, CA

Gail works as an independent consultant to farmers, consumers, educators, and wholesalers concerned with alternatives to the current food system. Gail is a presenter at professional seminars and learning communities, specifically focusing on agricultural trends in the East Bay region of California, the effects of global markets on local economies and alternative marketing systems. While working with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers and in collaboration with Contra Costa Public Health and Kaiser Permanente, she developed – and was responsible for farmer involvement in – a low-income community supported farm stand project in Richmond, CA. She manages Eat Outside the Box CSA in Walnut Creek. Gail is a sustainability advisor at Los Medanos College, Antioch, CA, an advisory council member of Life Garden, Walnut Creek, CA, and a member of the Kaiser Permanente Community Food Committee. Gail is a member of the California Food and Justice Coalition. She has a Master of Science degree in International Agricultural Development from UC, Davis, and has managed large scale on-farm trials as well as projects with limited resource farmers.

Staff

Michael O’Gorman, Executive Director
michaelo@farmvetco.org

Michael has been farming for almost forty years. For the last twenty years he has been the Production Manager for some of the nation’s largest organic vegetable companies, including TKO Farms, Mission Organics (Natural Selection Foods)and, most recently, Jacobs Farm/DelCabo where he oversaw 1600 acres of tomatoes, basil and mixed vegetables in the Northern half of the Baja Peninsula. Michael is now running Just Farms Consulting, splitting his time between Del Cabo fields in Mexico and working with new beginning farmers in the US. He has been volunteering his time as farm advisor to a number of the young veterans in our program.

Michael Porter, Director of Career Development
michaelp@farmvetco.org

Michael just retired from twenty years in the Coast Guard as Information Systems Technician.

Linda Speel, Events Coordinator
linda@farmvetco.org
Linda lives in Petaluma, CA and has worked along side Michael O’Gorman at the conception of the FVC assisting in many phases of the project. Currently she is the Event Planner for the Farmer Veteran Coalition.

Cliff Figallo, Media and Community Consultant
cliff@farmvetco.org

Cliff lived for a decade as part of a farming community and before that he grew up helping his father – a WWII veteran and Department of the Navy employee – care for his large organic garden. He has spent 25 years building and managing communities on the Web and he is taking care of FVC’s media needs – Web communications, social networking, photography and video. His son is a Chief Petty Officer with 19 years of service in the Navy.

Jennifer Fusaro, Regional Program Director for Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte Counties
jenn@farmvetco.org

Jenn, a Navy Veteran, is currently doing her Master’s Thesis at Humboldt State on how the farming community and the veterans community can work together to solve America’s need for new farmers. Jenn will be .

John McLaughlin, Regional Program Director for Napa, Sonoma and Solano Counties
john@farmvetco.org

John grew up on a 1200 acre family farm in Merced County before entering the Army and suffering the effects of an IED explosion in Iraq, for which he received a Purple Heart. John will be .

Sufyan Bunch, Veteran Outreach Coordinator
sufyan@farmvetco.org

Sufyan is a 24 year old honorably discharged veteran of the United States Army. He served in the Army for three years. After his time in the military he attended the University of New Mexico, studying business and economics. He has also worked in a number of fields post military, including landscaping and commercial fishing in Alaska. He has broadened his knowledge and appreciation of the world and its people, by traveling to other nations including Mexico, Costa Rica, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. “While I was not deployed overseas during my time in the military, many of my colleagues and close friends were,” Sufyan says. “Witnessing the struggles they have endured, has inspired me to be involved in the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. I am both excited and grateful for the opportunity to help my fellow veterans and stimulate new interest in agricultural fields.”

Volunteers

Joshua Anderson
wayfaringpeacefully@gmail.com

Joshua was raised on a family farm near Chillicothe in northern Missouri, and has worked with his family in the midwest on large acreage raising commodity crops,  vegetable gardens and animals.   Josh served America twice, first as a medic in the Army Reserves working emergency rooms in Japan in addition to military/veterans hospitals in the U.S. Then with the Peace Corps as an agriculture volunteer developing sustainable community food systems, animal management programs and tree nurseries  in a small village in Niger, West Africa.  He is currently a veteran outreach volunteer.  Josh is attending the University of California Santa Cruz for the Center for Agro-Ecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) program and hopes to become farm manager for Valley Forge Village in Sauk Center, Minnesota upon completion.

Melissa English, Graphics provider
melissaannenglish@gmail.com

FVC logo and banner art