What We Do

The Farmer-Veteran Coalition is mobilizing our food and farming community to create healthy and viable futures for America’s veterans.

The Farmer-Veteran Coalition finds employment, training, and places to heal on America’s farms for returning veterans.

Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are returning in large numbers and will continue to do so for many years. Some of them want to return to their family farms and make them successful and some of them want to start farming for the first time. The long term goal of the Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC) is to reach 10,000 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and support the success of those returning to farming while introducing others to farming as a vocation.

The US is currently facing one of its most significant economic crises in history. All sectors of the economy are affected, with unemployment rates soaring across the country. Our rural communities have been hit hard by this situation. Suffering from high unemployment rates, even before the current downturn, rural areas of the US have been struggling to keep their populations from shrinking as youth emigrate to urban areas. Farmers are aging out of business with few prospects of passing on their hard-earned livelihoods to their children. Additionally, our rural youth have been disproportionately leaving their communities to join our military efforts in response to the Global War on Terror. Our agricultural sector needs young entrepreneurial, trained individuals to revitalize the industry and begin new farm operations.

America’s farms are facing a crisis for lack of young people going into agriculture. Most statistics point to the average American farmer being between 55 and 58 years old with two farmers retiring for every one entering the field. According to the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics 2006 report, there are roughly 1.3 million working farmers in the United States. This study projects a continued decline in both the number of farmers and farms.

The goal for the next three years is to educate and place 180 new farmers either on their own farms, in appropriate positions on already established farms or in agricultural education programs.  We will accomplish this goal through apprenticeships, internships, formal educational situations and one-on-one mentoring.  Essential to our success will be the development of a farmer-mentor network to assist in direct on-farm education.

In the next three years we will:

• Build on the existing network of agricultural education and farm training programs to ensure they open doors to veterans.
• Help veterans apply for agricultural education programs and, when appropriate, work to provide financial assistance to the veterans.
• Assist veterans to find the money needed to attend these schools through government loans and grants, private scholarships and scholarships raised directly for our program.
• Connect veterans who wish to go into farming, with both the land and financing needed for starting farms of their own.
• Assist veterans who prefer living and working in urban environments in identifying growing urban agricultural job opportunities that include plant nurseries, urban garden projects, produce distributors and other related businesses.
• Expand on a network of experienced farmers and food industry professionals to help mentor the veterans entering into our fields of work. This will be a key aspect to the success of the program. Initial funding will help us to develop the model that will be replicated nationwide.
• Create a clearinghouse for job opportunities on farms and in farm-related fields, and work with individual veterans to find those jobs that fit their specific interests.

The Farmer Veteran Coalition will educate a unique and under represented population of new farmers in agricultural management and marketing practices that will lead them to success. Funding from Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program will assist veterans entering farming or ranching for the first time, support and mentor veterans who are returning to their family farm and assist wounded veterans who want to go into farming or ranching in either of the two categories above. Many will launch new farms, some will discover that running their own farm is not the right choice. This population, young veterans, does not mirror the general population of the US. “Indeed, recruits are dispro­portionately rural, not urban, and as rural concen­tration rises, so does military enlistment.”[1]

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[1] Tim Kane, Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11, November 7, 2005, The Heritage Foundation, Center for Data Analysis Report #05-08