The Mission of Farmer Veteran Coalition is Mobilizing Veterans to Feed America
The mission of the Farmer Veteran Coalition is to serve, empower, and connect military veterans and active-duty service members with the resources, education, training, and partnerships necessary to cultivate successful careers in agriculture.
Guiding Principles
- WE GUIDE the passion of our veterans so that they may earn for themselves a meaningful, financially sustainable place in the agricultural community. This could entail full-time or part-time employment, or a critical supplement to disability-related income.
- WE BELIEVE in the meritocracy of American agriculture, where personal responsibility for one’s actions and individual initiative in pursuit of one’s goals can create personal success. We believe in the fundamental dignity of physical work.
- WE ACKNOWLEDGE the plurality of agricultural crops, practices, scale and markets available to our veterans. We honor, guide, and support the practical farming path chosen by each veteran.
- WE ARE COMMITTED to leveraging our work through a network of partnerships. This allows us to more effectively help a larger number of veterans, particularly those in the onset of their civilian careers.
- WE SUPPORT all valid national, regional, or crop-specific efforts to connect veterans with agriculture and encourage collaboration instead of competition with other groups providing services to our nation’s veterans.
- WE SPONSOR and encourage both employment and self-employment in agriculture, and equally value the contributions made by all members of the agricultural industry who feed America. We recognize the range of opportunities for employment throughout the agricultural economy.
- WE RESPECT the privacy of our veterans, and we will assist when we can to get them the support that will help make them stronger farmers. We support and treat the whole veteran. We are aware of the high number of veterans that return with both visible and invisible wounds.
- WE RECOGNIZE the geographic and psychological isolation common to both farmers and veterans. Creating contact between our farmer veterans, and a sense of community amongst them, is an important part of our mission.