Program prepares veterans to farm

 

To meet Spokane County’s need for farmers to replace its aging farmers, the Spokane County Conservation District (SCCD) is beginning a project to connect veterans with jobs in farming.

Vicki Carter describes Spokane County Conservation District outreach.

It’s in sync with the district’s responsibilities for forest management, environmental education, soil science, small-acreage farming, production agriculture and water resources programs to promote wise use of natural resources to protect them for the future.

Its newest program, which will launch in November, is Operation New Mission: Veterans on the Farm. 

It will identify agriculture-based employment for veterans, said Vicki Carter, executive director of the SCCD.

Since 2005, one to three of her seven family members in the military have been deployed.  So she is aware of difficulties veterans have moving back into civilian life. 

To help her mark the time when her son, Ben Parriman, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, she began Ride for Red Fridays, an indoor cycling class at the Spokane Club.  After he returned, the group of 18 continued to ride to honor others who are deployed.

In 2012, the group showed the documentary, “Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farm Fields,” at Spokane Community College. 

The film makes the point that America needs a million new farmers as the average age of farmers is 60, and there’s no one to succeed many of them.  Veterans want jobs, and agriculture offers jobs that can nurture them as they experience anxiety and PTSD.

“Here are two groups with needs,” Vicki said.  “Vets need to transition from the destroyer mentality into a living, creating and nurturing mentality on farms that allows their brains to reprogram for civilian life.”

Vicki believes she is in her position at the SCCD to respond to this need in Eastern Washington.

Just one other group in Washington, the three-year-old Growing Veterans in Lynden, has been working to connect veterans with jobs in farming.

Six month ago, Vicki organized a group to launch the Veterans on the Farm program during a symposium at the Pacific Northwest Tilth Conference Friday, Nov. 13, in Spokane.  The event will screen “Ground Operation” and have its director, Dulanie Ellis, speak.

When the SCCD started the program, they hired a veteran intern from Spokane Community College (SCC), Will Hulings.  The VetCorps pays half the cost of his internship.

The program will recruit veterans to participate in classes using a 12-week curriculum, “Cultivating Success,” which Pat Munts, small farms acreage coordinator for the Washington State University Spokane County Extension and Spokane Conservation District, teaches.  It will help veterans decide if they are interested in a career in farming, ranching or agriculture.

Then the program will match farmers and ag employers with veteran interns.  The SCCD seeks funds for internships and training.

The third piece is to launch people into employment in agriculture.

“I feel we are on the right path because new doors open every day,” said Vicki.

After a Farm Bureau meeting two months ago, a farmer and his wife, Randy and Lisa Emtman of Valleyford, donated a 1954 tractor, two acres for a learning farm and 25 horses for equine therapy. 

St. John Hardware in Fairfield is cleaning up and repairing the tractor, and painting it red, white and blue so it can be used to promote the program at fairs and parades. 

In her 24 years with the Spokane County Conservation District, Vicki has assisted people on many land- and water-based natural resource issues.

“We are unique as a non-regulatory government entity.  We meet with people who want our help.  We don’t tell them what to do, but offer services, technical assistance and financial assistance,” she said.

“Working with landowners, we make a difference that has impact for generations,” Vicki said.

The SCCD’s Onsite Septic Repair and Replacement Project, originally conceived as a rural project, has become an urban project in Spokane Valley and North Spokane, where many people could not afford to hook up to the sewer. 

Some elderly and low-income people had liens on their homes and were on the brink of selling, until the program helped them.

The SCCD had expected to do 40 sewer hookups over five years, but did 36 in 2014 alone and two septic replacements. 

Another program, the Spring Tree and Shrub Seedling Sale, sells 60,000 trees.  Trees sold in 1993 are now big trees.

Through the Fencing Project, the SCCD educates landowners with livestock and helps landowners with the cost and installation of fences to keep livestock out of creeks.  It contracts with the Department of Natural Resources, Americorps and Vet Corps to build fences that protect water resources and save landowners from being fined.

Most SCCD funding is from state grants, accessed through Spokane County, the State Department of Ecology (DOE), the state Recreation Conservation Office (RCO), the State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Washington Conservation Commission.

The DNR deals with forested areas and fire programs.

The RCO, Family Fish and Forest Program helps private landowners replace culverts that block fish passage in streams with bridges.

The DOE funded the septic project.

The Washington Conservation Commission provides conservation districts with basic funding.

The SCCD offers classes, such as its popular Backyard Conservation Stewardship Program, which educates homeowners on soils, planting seasons and wildlife.

The two acres surrounding the SCCD offices in an industrial zone at 210 N. Havana are a Green Zone demonstration site. What was a parking lot in the 1980s was transformed into a green zone when the new building was built in 1998.

The 17 Spokane County Conservation District staff with the help of a summer intern maintain the site, which shows water conservation, such as with xeriscaping (drought tolerant) landscaping, wetlands, a dry creek bed, and a storm garden pond catching rain running off the roof.

Low-voltage lighting lines a section with street trees.

Weaving through the green zone are paths with different plant-friendly materials—crushed granite, pavers and chipped bark. 

There are rock gardens, a bird and butterfly garden, an ornamental grasses garden, a tree nursery and every species of tree the SCCD sells.  One section shows composting methods.

People come to see plant, tree and landscaping options for their yards.  Schools bring groups for treasure hunts. 

“Conservation came out of the Dust Bowl, when the government started the Soil Conservation Service and gave authority for states to set up county districts, because each has different natural resources and needs,” Vicki said. 

“Now we hear the words sustainable and organic.  They are important, but conservation is bigger,” she said.

The Spokane District was formed in 1943.  In 1971, four districts—Cheney, North, South and Spokane—consolidated in one district, as most counties have done. 

“Conservation is about being stewards of the land.  It’s ours to take care of,” said Vicki.

“I go home and feel good about my work because it makes a difference in the world, it creates a legacy every day,” she said.  “That’s biblical.”

While Vicki and her husband grew up Catholic, they began attending Life Center 11 years ago.  Now they are involved at Emmanuel Church, a church that emphasizes mission.

“I used to think mission was a long-term commitment overseas, but now I realize it is about everyday, where I work and who I am with,” said Vicki. “My work feeds my spirituality and values.”

In 1986, Vicki came to Spokane to study at Whitworth, but wound up earning a business degree at Spokane Community College in 1988, and later took courses on human resources management at Whitworth.

She began working with the Spokane County Conservation District in 1991.

“We are in exciting times.  We have new generations who want a better world.  Many are studying ecology and natural resources,” she said, noting that she has many applications for internships.

“People want a different world.  People are interested in their food sources—where and how it’s grown,” Vicki said.  “People want to know about the farms that grow their food, and they are interested in growing their own food.”

The Veterans on the Farm program fits with that trend as one of the new ways the SCCD can serve the region, she said.

For information, call 535-7274 or email info@sccd.org.



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