Make avocados, not war

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Helping Veterans Trade Their Swords for Plows

VALLEY CENTER, Calif. — On an organic farm here in avocado country, a group of young Marines, veterans and Army reservists listened intently to an old hand from the front lines.

“Think of it in military terms,” he told the young recruits, some just back from Iraq or Afghanistan. “It’s a matter of survival, an uphill battle. You have to think everything is against you and hope to stay alive.”

The battle in question was not the typical ground assault, but organic farming — how to identify beneficial insects, for instance, or to prevent stray frogs from clogging an irrigation system. It was Day 2 of a novel boot camp for veterans and active-duty military personnel, including Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton, who might be interested in new careers as farmers.

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Along with Combat Boots to Cowboy Boots, a new program for veterans at the University of Nebraska’s College of Technical Agriculture, and farming fellowships for wounded soldiers, the six-week course offered here is part of a nascent “veteran-centric” farming movement. Its goal is to bring the energy of young soldiers re-entering civilian life to the aging farm population of rural America.

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“The military is not for the faint of heart, and farming isn’t either,” said Michael O’Gorman, an organic farmer who founded the nonprofit Farmer-Veteran Coalition, which supports sustainable-agriculture training.

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About 45 percent of the military comes from rural communities, compared with one-sixth of the total population, according to the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

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The new course, administered through MiraCosta College, costs $4,500, with Camp Pendleton offering assistance for active-duty Marines.

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Farming offers veterans a chance to decompress, Mr. Archipley said, but, more important, provides a sense of purpose. Mr. Burke, a Purple Heart recipient who suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq, recently opened a second farm.

“Squeezing a ball in physical therapy gets monotonous,” he said. “And you don’t get the mist from the sprinklers or a cool breeze in a psychologist’s office.”

Matthew McCue, 29, formerly Sergeant McCue, runs Shooting Star CSA outside San Francisco with his partner, Lily Schneider, delivering boxes of organic produce directly to consumers.

He recalled how orchard farmers in Iraq pridefully shared their pomegranates, tomatoes and melons.

“You learn how to face death,” he said of his service in Iraq. But in farming, he learned, “There was life all around.”

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

You mean, you have not heard about the Avocado Wars?

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The avocados I got from Costco last time I was there were from Peru (according to the label).

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The avocados I got from Costco last time I was there were from Peru (according to the label).

Wintertime we get a lot, if not most, of our fresh produce from South America.

Looks like Mexico won the war:

In the year 2007, Mexican avocados will be permitted in all 50 U.S. States.