The Farmer Veteran Coalition opened its 10th chapter in early December at the annual Illinois Farm Bureau meeting in Chicago.

Since the national foundation was established in 2008, it has given more than $2.5 million in payments to veterans to help them enter production agriculture. The organization’s mission is not only to provide veteran farmers resources in starting out, but also to link more established veteran farmers to build a community.

The 70,000-member national organization has more than 300 members in Illinois. The new state chapter hopes to attract more members and develop a fellowship program with Illinois sponsors.

“The application for the fellowship fund is more like an abbreviated business plan,” says Gary Matteson, Farmer Veteran Coalition president. “It’s not enough to give folks a pat on the back and send them off into sort of a starry-eyed stupor about, ‘Gosh, I really want to be a farmer.’ Part of what the Farmer Veteran Coalition does is an intake process that helps people to assess a realistic pathway into farming.”

The Illinois chapter president, Caynan Sherwood of Sullivan, says the organization doesn’t discriminate between beginning or established farmers. Anyone, from large-scale row crop producers to beginning community-supported agriculture farmers, is welcome.

“One of the problems I’ve run into with veteran farmers, a lot of them are in row crops and in larger operations,” Sherwood says. “They’ll say, ‘Well, it isn’t really for me to be part of because it doesn't do anything for me.’ But it's the unity, the brother and sisterhood and the networking that you’re going to be a part of.

“If we can help veterans who are starting out succeed and give them the right direction, the right push — to me, that means everything.”

Amy Hess, an Aledo farmer and vice president of the Farmer Veteran Coalition of Illinois, just bought her first piece of farmland this year after beekeeping and gardening next to her house following her return from service. Through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, she received financial assistance for a high tunnel that extends her growing season.

She says being a beginning farmer and a veteran benefited her EQIP application. The Illinois chapter will seek to help beginning farmers access similar resources.

“Now I know firsthand some of the resources,” Hess says. “I can sit next to a veteran and strike that conversation right up based on our similar experiences. We’re trying to live our best lives. We’re also trying to do meaningful work. That absolutely resonates from where we came from.”

The Illinois chapter is actively working with the Department of Defense’s transition assistance program, as well as the National Guard at Camp Lincoln and the Air Force base in Chicago.

“Each chapter gets to figure out what they want to do based on the ag resources in their state,” Matteson says. “There are the sponsors you have for the money, but more so, there’s the organizations that are willing to partner and work with you, including military installations.”

Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Department of Agriculture have partnered with the national coalition since 2015, when they announced a Homegrown by Heroes label for members of the Farmer Veteran Coalition.

“We helped organizations come together in a statewide working group that’s been working for the last five years. Two years ago, the working group decided they really wanted to move forward with state chapter establishment,” says Raghela Scavuzzo, associate director of food systems development at Illinois Farm Bureau. “Farm Bureau is helping support these programs because we feel very passionate about agriculture, but also our veterans.”