When Veterans Come Home, Many End up on the Farm

While just 16 percent of the population live in rural America, 40 percent of our military hail from these parts of the country. So it's not all that surprising that many veterans decide to become farmers when they come home.

But while farming can provide a good work opportunity after retiring from service, many organizations are starting to recognize another benefit to working the land: for many veterans suffering from mental or physical trauma after serving, farming can be a form of therapy.

"I've talked to many veterans who have said they wouldn't be alive today if they hadn't found farming," said Cindy Chastain, the Veteran Outreach Coordinator for AgrAbility, a government-funded program that provides assistance to farmers with disabilities.

Chastain, who is a veteran herself, told me she grew up on a farm and studied agriculture at college, so farming seemed like the obvious choice after she completed 31 years of military service. But she told me farming is a natural fit for many veterans, even those with no prior agricultural experience, because of the nature of the work.

"We in the military are taught to do whatever it takes to accomplish a mission," Chastain said. "So if it takes them working 20 hours a day or getting up at the crack of dawn to accomplish it, they can. They're very mission-oriented, and working in an office is very difficult for a lot of veterans."

That meaningful work can also have physical and mental benefits for veterans who have experienced trauma. As many as one in five veterans who served in Iraq have post-traumatic stress disorder, and though research is limited, there's a growing body of anecdotal experiences that suggest farming may help veterans heal.

There are studies that show being outdoors can help people recover and refocus while managing PTSD, and other studies that show working with farm animals can relieve symptoms. And there's a fair amount of research on horticultural therapy—the idea that helping things grow can be therapeutic to people with many different disabilities and illnesses.

That's what drove Cate Murphy, a horticultural therapist, to start Therapeutic Alternatives of Maryland (TALMAR), a nonprofit that uses gardening and farming as therapy for people of all ages. While the center long focused on children and adults with disabilities, it recently started a veterans program.

Working on the land has physical benefits, from increasing strength through strenuous work like lifting soil and hauling water to fine motor skills when planting seeds. But Murphy said the mental benefits come from both the connection to the land, the peacefulness of outdoors, and the sense of community—particularly once veterans start growing food that they can then sell in their community.

"The majority of our veterans go into service to serve and they unfortunately may come back with some emotional, psychological issues from witnessing war," Murphy told me. "This connection really gives a person that sense of serving again. It includes them in an activity where they can use their bodies to make something good."

The government seems convinced of the value of helping veterans farm: the 2014 Farm Bill included veterans as a specific class of new farmers, allowing them special rates on loans and grants to help them get started.

The Department of Agriculture also funds a number of programs that help veterans with training and outreach to start living off the land. Veterans are seeing the benefit too: the Farm Veteran Coalition has more than 5,000 members, and veterans have started their own grassroots projects like Comfort Farms, started by a veteran and run by veterans who want to learn farming skills.

Our understanding of PTSD and the effects of service on veterans' mental and physical health is still evolving, and we've yet to identify a one-size-fits-all treatment for the scars that war can leave. But for at least some veterans, relief might be something they can cultivate from the soil.