An Illinois Congressman is working to connect homeless veterans in rural America to agriculture.
Congressman Mike Bost is pushing a bill that would provide grants to mentor veterans on the farm. He says this could allow farms without a future generation to be able to hire, train, and eventually pass down the farming obligations to worthy veterans.
“Another thing we’ve discovered is a tremendous help for some veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Agricultural work, working on the farm, allows them to give a pressure release valve to stabilize. So, we can combine those two in a grant-type program that encourages existing farmers to reach out to a veteran, to have that veteran than be supported as their help to be later coming to ag themselves and it also then encourages a younger generation to get involved.”
He is a ranking member on the Veteran Affairs Committee and says that this would be a great benefit to both veterans and ag.
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