Veterans Sustainable Agriculture group lends a hand
April 04, 2013 | 07:23 PM
Representatives of the Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training program took part in today’s planting of the White House kitchen garden. From left are VSAT co-founder Karen Archipely, “Let’s Move” executive director Sam Kass, co-founder Colin Archipely, and VSAT graduates Mike Hanes and Eric Boyd. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
First Lady Michelle Obama and the children who planted the White House kitchen garden today were assisted by representatives of Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training, a southern California program that trains service men and women who are re-entering civilian life for the sustainable organic agriculture industry.
VSAT focuses on providing veterans with the entrepreneurial and business skills to go into farming. On Friday the group will participate in a roundtable discussion at the White House with Agriculture and Defense Department officials to discuss how to reduce veterans' unemployment.
Colin and Karen Archipely, the founders of the program, helped the pupils plant and water the vegetables. The Archipelys have an organic farm called Archi’s Acres near Escondido, and run the VSAT program in conjunction with California State University at San Marcos.
Colin Archipely, a native Californian, joined the Marine Corps after 9/11 and was serving as a rifleman when he and Karen, a fashion entrepreneur with an Italian background, were married. They were living in the Los Angeles area, but after one of Colin’s deployments, they bought their farm.
At first, according to interviews he has given, Colin Archipley just wanted to live a quiet life, but he soon turned what had been a “run-down avocado farm” into a successful hydroponic greenhouse growing basil, kale, avocados and other organic vegetables for Whole Foods and other markets. When he wanted to be deployed again, Karen objected and they started the VSAT program as an alternative. With their location near Camp Pendleton, it was a natural fit.
In an interview on the White House lawn, Karen Archipely said that many men and women stay in the military or go back into it for multiple tours because they can’t think of another way to feed their families. The idea behind VSAT, she said, was to combine growing healthy food and training veterans for careers in organic agriculture and giving the veterans options.
Veterans have a lot of leadership skills, she said, but need help focusing those skills on entrepreneurship.
Colin Archipely added that he wants to “change the attitude” of people thinking of the “poor veteran” who can’t get a job.
Since founding VSAT in 2007, the Archipelys have graduated more than 200 veterans, and their alumni are now scattered around the United States. The six-week program is not cheap — it costs $4,500 — but the Veterans Administration has supported it, and the Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency gives loan applicants the equivalent of a year’s farming experience if they have gone through their program.
The graduates who accompanied the Archipelys to Washington were Eric Boyd, who has started the Pepper Creek organic farm near San Luis Obispo, Calif., and Michael Hanes, the inventor of Dang, an all-raw organic hot sauce, which is sold at Whole Foods.
The Archipelys have recently attracted a prominent partner, former MSNBC business talk show televison host Dylan Ratigan. In a blog on the Archi Acres website, Ratigan explained that after he left MSNBC, he moved to California to work full time with the Archipelys on their hydroponic farm.
Ratigan, author of “Greedy Bastards,” notes that he wants to combine money earned from the book with a loan from Whole Foods to develop a 30,000-square-foot farm incubator program to serve as a prototype for job-creating, water-saving, food-producing, veteran-led hydroponic organic greenhouses nationwide.
Karen Archipely said that Ratigan wants to set up an investment fund that would finance the veterans’ farm purchases but allow them to buy out the investors in five years.
She noted that they got their White House invitation because Michelle Obama had read about them in a newspaper and that Ratigan also met Sam Kass, the White House assistant chef and executive director of the Let’s Move anti-obesity initiative, through the television show, “Fast Company.”
Now the Archipelys and Ratigan hope to take the VSAT program national and help veterans establish operating organic farms throughout the country in a few years.
