From Battlefield to Crop Field: Veterans Finding Purpose at Comfort Farms

Can agriculture heal the invisible wounds of war? Join us as we talk with John Jackson, an Army Ranger with six tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, about his journey from enlistment after 9/11 to finding peace through farming. At Comfort Farms in Milledgeville, Georgia, John helps veterans cope with post-traumatic stress using farming as therapy. Discover how Comfort Farms combines behavioral therapy with agricultural work and community events, fostering teamwork and genuine connections. Tune in to learn about these impactful initiatives and how you can support our veterans.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to Fresh Take, where we at Florida Organic Growers speak to food systems experts about topics related to organic and sustainable agriculture, healthy lifestyles and the environment. To help us continue our programs at FOG, including our podcast, consider becoming a sponsor. For more information on sponsorship, check out our Get Involved page on our website, wwwfoginfoorg.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome to our latest episode of Fresh Steak. Today I'm actually really excited about talking to John Jackson from Comfort Farms, and you know we are going to be talking about, you know, veterans in agriculture. We're calling this episode. You know, from Battlefield to Cropfield culture. We're calling this episode. You know, from battlefield to craft field veterans finding a purpose. John Jackson is a Army Ranger with six tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and I believe, john, that you've been in the military for over 11 years. First of all, I just want to say thank you for your service. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Speaker 3: 1:07

Thank you, sir, appreciate it. I'm looking forward to it as well.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Maybe we can get started by you telling us a little bit about yourself, how it was that you decided to join the Army Rangers, and a little bit about some of the things that you sort of want to share with our audience.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Yeah, man, thanks for the opportunity. All right, so my name is John Jackson. I would say you know 9-11, the Statue of Liberty, world Trade Center. I lived in Jersey City and that was the skyline of my childhood. You know, on the second floor of my mom and dad's house I looked at the you know, the best skyline ever, you know, with the Twin Towers, statue of Liberty. It's just beautifully lit all the time. And when those towers went down, my childhood went along with it. You know, I wasn't living in Jersey City at the time, I was living over in Pennsylvania but I was doing pharmaceutical research and you could smell the burning carnage all the way from Jersey to Pennsylvania. When you woke up, just that smoldering burn.

Speaker 3: 2:14

And me and my first wife at the time we weren't doing real well in our relationship and I just felt this need to, you know, join the military. And because it appeared as though we needed capable men to to join and protect our you know, our country and our nation, I didn't fall. I wasn't a political person, I didn't have anybody really in my family that was military, there was nobody to kind of look up to, but I just felt this need and desire to serve and so I went in. I did two tours with the 115th Infantry Division out in Fort Benning and I saw tons and tons of combat there and I realized that there was not going to be any slowing down to this, and so I made the decision instead of getting out the military, I made the decision to just pretty much go deeper into the hive and become an army ranger.

Speaker 3: 3:17

And my friends looked at me like are you crazy? And I just made the decision to say that you know, the safest place to be is right inside of the hive. You know, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to be a professional about it. I want to be with a bunch of people that want to be here and honestly, I had this feeling that I would just never return back from service. It was almost kind of a death sentence for me to sign up to say right after war I knew what I was getting into and that was just my attitude about it, and so I did that. And there's these things that happen where you sometimes can. Making it back alive is probably the hardest thing to do, and many of us warfighters kind of envy the guys who passed away during war, because there's a lot that you got to deal with when you come back home.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Well and certainly once again, you know, we thank you for your service, for your service. It is important for all of us to at least be aware of, you know, stories like yours and the experiences that you know our veterans and you know our military goes through for all of us and we really, you know, really really appreciate what you've done and obviously part of what we wanted to learn more about is what does happen when you know veterans come home and what are some of the things that, because of the many things that you read and that you learn about you know their experiences, that you were inspired to start. You know a nonprofit organization that would help vets in sort of that process. Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 5:15

Yes, absolutely. You know, when I got home and I got out due to the injuries sustained at war, I was trying to figure out like, what am I going to do? You know, and I worked for a lot of I was involved with a few nonprofits to help the homeless, to help, you know, guys who are on drugs and alcohol and PTSD and things like that. While I was in, I would just spend my time there, spend my time there, but one of the things that I saw was that they were more concerned about showcasing and I hate to use this term, but almost exploiting veterans just to get funding. And I didn't know. I was very naive to the nonprofit world and so I, you know, in the beginning I under. I did not understand how nonprofits were able to make. You know, in the beginning I under, I did not understand how nonprofits were able to make a living in order to help the people that they needed to help, and so I knew that I kind of wanted to do things different.

Speaker 3: 6:17

And we always approach veteran care at the point of the worst case scenario, from a point of pity. And I will tell you, as a warfighter and someone who lives authentically in this space, I don't want anybody to pity me. I'm a warfighter, I'm probably one of the strongest members of our society, both mentally and physically, and pity is not something that I want. So what I chose to do a little bit different than a lot of other nonprofits is to approach this from a place of wellbeing and quality of life and understanding that the veterans that I work with, the ones that we kind of target with our marketing and things like that are veterans who want to be as relevant in a civilian life as though they were in their military life. So people who are hungry to learn the tools to get back and to do great. Right, there are some veterans out there and just because you're a vet doesn't mean you're a good vet, right, they. They much rather want to soak up all the air in a room. They're not. They weren't good in the military. They're not good as as civilians either. Right, and they will definitely take advantage.

Speaker 3: 7:38

So we had to know in those type of things we were very careful on who we actually selected to help and what the criteria would be for that, because it's very, very complicated when you're working with vets and because I am a vet and I understand that and I've worked around all types of veterans and been there.

Speaker 3: 7:55

We took that kind of seriously because, you know, some vets get kicked out for child molestation, for rape, for doing all types of things and they pull their veteran card and if you've got a big heart, you don't know what you're welcoming into your space. These are not good people and so you really really really have to do your due diligence on that. So our nonprofit, stag Vets Inc. The Stag stands for strength to achieve greatness, and it's for those guys and women who have fell down, who have, you know, it's hard to get back up and they got to find it from somewhere and we help them do that. We help them find their motivation, when it doesn't exist, to actually be relevant again and to love themselves again, so that way they can give back the same way that they gave when they was in the military.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Right, I read somewhere that you know and I so much, just you know, enjoy right now listening to sort of that explanation and how you were and we'll get into you know, sort of the details of what STAC is doing, but the importance of just helping the people that need the help and that often I feel and this is just sort of my personal opinion you want to need to really be helped because often you know, that's, I guess, the first step with you know so many veterans and people even sometimes suffering from, you know, post-traumatic stress disorders, ptsds.

Speaker 2: 9:28

It's important that we start paying attention and it's so important. I read a lot and read books about, you know, our brains and our minds and if they're not working the way that they're supposed to, nothing else works. So we got to find ways to really address the problem and it sounds like you know some of the things that you guys are doing and the approach that you're taking is to really get at the root of helping veterans be, you know, good citizens once they come back and be productive and feel like they're being productive and feel like they can. You know there's a purpose. Can you tell us a little bit about sort of your personal journey as it relates to that, yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:09

Yes, man, you know, coming back, you feel like you have, you know you're diagnosed with post-traumatic stress or TBI or things like that. You feel like you have this handicap that the world can't understand and these labels don't really do justice to who it is that you really are. And so I did a deep dive into who I really am and, more importantly, the type of skills I developed at war that you can't find anywhere in our civilian life. Right, that may not have the advantage here in, you know, in an environment where there's no chaos, but once chaos ensues, you want that veteran on that team, you want that veteran on that team. I mean that that's for me, it was.

Speaker 3: 10:54

You know, when COVID hit, we were in trouble. We, I, we stopped our, our, our funding stopped because of, you know, we sell the restaurants and those people couldn't pay us anymore. And when that crisis came in, I could tell you that me and all the other veterans that were at the farm, we developed this attitude of like, hey, we have to do this thing. And so we were put back in a very similar situation that was at war, where we had to make split second decisions, and I'm going to tell you the split second decisions that we made proved so fruitful, not only for our organization but for our community at large. We created a system that still has its ripple effects, for our community to know that they have a space where food security is of paramount importance to them, and they still support us to this day.

Speaker 3: 11:49

Because of what we went through during the crisis of COVID and that helped a lot and it was because of our veteran experience that we were able to not panic. We worked through what we needed to work through, we made decisions and it was just like being overseas, where we had to do the same thing and it actually felt great, and while other people were just trying to merely especially other nonprofits were just merely trying to survive from day to day, we were actually thriving in that environment. So it says something about you know the veteran spirit and veterans on your team, where you know you're going to be in high uptempo, high crisis situations, where they can think clearly and they can do their job the way they've been trained.

Speaker 2: 12:33

Yeah, one of the things that, as I'm listening to you and I was thinking and you just said it that you know soldiers work as a unit, a team, and that is so important in any type of work that we do, I think, is that we're often, you know, part of a team, and sometimes it's you know, family members, sometimes it's you know colleagues and other people. But unless we really work together to solve problems, just the individual often is not capable, including sometimes, I think, some of the things that we're discussing is to solve, especially when it comes to mental problems. You know those problems by themselves. Do we need other people to sort of rely on, which I believe is very, very important? And in fact I think isn't that part of sort of the you know therapy or behavioral therapy that you all use at Comfort Farms?

Speaker 3: 13:27

Absolutely it's.

Speaker 3: 13:29

we call it a covert curriculum at Comfort Farms right so you know, the biggest problems that we have with mental health and behavioral health is that. You know, like myself, you find a lot of veterans who are very distant, you know, from people, right, because it was people who caused the harm, right, and so we tend to stay away from people or get too close. The reason is, you know you have really good friends that you're hanging out with one day and then they're dead the next day, right, you know, I've been in situations where I've had to watch my buddy get poured in the body bag. You know, cleaning up teeth and brain matter off a truck that was destroyed, and you know we're picking up body parts but yet we put that truck back together less than 24 hours and it's back on the road. Those things affect you.

Speaker 3: 14:21

When traveling back from my vacation, there was a bunch of Marines that got killed, the casket draped an American flag and I can smell the formaldehyde coming out of that thing. I flew all the way home with thosehyde coming out of that thing. I drove all. I flew all the way home with those Marines at the base of my legs and just I just stared at those coffins saying you know, we're all going home, no matter what you know, some on our feet and some in the casket, and those things have an effect on you. You know they, they, they, they play with you in a way that you, you really pull away from what make you human in the first place. Right, and so comfort farms I use this because of my background.

Speaker 3: 15:00

I'm a falconer. I train birds of prey to hunt and I kind of took that approach where you know, positive reinforcement is the thing. And sometimes you know when you go and trap a hawk and you want it to hunt with you, you just can't be out, say hey, hawk hunt. You know when you go and trap a hawk and you want it to hunt with you, you just can't be out, say hey, hawk hunt. You know you have to create an environment where it feels comfortable wanting to hunt with you.

Speaker 3: 15:22

And so when doing this thing, I create an environment where I'm trying to help veterans get back to their humanity, get back to loving again, to feeling emotion again, to crying again. Right, that's the hardest part, because we've become so callous to our own humanities and a human is not going to bring that out, and that's why we have a two arms left instance at a human, but a pig with a sow, with her piglets, that's a whole different animal. Right? You're watching vets I mean even myself. You're going over and you're wanting to work with this sow and you're wanting to work with the piglets, and every single day you're building up the emotions and the humanity that you had with humans, with this animal, and eventually it turns over to you wanting to be with your family more, you wanting to be with your friends more, and that's that bridge that the farm provides, that a lot of veterans don't see when they get here, but they feel when they leave here.

Speaker 2: 16:28

You know, one of the things that is interesting like I said, you know I was telling you about sort of something that I'm usually really curious about and trying to understand is how our brain and our mind works. And what you were describing made me think about something that I read not too long ago about, you know, neuroplasticity and how you know we can actually change our brains and our minds. You know the power to really produce something. That's sort of you know, because we don't have rigid behaviors.

Speaker 2: 17:00

Behaviors can change and making those connections, even just with what you were describing, you know, working with those, you know sows and those piglets and and just being in the farm, and sometimes I don't think people who really do enjoy you know what they do often see it as work. It is hard work and it can be backbreaking, but you're sort of also changing your brain, changing behaviors. So I look back I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work and go to an agricultural college where you know you had to get up at five in the morning every single day. Go to work in the fields, whether it be and under sort of a really disciplined structure. You start sort of you know, really changing in so many ways and making those connections and you're really close to you, know your colleagues and the people that work next to you in the farm. What is a typical day at Comfort Farms for you know, for the people that work there?

Speaker 3: 18:13

Typical day, comfort Farms, when it's not hot. But I'll tell you, typical day is. You know we have a vet that lives here named John. You know he wakes up and he really manages kind of like the equipment and the livestock and does a lot of the kind of installing the irrigations and things like that. You know the grunt work, right, yeah, yeah. And so we have another hiree, carrie. They're working together as a team. You know they get here early. First thing is check in water, feed all the animals, check and see what animal, what fox or coyote, got into the pen to try to kill our animals. You know things like that because we're constantly fighting mother nature against, you know, against predators and whatnot, and just making notes that way they can give back to me on things, maybe materials we need to get or things get fixed.

Speaker 3: 19:05

I'm up and I'm answering the emails and, you know, sending out invoices and working on kind of cold calling new clients, uh, to do some things, working on events for future projects and and programs that we have.

Speaker 3: 19:20

And then I'm out and I'm up, you know, working on the garden. I'm a I'm a seed geek and, uh kind of food historian. So I, you know, I travel the world and I I try to bring a lot of lessons back from indigenous people to to the farm and I work on a lot of things and pay attention to a lot. You know we typically try to be done, you know, around 11 o'clock or so or 12. So that way folks can have their personal time and kind of automated. You know systems to be a lot easier for the farm and so that way we can, it could be easily managed, because the truth of the matter is is that we're not getting a whole bunch of people that want to farm these days. So we have to create the farm in a way that it's going to be efficient and run off a small skeleton crew and we can get huge impact out of it. So that's good.

Speaker 2: 20:10

Yeah, oh, that makes sense to me. So in your travels again, I'm assuming, then, that you're sort of implementing some of the things that you've seen and you learn in terms of some of the crops probably grow, you know, heritage crops. What are some of those crops? And maybe some of the animals that you guys are raising?

Speaker 3: 20:26

Okay, yeah, man. So right now I'm growing some watermelon I found in the Amazon that date back to the 1600s, an ancient squash, I have a. I have a collard green that comes from my mother's land in Liberia, and also an okra that I introduced to the United States in 2019 as well, called Motherland Okra introduced to the United States in 2019 as well, called Motherland Ogre, and I try to tell the stories through my ancestors, especially the enslaved ancestors you know that came to the Americas and all over the world, tell their story in a way that's dynamic and give breadth to their life and the contributions they made through food and other innovativeness. I try to raise a lot of the livestock that were brought over with the enslaved, like guinea fowl, which is a bird that comes from Africa they're a bush game that a lot of the Africans that live in East and West Africa they absolutely love to eat, eat, and so we raise these type of varieties of animals and then I work really, really hard with chefs in atlanta and across the country to kind of put these things on center of plate, and we work on dishes that I've learned when I do my travels between africa and south america. Bring these back to kind of bring some more innovativeness to the culture and to the food in ways that are regionally significant and historically significant.

Speaker 3: 22:00

I developed my own pig called the Piedmont Black Hog that's here exclusively right on the farm, as well as the Keo Keo, which is a white hog, and then the Royal Yabali, which are three different breeds that came off an old, old, ancient breed called the American Mulefoot. That was here in predominant 17th, 18th and 19th century, predominated the Americas and they are on the endangered list and I've chose to create three breeds out of those genetics that we've had. We've also worked on our own chicken called the Piedmont broiler, which is a heritage bird, can lay eggs and that can produce wonderful, wonderful meat within a good time frame and we've had huge success on that. So, turkeys, we raise as well geese and other poultry and we do rabbits, which are a big seller to our restaurants, and sheep as well. We do sheep.

Speaker 2: 23:17

Wow, and it also sounds like I mean, based on sort of what you've been describing really trying to work with nature, both you know, from the perspective of using, you know native species or what you know we have been doing for you know hundreds of years historically. You know some of these animals and some of these crops. So I'm assuming, then, that you are trying to also implement some sustainable or maybe even organic practices to some of the stuff that you do at Comfort Farms, practices to some of the stuff that you do at Comfort Farms.

Speaker 3: 23:53

Yes, absolutely. So we focus more on regenerative farming versus sustainable farming and biodynamic farming. We always say that if the farmer isn't sustainable financially, then there is no sustainability right. So we really kind of focus on that and we really focus on our clients who purchase from us, that they have to eat whole animal right, and so we do that through our CSA, community supported agriculture, where our community comes in and they buy these meat boxes and these meat boxes go through whole animal and it helps us to have no waste.

Speaker 3: 24:26

And so what I do is I also take the bones of these animals and I go ahead and I burn them down into like a really, really fine dust and we create like bone char and biochar that we go ahead and put back on our fields, Everything that we use, even our vents. We burn all of our food waste down with all the burnables and we put that carbon right back into the soil, which gives us super, super rich soils. And it actually led me to becoming Georgia State Conservationist of the Year for 2023. And then I got sent up to nationals and now won the National Conservationist of the Year for 2023 as well, based on these practices.

Speaker 2: 25:14

Man well, congratulations on that honor. It's, you know, definitely doing a lot, and can you tell us a little bit about. So where exactly is Comfort Farms located? How can people find out more about you know some of the you know amazing work that you guys are doing, some of the things that you've been sharing with us today?

Speaker 3: 25:33

Yeah, so, um, comfort farms is in the middle of georgia. When I tell you the middle of georgia, it is literally in the middle of georgia, called, uh, millageville, right, okay, and it's hot here, okay, uh, but we live in lake country and, uh, it's beautiful, uh, lake, lake sinclair, lake, oconee, um, so, millageville, georgia, comfort Farms you can Google it, it'll take you straight here. Get on our Web site at wwwstagvetsincorg. I know you can put that in the show notes, but that can kind of tell you all the stuff that that that we're doing here.

Speaker 3: 26:10

We do tons of workshops, we have a, we have this through grants with the USDA, and then we have these amazing events, like our one event coming up called the Q for the Few Backyard Barbecue Competition, where we literally have veterans from across the state come out. And one of the main reasons why we did that is we work with the veteran court up in Athens and they have guys there who've gotten a little bit of trouble and trying to work their way back and you know they're struggling financially and things like that. So we created this event really for kind of them, to get them out of their you know, out of their bubble, to meet people, and we don't ask them to pay anything as long as there's one veteran on the team. We go to our clients and businesses and ask them if they would like to sponsor a team for 500 bucks, you know and so that's what we're able to do. And so then we get about 25 teams up and they have this backyard brawl on using our product you know, ribs and chicken and and then may the best team win and it is a.

Speaker 3: 27:19

You put a bunch of veterans together who want to compete. It is so much fun. But, more importantly, these guys have come out of their out of their hole, have done great. I've been invited back to their graduation ceremonies to speak because it's had such an impact on them. And man you want to talk about, want to make a grown man cry just seeing these vets who've been impacted by Comfort Farms, and that's what keeps me going. It's really what keeps me going.

Speaker 2: 27:50

Well, that is amazing and you know, for all of the you know veterans out there listening, we hope that the information that you know John has shared with us is maybe something that you know is useful to you all and if you live in the you know, in Georgia, you might call them and find out more about their programs. Also, if there's any veterans in need of support you know, we know that you know they can dial 988 and press 1 to contact the Veteran Crisis Line Would you want to maybe leave us with some sort of tips or suggestions about, again, you know, all those veterans listening or people who just are interested in the wonderful work that you're doing that you would like to maybe share with us?

Speaker 3: 28:33

Yes. So biggest thing is when you're looking to, you know, create a facility or create an environment to help work with vets, is to understand that veterans are people too, you know, with a whole sense. You know set of emotions, but sometimes how we compartmentalize those emotions are a little bit complex. Right? Veterans health really has to do with teamwork, and being a good member of a team is literally, you know, putting the sweat equity in with a vet. You know, if you're there to help and you're there to work, that's how we size each other up, based on what we can do and what, and being there, and if you work along with vets enough, that vet may choose you to tell his story to or her story to, and your job really is just to listen, not to be a problem solver, not to.

Speaker 3: 29:35

You know, we tend to do that. We want to match our experiences with those who are sharing with us and in a lot of these cases the vet just wants someone to listen and if they choose to talk to you, it's going to be. They choose to talk to you in a way because they do trust you, Right, and so so just listening and just just being aware and being that sounding board and don't be shocked about the things that you hear, even if you are inside. Just really be very stoic about your, your presence, because there's some things that we want to get off our chest and if we feel comfortable around that person, we're going to talk to them about. So those are some of the tips.

Speaker 2: 30:18

Oh, and that is such a really important thing for all of us to realize, and thank you so much for sort of reminding us that often it's not about just trying to solve people's problems. You know, as friends, family and what have you, even just listening sometimes can do so much good in people's lives. And because we're all you know, we're social beings, we want to be, you know, be connected to people, and the best thing to do that is just, you know, listen, just listen. You don't need to provide often an answer or a solution to a problem. Just sometimes, even listening can, can help the other person, you know, beyond what we can imagine.

Speaker 2: 31:00

So thank you so much, john, for talking to us today. We really appreciate you taking the time to tell us about you know, your experience and about you know comfort farms. You know, we wish you the best of luck, please, you know, to everybody listening, we invite you to, you know, look them up, find out what they're doing and, if you're a veteran also maybe perhaps you know, connect with them. We really appreciate spending some time with us today.

Speaker 3: 31:26

Awesome man, I appreciate it. Thank you, guys for reaching out and looking forward to listening to this later on.

Speaker 2: 31:33

Great. Thank you so much, and again just want to remind you to check us out at Fresh Steak for our next episode.

Speaker 1: 31:43

We'd really appreciate you taking the time to be listening to us today. We hope you enjoyed today's episode Photo. Organic Growers is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, so to keep our content available and free to the public, we need your help. Please subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen, and consider making a tax-deductible donation or become a sponsor. Learn more about our work and how you can become a sponsor from our website, wwwboginfoorg.