By Stephen Smoot
Since he assumed the office of Commissioner of Agriculture, Kent Leonhardt has worked to connect veterans, especially those who experienced combat traumas, to the many benefits of agriculture and agriculture related fields.
One early program promoted veterans maintaining honeybee colonies. This addressed multiple benefits at once. First, the program started in a time of widespread concerns about the then-mysterious disappearance of honeybee populations. Since, it has been discovered that a parasitic fungus attacked those populations.
More significantly, working with bees and producing honey gave veterans a path to entrepreneurship. The calming sounds of honeybee colonies have also been proven beneficial to those suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
Honey was only the beginning, however. In recent years has come the Veterans and Heroes to Agriculture program.
The program serves as a network established by and through the West Virginia Department of Agriculture. According to its website, the program is “dedicated to the integration and support of veterans, firefighters, law enforcement, emergency services personnel and first responders entering or currently working in agriculture to benefit their health and welfare, as well as the state’s agricultural economy.”
“Our active duty and retired veterans, as well as emergency response personnel already have a proven work ethic. They are the perfect group to help grow West Virginia’s food economy,” stated Leonhardt, a retired Marine, in 2023. He added that “We need to provide support to those organizations who seek to help our Veterans and Heroes to Agriculture members.”
The program invites veterans to join, but also civilian heroes, such as law enforcement, emergency services personnel, fire fighters, and other first responders who either are entering or currently work in some aspect of the state agriculture economy.
Attached to the program network are grant programs that fund endeavors connecting veterans and heroes to agriculture opportunities. One such program supported by the Veterans and Heroes to Agriculture Program is a class designed to help promote the production of healthier food for individuals and families.
With the election of Donald Trump to regain the office of the presidency has come concerns about America’s food consumption, mostly sparked by administration nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He asserts that chemical components in processed foods have contributed to the health crises faced by millions of Americans and that the path to good health lies in large part with the eating of locally grown food with little or no processing.
Renewed interest in quality locally grown food as part of a healthy diet has helped to spur projects designed to teach people the fundamentals of both nutrition and food production. The West Virginia Department of Agriculture’s Veterans and Heroes to Agriculture program has offered up help through a set of classes that started in November and will extend through January. The class in Shinnston will take place on Jan 11 from 12 noon to 2 PM at the American Legion Post 31.
Two instructors with strong local ties to food and farming will lead the class. Mike Holcomb owns and operates Patriot Ridge Farm in Harrison County, There, they raise free range broiler chickens, forest and pasture raised heritage breed pigs and rabbits, and more. The farm also recently constructed its first high tunnel greenhouse and only uses compost produced on property instead of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides.
Holcomb also has almost three and a half decades of service in health care as a paramedic and a combat medic. He is a veteran of the West Virginia Army and Air National Guard as well.
Chef Anna Ash will join Holcomb. She brings with her “a passion for locally sourced and locally grown foods” with 20 years of experience in culinary from fast food to fine dining. She enjoys “the privilege of assisting with classes such as these to help bridge the gap between industrial kitchens and home cooked meals.”
The class will cover a broad series of topics, including “the importance of raising as much of your own food as possible, (and) getting back to ancestral roots.”