Industry sign banking louisiana ppt later
thank everybody for being here today uh today we're going to welcome to the louisiana veteran prosperity series veterans in agriculture this is going to be the first in a series on economic opportunities in the state for veterans we have a couple of esteemed panelists today that we've invited especially for the audience we'll start off today with david billings and chip perrin they are the owners and founders of coastal plains meat company combat veteran owned meat processing they are cattlemen and they have some exciting things to talk about in that space we also have lauren bro she is with the louisiana farmer veteran coalition her mission is to mobilize veterans to feed america and in our state she's established the chapter and uh is growing pretty quickly we also have mike desaa mike is with agd consulting they're an agriculture consulting firm and they're they've already established themselves as a multinational player and he's going to talk a little bit about tech he's also has a podcast called vets in ag which is already pretty successful and then at the end of the uh program and panel today we're also going to have commissioner mike strain a commissioner of louisiana department of agriculture and forestry and he'll discuss a little bit about how veterans can really drive the economic needle for agriculture in the state moving forward my name is andrew ward i'm the founder and president of acadiana veteran alliance and we also have larry williams who's with the louisiana department of veterans affairs and so we'll moderate you through this uh first off we'd like to introduce chip and david coastal plains meat company thanks guys for being here yeah thank you andy thanks andy appreciate it hey everyone my name is david billings with coastal plains i'm a us army veteran uh served eight years a tour in iraq and really excited to have been invited andy to the panel and thank you all to all of our panelists that are speaking today thanks for your time and putting in the veterans in agriculture i think agriculture is a great opportunity for veterans that are transitioning out of military service to really find a home and a home that and lauren i think you said it best earlier that that helps their their physical and mental state i think it's a great great place for veterans to uh to really focus their attention but uh really happy to be here and my name is chip perrin i'm a marine corps veteran i did a couple tours in afghanistan uh during my time but again thank you all for for having us on uh really excited to have you know everyone here and attending um but we're you know we're very passionate about veterans in agriculture and uh i think that you know veterans uh possess equalities to drive uh that economic needle you know that that uh that force in agriculture in the state of louisiana so thank you i think one of the things we want to kind of start off with this morning and if you can go to jump to the first slide yeah one of the things we want to start off with this morning is uh just addressing you know local veterans and the opportunity for veterans in agriculture um you know the way chip and i met actually was in 2006 at a young entrepreneurs conference after we both came back from deployment um and so the action there from a veteran perspective was an entrepreneur conference and so if you're on this call if you're watching this video you understand that there's huge opportunities for veterans coming into the entrepreneur's space because we have drive we have you know we take the initiative uh if you will and so working you know in the agriculture space was something that we've always you know wanted to go back to uh you know our career has led us down a an energy path or an oil and gas path like many in the gulf coast uh it does and we've always tried to find our way back into you agriculture growing up on on family operations or working on cattle operations uh is something that you know we've really um you know really wanted to return back to and so from a veteran perspective we try to think about how do we how do we make that happen um and you know both being cattlemen ourselves and both owning our own farms and trying to now take that opportunity that we were able to realize benefits from the state our benefits from the federal government as it relates to grant opportunities or programs that support veterans and agriculture we want to we wanted to turn that into a better opportunity for veterans in the state of louisiana and so we founded a coastal plains meat company and chip and i started this project you know several years ago and we're excited now to to talk to veterans about this opportunity because what we believe is that by adding processing capacity for beef cattle in the state of louisiana it offers opportunities for veterans transitioning out of the military to get into the cattle industry in the state and have us as one of their largest customers in the state and so we're really really excited about you know what we say our veteran mission is veterans supporting veterans at coastal plains and it really ties well with you know the aba's mission of placing the mission first and so at the end of the day our goal at coastal plains and we put it up on a white board and we talk about it you know time day in and day out but our goal was to employ 2 000 veterans in the state of louisiana across agriculture and the beef cattle segment whether that's helping them stand up their own cattle operation or employing them at ancillary businesses that support our facility or even employing them at our facility as a veteran uh with coastal plains it definitely is a passion that we have and something that we're really really excited about and you know if if you think about you know veterans in agriculture and why it makes sense um you know we kind of briefly spoke about it earlier when we all got on the line the age of the farmer today and if you look about the age of the average age of farmers in the state of louisiana today is 58 years old and a lot of these farmers believe it or not don't have the opportunity to transition their operation to the next generation whether that's the generation that chose to choose a different path really not interested in agriculture moved out of the state which is another big challenge i think the state has is a lot of very talented individuals end up moving away and we as a state especially in agriculture can't utilize that talent to grow these industries so these farmers are looking for other opportunities and a lot of them believe it or not have a very close connection to their farm and their operation and they don't want to see their farm turned into a neighborhood they would like and i've seen this and heard it on podcast time and time again where these farmers want to work with younger interested farmers right i would say veteran farmers in this particular situation to mentor them to bring them into their operation teach them train them and then eventually even at a lower cost and they could sell their own farm to a developer transition that farm to someone who wants to run that farm the way they ran that farm and keep that property in agriculture and so you know beef cattle is a big thing in the state of louisiana if you're not aware today in the state we have 780 000 head of cattle in the state of louisiana and we have no processing capacity to speak of and so we're really excited to be a part of you know the developments here in agriculture in the state and really excited to be here speaking to you guys and girls uh and veterans uh in agriculture so chip thanks a lot so sustainable louisiana what we're looking to do is not only build and rebuild an industry that is sustainable and we you know speak of sustainable we're talking about economic sustainability and we're talking about sustainability of the land and with agriculture and cattle we have the opportunity to do both right so david talked earlier about you know developing career uh opportunities for vets and ag and you know we're looking at at farms we're looking at ancillary businesses i mean there's a ton of logistics uh we're also looking for you know veterans to come work at our facility and you know david made a point uh in a meeting earlier uh earlier this year is man i'd love to drive into our parking lot and see nothing but veteran tags on the back of the vehicles right and and that's what we want to see and and you know veterans that are transitioning what did we learn in the military we learned a skill to use a standard operating procedure and then execute a mission and what we want to do for veterans is we want to give them an opportunity we want to help them write a business plan submit that plan to get funding go buy cattle and then also hand them an offtake agreement so when they hand all that to the bank they have a plan an executable plan and then they can now take that plan and maybe bring that to one of these mentors that david was talking about so that's how we really make the community impact that we're they're going to make in agriculture right and that's going to support our state economy that's going to support our veteran families and help that transition from military life to civilian life now with that again we talked about economic sustainability now let's talk about the regenerative agriculture opportunity so you take a you take a cattle farm the best thing for any land is to have growing crops on it year long what is who do cows need they need forage all year long and so if you do that you can actually you know run a winter grass like rye grass in the wintertime and good spring and summer grasses like a crab grass or you know different behaves or bermudez but you run mixes like that on your land and it's going to put all the nutrients and organic matter back into the land and that's how we create better soil less runoff it's good for not only the soil it's good for the cattle and we become better stewards of our land god's not making any more land we only have so much to work with so we might as well take care of the land that we have our responsibility as business owners as veteran leaders as you know veteran service organizations is to give that leadership and that mentorship to veterans next slide so louisiana beef right now our louisiana beef is raised uh it's generally cow calf operations the calves are sold on the market and those cows leave the state they get fed out of state they go to processors they get further process into cuts and then we go and buy our own beef at a premium from outside the state so that whole market vertical takes place outside of the state of louisiana with the with coastal plains coming online we will help bring that vertical back to the state of louisiana so in that way we can actually grow agriculture because we have more opportunities for off take for cattlemen and then we're going to grow that beef cattle segment this is a perfect way to support that local cattle industry by increasing capacity right now we have very low processing capacity in the state so once you increase that capacity now you have a processor willing to uptake and buy your cattle and then you also have all your other channels that we currently sell so that creates a higher demand which increases prices for the cattlemen and it runs full circle yeah and one of the things that we really are excited about is a program uh that the department of ag here in louisiana are kind of fostering and that's the certified louisiana program when you look at that opportunity that the department of ag and the investment that they're making for louisiana we we feel very strongly and we've talked to a lot of consumers uh lauren we spoke about it earlier um a lot of wives or moms or husbands or our dads are out there shopping for meat and they really want to know where their meat comes from the consumer wants to understand where it comes from and so what we're doing with that certified louisiana program uh and getting involved with it now early on is ensuring that the consumer buying that stake at the meat counter or that pound of ground beef they understand that product is a product of louisiana that was a calf that was born in abbeville it was raised on grass by a farmer there and maybe his picture is there in the meat case where you see him and his operation and that resonates with us and it resonates with the consumer and so we at coastal we just want to be the pipeline that helps the farmer get their cattle to the plates of the consumer and i really really think that the certified louisiana program is a great program and we're excited to benefit from that program and and i think that that will drive demand for new capitol ranchers in the state of louisiana new cattle farmers in the state of louisiana and i think that with that opportunity as chip mentioned adding capacity for processing will always increase capitalism in a market and by having that cap the capacity for processing we'll be able to increase cattle the head of cattle in the state and then also consume the cattle that we grow here in our state really making us um local sustainable beef which is what coastal plains is all about and if you want to make an analogy of this you know certified louisiana take the crawfish industry the crawfish industry i don't know of anybody on this call that's going to brag about buying chinese crawfish right we all are going to make sure that when we buy crawfish in the store it's going to be louisiana crawfish we want to do the same thing for beef right and the crawfish industry has done a great job and the way they were able to do it is increasing the processing capacity in the state and so we're just taking that model and applying it so i guess andy with that next slide we'd like to uh open it up for any questions uh or if you want to wait until the well i think what we're going to do david thank you yeah i think we're going to wait till the end and we have any q a from the from the uh people that are on we'll go ahead and do it all at once fantastic very very uh good information uh lauren lauren is with the louisiana chapter of the former veteran coalition and she's gonna tell a little bit about that uh maybe her role with uh cockeyed farms and so uh the floor is george long well good morning i just want to say thank you so much again to everyone who took this morning to join us uh not just the palace and the facilitators who have done an amazing job thank you so much larry and andrew but also um you know the guys from coastal plains and mike and um just again each and every one of you that's taken out time to to join us this morning my name is lauren bro i am a farmer i have a farm here on the north shore called cockeyed farms my husband is a combat veteran um army he was medically retired uh for being diagnosed with chronic cluster headaches which ended his aviation career he was a scout attack helicopter pilot and uh he's permanently grounded and so when he was transitioning out of the military having you know bachelors from lsu and having always tracked safety thinking that when he did get out his aviation career would continue um but then also making sure that he did you know track safety he could get into the oil field he could get into any type of industry that was here in louisiana um unfortunately his medical conditions he can't work he can't fly he's again permanently grounded but he also can't work in a safety position in any of the plants um you know smells or triggers the hard hat that he'd have to wear his ppe um are all triggers for his condition so it was like god was giving us a straight answer and that was agriculture let's uh let's get out of the office let's get out of the helicopter and let's try to get our feet on the ground somewhere and really put back into um back into the state in the community what we had reaped so many benefits for so um we got into agriculture we started the first commercial american elderberry farm in the state of louisiana um again he's the veteran i'm the spouse uh which means i'm really good at being voluntold everything right so that's why i am here today and he is not um we discovered farmer veteran coalition a couple years ago and just really fell in love with this organization i
m the uh chapter organization committee chair currently we are in chapter formation for the state of louisiana um but a little bit about farmer veteran coalition farmer veteran coalition is the national organization we have um almost 24 000 members nationwide the state of louisiana has about 358 members 335 of those members are actually veterans the rest of us are support staff but we may be farmers you do not have to be a farmer to join farmer veteran coalition you do not have to be a veteran to support the organization or to join but they're absolutely amazing opportunities for farmers and veterans who are a part of this organization so if you want to go ahead and flip flip to the next slide um we mentioned in this that uh we have four new state chapters this year louisiana is not included in that number yet because we are actually a chapter in formation still there are still some hoops we need to jump through and that's one of the reasons i'm here today is i am really trying to recruit members um we need all kinds of members we need members in an advisory capacity we need members who are interested in being mentors we need members who just want to get in and um and and really work and spread the news we want to be able to have guys like you know the guys at coastal come to me and say look i want to hire fec members put me in touch with someone who is a veteran and a farmer that wants wants to get involved with our company we need people to work for us that kind of stuff so one of the biggest things about farmer veteran coalition is just the networking opportunities um really putting people in touch with the right people i know that again in the transition process you know you've gone through years of being told how to lace up your boots what to eat where to sit where to march how many push-ups to do everything is regimented okay and so when you get out your life's completely different and so being able to facilitate and mentor and advise and help guide veterans through you know getting into agriculture is something that i think is really really important there are so many um programs out out there that that boast that they do that and um again having personal experience of just seeing like being so frustrated because i felt like we were constantly hitting our head against the brick wall so i really want to eliminate that i know i can't do it you know completely but i really want to um to just kind of be that springboard where people come and they join farmer veteran coalition and then i'm able to say okay hey you're interested in getting into cattle farming these are the people you need to talk to uh you want to get into row crops cool this is who you need to talk to and then be able to pair them with other members of fec who have that experience and have that knowledge and they can really take them under their wings so we do have a conference every year um thanks to covid we went virtual last year and the conference included 49 states louisiana was represented um and i'm told that the conferences are a lot of fun i haven't been able to attend one because again last year it was virtual but there's more information on that uh right there on that website farmvetco.org and then if you don't mind i'm so sorry i'm gonna flip the next two slides so if you could skip the homegrown by heroes for now and just go straight to the mission that would be great thank you this so this is the mission of farmer veteran coalition is near and dear to my heart it is it is one in the same with the way uh we run our farm the way we run our family the way the legacy that we want to leave to our children and um to our grandkids and you know for the rest of america for the rest of time without a farmer there is no anything there's no food there's no water source there's no flowers there's no dirt there's nothing and just like david said earlier god's not making it or chipset i think earlier god's not making more dirt he's not making more lane so we have to be really really good stewards of what we have so the mission of farm veteran coalition is mobilizing veterans to feed america we cultivate a new generation of farmers and food leaders we develop viable employment and meaningful careers we love the collaboration of the farming and the military communities and if i could add one thing in there it would be the family because i think that especially military members understand veterans understand that their families are so important to their uh support and their their well-being and all of that goes hand-in-hand with farming and agriculture um we truly believe we know this because we work with so many amazing veterans you guys possess the unique skills and character needed to strengthen rural communities and create sustainable food systems and that's another big part of why we do what we do and also the healing benefits of agriculture i have seen my husband change from a completely and totally stressed out individual to someone who is he he has a new mission and that is to work to bring life out of the ground and it is therapeutic for him it really really is um he is healthier now in mind body spirit than he has been since before he joined the military so i really credit our engagement and our involvement in agriculture with that um louisiana is a state that's written rich in veteran status and also an agriculture status louisiana is an ag state we're also a veteran state and i can't think of a better way to capitalize on those two amazing resources than by mobilizing our louisiana veterans to feed the rest of the nation everything from crawfish and rice to to meat and potatoes i mean everything all of it so that brings me to the slide before that larry i'm sorry thank you so much the homegrown by heroes slide um this is something that i'm really excited about uh farm veteran coalition has uh the official farmer veteran branding program of america and that's the homegrown by heroes label when the state is when the state chapter is actually formed um we will have access to that certified louisiana branding um i don't know about you but if i go to rouses and i'm looking for salsa or beef jerky or a bottle of elderberry syrup i want to know that that is a certified louisiana product and so this is something that i am super excited about a little bit of um inside information they added the female veteran to this label about five years ago so that was that was fun that's one for me there are over two thousand uh farmer veteran coalition members that are certified in this program already and as soon as our state chapter is formed we will have access to that that branding and marketing as well so um that just kind of ties it up the the last slide is my contact information i am so excited about bringing this organization to the state um i just feel like it's going to be a powerhouse of networking and um just really tying the right people together but right now like i said we're in formation we need you we are looking to schedule a stakeholder meeting probably in may um and in order to do that i want to have as many members as possible and i want to have strong members i want to challenge each and every person who watches this video to really think about what your network your connections how they can benefit the other farmers and veterans in our state and farmer veteran coalition is an amazing way it's a great hub to join to be able to do that so we're looking for members um again it's free to join we want people who are willing to serve in advisory capacity um we want people who are interested in mentoring other other farmers and other veterans so again i'm going to challenge you to think about how your network and collect and connections can benefit um our amazing veterans in agriculture and the state of louisiana so thank you um again follow us we're on social media and then you can always reach out to me email me call me text me i will answer every question i can and if i don't know the answer i will find it so thanks lauren yeah thanks lauren great information um so third on our panel is mike desaa so mike is agd consulting and he also has the vets in ag podcast and so i'd like for him to speak a little bit about each and that way we can kind of get an overview of his contribution to agriculture yeah absolutely thanks so much andrew for the invitation chip and david for your story and lauren what you're doing with former veteran coalition it's just it's so encouraging to see all of these different initiatives that are moving forward within agriculture it's just it makes me feel like i'm in the right place so to speak and you know as somebody that's in northeast texas again i have to thank andrew for the opportunity i'm about an hour west of shreveport but i do try to consider myself an honorary member of the state so it's a pleasure to be with you guys and again just thanks so much for the opportunity larry if you'll go forward a slide for me please so i'm the founder and managing director for a firm called agd consulting and you know essentially what we are is a veteran-owned strategic advisory firm that services a few key sectors within agriculture both domestically but also on a global basis as well ag technology we're ag tech food and agribusiness and we do that kind of we focus on those areas for clients in the private equity space investors who are asset managers ag tech startups as well as growers themselves and and the interesting thing about our firm is that we can operate really sort of anywhere within the ag value chain from the technologies that support biologicals and crop inputs to the hardware and software that goes into planting harvesting cultivation processing packaging to commercial scale agribusiness and kind of all of the other sort of sub sector and value related areas indoor or greenhouse production plant and soil analysis value added processing etc our geographic coverage started in the emerging markets in particular latin america my background is in ag engineering i spent about seven years in the marine corps on the infantry side of things a couple of deployments central america parts of the middle east east africa and then a combat deployment to afghanistan 2010 2011. a couple of years before i got out my family and i felt like we were being called to sort of walk a different path so to speak that god was moving us from military service into entrepreneurship we didn't quite know what that was at the time it also just so happened that we were looking for an investment opportunity as a family my wife grew up on a small farm here in east texas which is where we are today again my background in engineering and agriculture but we had never put the two together before as a form of investment and when we finally did we said look one of the things that we want to look for is geographical diversification and so we started to look at regions of the world that had a lot of the potential for investability lack of correlation in tangible assets that could appreciate et cetera and so really that set off about an 18-month desktop or due diligence research endeavor into parts of the world that supported agriculture and what we found was that latin america as a whole sort of met a lot of those criteria and so when i got out of the service in 2014 my wife and our three boys at the time who were four years old two and six months basically executed what we would call a six-month six-country due diligence trip down into latin america ecuador peru chile argentina uruguay and panama and really it was a three-fold trip for us it was about finding investable opportunity as a family it was to lay the groundwork for the consulting firm and then it was really to kind of show our boys that there's more to life than kind of what's directly in front of them and so when we started the firm in 2016 it focused on latin america as a region but over the last few years or so we broadened into other emerging markets as well as the oecd markets north america australia new zealand etc the services that we generally offer and this will make sense as to the veteran component because of the things that we've seen within this work due diligence independent due diligence product and business development market access strategic partnership and access to capital as well and so those areas are the types of services we tend to cover down on um and the types of clients that we tend to do that work for if you'll move forward a slight formulary so this was actually on a grape vineyard in the southern part of argentina on a harvester and we were testing a new piece of technology that was a crop analytics type device but this is the kind of things that i think veterans can be involved in whether you were in technology or not if you'll go forward for me one more so just two things i want to cover down on these last two slides right i i over the last 10 years of military service and time and agriculture i've i've really come to see the connection between the two environments fluidity and unpredictability agriculture and the military are influenced by many different factors there's so much regionality solutions are often decentralized and i just i could not help but make that connection most recently and what i have found is that the the road is pretty well paved for vets going into production agriculture lauren talked about a lot of the mental health benefits that happen from physical contact with the soil and there are biological things that happen you know myself having experienced that as well which is why i'm on a small farm now but what i think is maybe under highlighted is the tools to a different trade so to speak that the veteran can bring to the agricultural community that extend beyond just production agriculture technology business entrepreneurship i mean these are all areas where veterans have capabilities and have proven those capabilities to operate in these kind of uncertain environments without single step solutions right i think covet is a very interesting example of what an external factor can do to a supply chain especially agriculture that i think veterans have a unique capability of solving they have learned a sense of triage and how to solve some of the most pressing problems first and foremost right there are so many commonalities between ag problems and military problems right labor shortages supply chain disruptions worker safety there's capital required there's cultural adoption that has to happen those are not dissimilar from the problems that military veterans experience and solve recruiting logistical movements in an enemy situation casualties deploying development funds psychological operations right there's just so many overlaps between the two and i think if you level on top of that the fact that veterans generally speaking have very high levels of responsibility at pretty young ages they have learned to lead in a way that inspires instead of requires right that's an important distinction i think that veterans often undersell their capabilities in as they kind of transition out into the into the private sector the last two i would say would be around putting a local face into a solution right because ag is so regional the areas where we operated are so regional that the veteran understands this connection to having a partnered or local face to solve a problem and then they've also operated in ways that allow them to apply objective evaluation metrics to subjective skills right the last two years in the service i i taught at the basic school and the infantry officer course and the school was about teaching and evaluating leadership and there are methods in place that you can do to evaluate these kinds of skill sets objectively right and and you can do that in the private sector as well especially within agriculture and so if you'll go forward a slide for me larry what i'm trying to one of the things that we're trying to do now is highlight these different skill sets and one of our most recent efforts in which to do that is a podcast that we launched just called that's an ag right we swap stories we talk ag we interview folks and veterans and military supporters who were leading the way in agropreneurship ag tech and agribusiness right to try to bring a more holistic view of th
veteran community and the skills they bring outside of just production agriculture and just i really wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a couple of of things and commonalities that have come out in in the stories in interviews i've done and this is geared more towards the veteran repetition and refinement are crucial whether that's repetition of your resume whether that's interviewing multiple times whether that's understanding how to network you cannot rep it enough and you cannot refine it enough right it's no different than learning how to shoot it's no different than learning how to clear a house or how to call an aircraft or artillery you just have to practice these skills it's the same in the in the agribusiness space as well find the the thing that always comes always comes up is the veteran was searching after they left the service for a sense of purpose right and i don't know yet if that's unique to the veteran community but it certainly comes out in these conversations that as they move into different professions they they don't necessarily find that same sense of purpose but a lot of them seem to find it in agriculture and so i can't overemphasize enough how important it is to find your purpose in your profession and then if you're in agribusiness if you're a representative listening as a part of an agribusiness two things i would tell you is you consider hiring or interviewing a veteran right veterans often struggle with the communications of their skills and one way in which we try to tell them to do that is through stories right they they're comfortable in that realm get them to tell you a story if you're a veteran or if you're an agribusiness and you're looking to step into the veteran hiring do so as early as possible right steps and taps or the last two weeks of service it's too late there are programs out there now the dod skills bridge is one where you can step in six months early and grab an intern to bring them into your program john deere is doing this there's a couple of other agribusinesses that are doing this but the sooner you can get into that the earlier and then finally i would say find the veteran where they are right especially the enlisted community as they transition out that don't have the college network that the office or community does they tend to go back where they came from and often that's a very rural community so if you're looking to hire a veteran you have to go to these rural communities in order to extract that talent right and again i highlight john deere because that's one that's top of mind but their their mechanics and maintenance programs are dealership specific which are often in very rural communities as well so that's i think a very tangible example of the way that you can reach those veterans where they are cargill has a really interesting way that they're doing this also through kind of a community holistic approach but um you know again if you're interested in agriculture and you're a transitioning veteran any of the folks here on this panel i think would be happy to talk to you about this i know that i would if you're in agribusiness or you're in technology um and you're a veteran and you want to share your story let me know um so again thanks so much andrew for the opportunity thanks mike that was great uh yeah i like how you bring up the the john deere example because i spoke with corporate john deere uh in illinois just this past week with david antivirus and he was telling me about the state of louisiana john deere has their manufacturing facility in thibodaux but they also have 15 retail service outlets throughout the state and their major skill bridge partner skill bridge employer and so we're talking on how to bring them further along in louisiana skill bridge and how we can best utilize their um experience and know how and i think they're they're they could be the flagship for what we're trying to accomplish here so good information man well i think we have commissioner mike strain who's gonna finish out our panel today uh commissioner strain we appreciate you being here no introduction needed i'll let you you take the floor all right let's see okay can you hear me now can you hear me now all right how are you sir most people have no problem hear me anytime right thank you very much for a few minutes uh there's a lot going on and first of all i want to thank each and every one of you for your service you know as veterans you bring some very unique skills to the table you're well disciplined you know and you understand the structure command you understand challenges you understand you know what it takes to get across the finish line and that's very important in business and so there are a number of things in a number of programs and i think you know one especially in agriculture there's so many opportunities that are there uh the usda has continuing opportunities for grants and loans well and right now probably more on the loans but a lot of that is geared towards our veterans and veterans programs and we need to make sure that every veteran contacts the usda at their local farm services agency and says okay what is there what is available and it's not a one-time trip you know i talked to all of my farmers i said you need to go down there once every six months at a minimum and saying okay what's new what do we have what we can do look at what the opportunities are and then engage you're very well respected and you and understand uh that you know what's what's there and many times it'll open those doors if you look at what we have here at the department we have one program the homegrown by heroes program uh and that is a way to help our veterans to market their products and so when you look at at marketing when you're selling something uh you're marketing a product you need something that sets you apart right you need to clear out the den the noise and set you apart on your products and we have a certification program so veterans apply to a national website and get approval by farmer veteran coalition the farmer veteran coalition the farmer veteran coalition issues a certificate upon approval and then which the veteran supplies to department ag and forestry the veteran then will request state application from us to use the homegrown by hero certified louisiana logo currently we have eight veterans in this program other things that are available now and that are working and moving forward we have a specialty crop block grant program that does a number of things for specialty crops the industrial hemp program that's a that's a program that is most of the people in the industrial hemp industry are not large-scale traditional farmers so they're not you know the thousand three four thousand acre farmers they're small the most successful hemp growers right now are growing it in greenhouses you know and a one acre greenhouse is a big greenhouse right two acre greenhouse it's a big greenhouse there are also other programs to help build greenhouses they call them high tunnels at the usda we have the certified louisiana program certified louisiana products and also we work through the southern united states trade association to help market those products whatever the product is manufactured and made and so if you're interested in say putting a spice company together and you got uncle charlie's recipe for the finest spice for crawfish or boudin or whatever it is and you want to make that product and then you want to sell that product we can help you certify that product we can also help you market it across the world uh and and there's it's cost share programs that are that are there uh we have produce safety programs to help you to become certified on the food safety modernization act when you deal with produce and food products there is a degree of regulation that goes with this and it's about the food safety chain so we have that at the office here product safety produce safety gap certification that's generally acceptable practices then we have the meat program there's a big push right now for uh getting funding to build small meat processing facilities across america there is a shortage of what we call kill plants small kill plants small processing plants simply because the old processors and the old butchers died out and uh the the sons you know and the daughter said look pops i'm not working as hard and they did not take over the businesses and now there's a shift in a model people want they want local food they want local food and they want local proteins and so uh it takes some funding to do this and we're trying to get uh some cfap money we're trying to get some state money there'll be some legislation this year to do that we're trying to get federal money to where there are grants and grant loans low assistance loan 9010 loans to set up uh basically kill plants and meat processing now the only the hindrance on kill plants and meat processing it is physical right i mean it's it's labor intensive and that's what what caused some of the demise is that the young people decided they wanted to you know work on a computer all day and you know and and not do that heavy labor and now we're going back to look that heavy labor is needed but there are opportunities for that in different regions uh people will tell you if i've got a show calf and it's gonna take me eight months to get it slaughtered eight months nine months and so there's a need for that uh there are a number of different uh boards and commissions that members uh if they would like to serve on uh that does those boards and commissions are voluntary but it connects you with other people that are within those different um opportunity zones or within those different businesses now again under the usda there are a number of grants of loans available to qualifying veteran farmers and that's very important we have the farm load loan program there's direct operating loans 1.37 percent interest farm operating micro loans 1.37 farm ownership 2.65 percent uh farm ownership down payment looks like they give you a down the down payment loan of 1.5 percent and so there are a number of programs that are available and if you look at most agriculture now most agriculture the farmer doesn't own the land they lease it and they lease it based on a percentage of the crop and what's happening the the majority of farmers now are at around 60 years of age and so in the next 10 years there is going to be a transition of a great deal of farmland from the current owners to the new owners and it's in this appropriate time and for the veterans to use every type of financial tool at their disposal and there's a lot of people out there that uh would like to work with the veterans and that's from the extension agents at the ag center to the usda to every you know element of society and so we need to take full advantage of that um so with that i will see what questions what else you'd like to talk about larry i think what we can do is let's go ahead uh thank you commissioner strain we appreciate those words uh larry you can go ahead and orchestrate maybe a little bit of q a and if any of the analysts or commissioners strain would like to take a few questions or just have a little internal discussion maybe the panelists would like to talk with mike's commissioner strand while he's on um up to you larry i'll let you take the lead yeah so we'll go ahead and uh we'll open it up uh to anybody in the group if you have a question for any of the panelists please uh utilize the q a and we'll go ahead and we'll read those questions to the panelists and also if you have a question that you want to pass along to a veteran who is interested in agriculture or i see two navigators on the line that you want to pass on to your ag veteran students at your respective campuses please feel free to ask those questions now and you can pass along to those ag students i have two questions of my own andrew if you don't mind and the first one i was actually going to ask lauren this question and then the commissioner came on and started talking about homegrown by heroes and said that currently we have eight veterans in homegrown uh by heroes is that correct sir yes that's that's correct and these eight veterans they they each have a farm i'm assuming uh yes okay my second question is to um is to um to chip and david earlier you guys were talking about uh providing assistance to veterans with a business plan does that mean they can contact you directly hey chip david listen i'm looking to get into agriculture can you please take a look at my business plan and you guys kind of take a look and assist that veteran that's correct uh we're working with the with andy at the acadiana vetter alliance and so i think the best way to you know the best route to go would be to go through them if it's a general ag question uh but at the same time uh with regards to our kill plant and meat processing and you know getting a veteran started in cattle farming uh we'd love for them to you know either go through the aba or uh or the you know veteran coalition are you know straight to us we're we're happy to help yeah and larry we've developed a program at coltsville plains uh which which is actually mentorship leadership uh and business planning development with veterans wanting to getting into cattle farming here here in the state and so um you know as i mentioned earlier um we would be probably their largest customer or off tanker and so those those new veterans wanting to getting into cattle we would help them facilitate not only the development of their business plan but navigate the usda and the programs that are available to them i've used multiple programs at the usda uh um you know to the commissioner's point there's great opportunities there um i actually purchased my own ranch uh from an fsa loan which was a fantastic opportunity uh so finding maybe low rent or leased land for those for those of veterans and then helping them get the calves from uh you know from the market and then being their their their biggest customers so there's a great opportunity that we've developed in our program called veterans supporting veterans thank you guys so much you know when i first took this position um i had a veteran contact me actually i've had two since i've been in this position contact me specifically about agriculture and it's not my you know my area of expertise and that's why i really appreciate this call because i'm telling you i've gotten so much information and the only resource that i had when a veteran first came to me was pointing them to the federal website which is not a bad website at all it gives you a lot of information on funding and things of that nature but to listen to you all talk about it and to be able to make that connection and also have people that i can reach out to and say hey a veteran asked me yesterday what can i do to get started in agriculture this is amazing and speaking of which uh greg kind of has the same question uh and it is how do you start from scratch with no seed funding and land acquisitions yeah so i mean one of the things that you can easily do is look at leasing land at a very low cost right now there's a lot of school boards in the parishes that have that have land i think there's opportunities there for veterans to lease that land also there's usda has farm loans out there that you can acquire cattle on and with the business plan you know where we can support them in developing that business plan having a customer uh like one of the largest processors in the state of louisiana actually shores up that business plan from a financial perspective and and to commissioner strain's point and we spoke about it in our presentation as well is we have a lot of farmers that are you know kind of getting higher in age and will be looking to retire in the next few years and that's where our mentorship program that we spoke about uh that's where that really comes in because i think that we can uh you know align these veterans with existing farmers and maybe they can work out some sweat equity for rent type situations yeah and don't and and remember if you want to find out what's going on in the parish talk to the county agent from the lsu a southern accent accounting age
t and to the to the agent at the fsa office right they know everybody and everything and they drink coffee with the farmers in the morning and if you're a veteran say look i want to raise vegetables well a five acre vegetable farm is a big vegetable farm yeah you know any of y'all have ever raised gardens an acre is a lot yeah five acres is huge you know 24 acres i mean you're gonna have to have a work crew out there i mean that's a huge vegetable farm so and you can produce a lot on a little and and also you know you can raise and sell up to 10 000 chickens a year for slaughter and sale at farmers markets without being under a state or federal inspection that's chickens it's not any other protein but chickens and so if you're looking at you know starting off and you and you find a farm that's fallow nothing going on you know and you tell that farmer you know i said look i'm you know i'll pay you 250 a year or 200 a year per acre right to start you know or whatever or you come up with say look i'll give you you know x amount of percent or whatever you do but work into a a low-cost type of lease you know and uh just a and with vegetables you can do a short lease it's not like you're going you know because you're going to go in and basically till the land send off your samples and you got to work with your county agents to get you know make sure your soil is is properly fertilized but that's a year-to-year type thing versus when you're raising cattle on 100 acres if you lease that you got to fix the fence and that's an expense and you've got to do those other things and you've got to have trucks trailers tractors hay balers uh you know and you can get into vegetable gardening you know you can find those uh small tractors those those little international cubs now those those run about fifteen hundred dollars you find them every you know you find them and you set that up and one of the things about doing agriculture especially small scale agriculture it is that it is it really brings down your stress level now high scale agriculture can bring it the other way i can tell you for sure you know i've been there you know for many years in large scale agriculture and now i'm doing trying to do a little more small-scale agriculture right therapy yeah make it the solution rather than the problem you know but you can get a few acres and you know those farmers markets i mean that's a big deal these farmers markets are growing uh and and also you know and again so is the local meat movements too but you can start off small if you don't have a lot of money you know go go see that farmer you know and a lot of people if you're going home when you go home everybody knows the old farmers in their area and you say look you know you got this whole field here it's all growing up so you know would you lease me an acre or two you know so i can try to grow some vegetables and i'm sure you can come to a reasonable term yeah i think commissioner you make great points especially for veterans that are transitioning out of the military getting into agriculture you have to take the initiative you have to go out there and take control of your future if you want to be an actress you take that initiative you go meet with that farmer you figure out what it is you want to do and i think you make absolute great points and uh i got to tell you you know hearing you it really gives us more energy as veterans to get out there and make take that initiative so i really appreciate that thank you larry if i could just for a second speaking go ahead so we actually have a farmer um in cottonport who contacted farmer veteran coalition our state chapter in formation um saying that he has a huge piece of property and he needs he needs help with it and so um he would be someone and we we get contacts like that often where people are like look i you know i need an intern i need a student i have this property that i can't work by myself anymore and or i would like to lease a portion of it out to someone else so um again you know all of these these are so good for that type of networking um so absolutely uh you know reach out to to to us as well because we can put that out within our our people and say listen you know we have students from i think the gentleman said he's from gremlin we have students that are interested in in doing this and getting involved in a farm lease or whatever and um and put that out and then be able to to to connect to that because that's that's the biggest part the fsa agents are great they're awesome but they're one person and so if you do take that initiative and you're going out there and you're seeking those other farmers who like you said don't have a son or a daughter who's ready to take it on um that that's what we want to do is definitely connect those people so uh this this networking is just it's a really good opportunity and i appreciate you dr strange thank you so much for mentioning homegrown by heroes yes um that's that's that we we love that branding and we we appreciate it being certified louisiana good and also also remember to visit uh go to a a local chapter of your farm bureau their parish monthly meeting because that's generally a group of uh how you say more senior farmers that that meet generally on a one or two month basis but they know the whole community those farm bureau members and that's a very large organization but if you go in that area and you have that same conversation uh you remember you're you're tapping into their lifetime knowledge you know of what's available and because you know farms come available on a pretty regular basis okay well thanks everyone uh larry do you have any closing comments or anything before we we sign off actually if we have time for one more question uh great greg is asking a lot of great questions um he wants to know how difficult or easy is it to acquire farm equipment i.e tractors combines etc okay so who's gonna answer that i can take a quick stab at that go ahead there there are there are platform technology platforms now that are being created that allow farmers at different scales to essentially rent or lease equipment when it's not being utilized right so if you've got and i'm talking there are there are different levels some will lease out combines when they're not using them for planting or cultivation but there are also ones that are doing it on a smaller scale and if there's an interest there um that's an often easier way to acquire equipment than purchasing it outright or or renting it or releasing it etc so that's one of the ways i think technology is making more efficient use of both equipment and resources are these kinds of platforms where you're connecting users and suppliers so to speak okay also if you are looking to buy you know you use farm tractors uh one there is the market bulletin it is a bi-weekly every two-week publication by the department of ag and forestry and there's a whole sector on ag equipment secondly i would say you go on the internet and you you type in what you're looking for if you are looking for a uh a small farm all cub you type that in and you see where they are these equipment auctions they always have a section for farm equipment there was a farm liquidated about 10 days ago and they sold all the farm equipment off and so you know you you kind of have to keep looking to find what you are looking for because if you're looking for a small garden tractor then you need you generally need an older model you need one of those old international or farm all cubs and you you can look around but they're they're always coming on the market and when you see it you got to jump on it quick because there's people that buy them and collect them and keep them and just think they got to have everyone they can find you know but uh you can you can find that used equipment uh new equipment of course yes but uh the price of new farm equipment can uh how you say um make you take a second look sometimes and the piece of equipment you need depends a lot on what it is you're trying to cultivate absolutely have that down correctly before you start going out and buying tractors that may be more or less than what you actually need that's correct sounds good andrew yeah no more questions i appreciate everybody coming on today this is a great first step in our louisiana veteran prosperity series we wanted to make agriculture the first step in this process because we feel that it's a very very strong push that veterans in the state can make and it's a natural progression like chip had said earlier and david said earlier about how you take that service career and then you take what you learned there and then you implement it into your civilian life so um it's good to see a lot of us on the same page and i think the more we keep pushing the bigger this is going to get so uh thanks to all involved and uh everyone have a good day stay in touch let me know what i can do thanks commissioner thanks so much have a good day take care guys
