By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — After spending 12 years as an ammo pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Lt. Col. Paul Dorrance had a choice to either serve eight more years and retire at age 42, or leave the military and start a farm in Chillicothe, Ohio. Dorrance, now 40, chose the latter.

Sara Creech of Indiana was a nurse in the Air Force and could have finished her career working in a hospital. Instead, she bought an old 43-acre dairy farm west of Indianapolis and settled in the countryside.

Ryan Broyles of Rockland, Ky., joined the Navy as an officer and served while stationed in Norfolk, Va. He yearned for the rural life and decided to create a flower farm, even though he’s also added pigs and some sheep.

The number of military veterans like these who are heading to life on a farm is on the rise. The USDA released its five-year census for Ohio and Kentucky, and for the first time each includes a category for military veterans who are farming.

The census showed as of 2017, there were 12,228 farm producers with a background of military service in Ohio. More than 8,500 of those are 65 or older. The Kentucky census shows that there are about 13,000 farmers with military service.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” said Dorrance, who grew up in the countryside of New York and now owns the 111-acre Pastured Providence Farmstead where he raises free-range chickens, grass-fed sheep, and pastured pigs. “I always had it in the back of my head that I’d come back to agriculture. I became a believer in this type of agriculture and the benefits of it.”

He said the military develops a problem-solving mentality, and his farm often feels like that. He uses his task management and prioritization skills to succeed.

“My military background is that you take what you’re given and solve what you have in mind,” he said. “With farming there are a lot of really tough times and it’s hard to make money. But I totally feel more at peace in farming than in anything I’ve done in my life.”

Sara Creech was raised in Kalamazoo, Mich., and had no knowledge of farming, yet when she retired from the military she bought a farm and immediately planted 50 fruit trees and hundreds of raspberries. Like other veterans, she simply yearned for a healthier and more peaceful lifestyle, so she attended a farming seminar with other veterans.

“I was really charged and I just got it in my mind to go start a farm,” she said.

She tends to ducks, turkeys, cattle, sheep, and hundreds of laying hens. In the late winter she makes maple syrup.

“In the military, it’s all about the bigger mission, being part of something bigger,” Creech said. “When you come out of the military, an office job just doesn’t have that higher purpose. Farming does.”

Broyles, 36, is quite content at his Starry Fields Farm near Bowling Green, Ky. “I like farming, it’s something that I have found more and more I like being outside. I also really like raising animals. We’ve raised goats and cows. This year we’re going to get into raising some pigs and some sheep.”

In the service he was stationed in Virginia and Japan. He and his wife, Jessica, and their three children made the transition four years ago from military life to Starry Fields Farm. Their goal was a place with a house on a farm.

“While in Japan we started growing some flowers and a garden, and we really like that,” Broyles said. “We really liked that.”

Now they grow bachelor buttons, larkspur, bells of Ireland, yarrow, poppies, feverfew, straw flower, white dill, anemone, honeywart, peonies, and others.

There are 20.9 million military veterans living in the United States today and there are a number of programs to help them find work after they leave the service. Twelve years ago a California farm manager formed the Farmer Veteran Coalition, or FVC, designed to help veterans become farmers. Today it has more than 16,000 members across the nation.

Growing Warriors, based in Kentucky, teaches veterans how to feed themselves and provides classes covering farming techniques, healthy cooking, seed saving, food preservation, mushroom growing, beekeeping, soils science, and organic gardening.

In New York, Heroic Food gives veterans a new mission: Serving their country by growing food. Started in 2014, it offers a year-long immersion program for veterans who are interested in small-scale commercial farming.

Heroes to Hives in Michigan seeks to address financial and personal wellness of veterans through professional training and community development centered on beekeeping.

Across the country, 129.1 million acres were operated by veterans on 365,393 farms, with the most common size being between 10-49 acres, at 111,009. In total, the market value of agricultural products produced on these farms totaled nearly $42 billion.

Texas, by the way, is the state with the largest number of veterans farming, with 52,357 producers.