Rural retailer Tractor Supply Co., along with the Tractor Supply Co. Foundation, have announced a $100,000 donation to Farmer Veteran Coalition’s Fellowship Fund ahead of the Independence Day weekend.
The Fellowship Fund is a grant program that provides direct assistance to veterans in their beginning years of farming or ranching, either through grants of equipment or awards ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 to purchase items that will make a crucial difference in the launch of their farm businesses. Tractor Supply’s contribution will benefit 60 farmer veterans.
“Agriculture offers a sense of purpose and opportunity ideally suited for veterans beginning new careers,” said Mary Winn Pilkington, president of the Tractor Supply Company Foundation. “Through our donation to the Farmer Veteran Fellowship Fund, Tractor Supply is honored to support these new farmers while connecting them with the supplies, equipment and insight that are critical to their success.”
The retailer is also providing all veterans, active military, and their dependents with a 15 percent discount on Tuesday, July 4, in stores nationwide.
Fellowship Fund winners were selected by a team of seasoned agriculture industry professionals. Applications were evaluated based on farm training, experience and/or transferable skills, level of personal investment in their farm business and ability to show how an award will help grow their farm business. Applicants were also asked to share their vision for how their business would support their communities.
Tractor Supply was one of seven major donors that provided awards to a total of 133 farmer veterans. Fifty winners were awarded $1,000 Tractor Supply gift cards while an additional $50,000 grant from the Tractor Supply Company Foundation will benefit farmer veterans in the form of grants and through FVC programming.
For the last five years, Tractor Supply has partnered with FVC to assist farmer veterans from all branches of service as part of its ongoing commitment to veteran causes. In total, the Company has donated more than $450,000 in gift cards and funding to FVC, assisting more than 300 farmer veterans.
This year’s recipients include:
- Colin Dunlap, the Army officer behind Silver Bell Ranch, a first-generation beef ranch in Normangee, Texas. Silver Bell markets beef direct-to-consumer and seeks to become the go-to supplier for sustainably raised, great tasting beef in the local market. Colin also wants the ranch to provide a place for fellow veterans to learn about agriculture. His long-term goals are to implement a three-pasture multi-species rotational grazing system, add artificial insemination to business service offerings and engage with the community to improve agricultural education.
- Flint Raben of Raben Ranch in Twin Bridges, Montana, who produces an unusual hybrid of traditional hay and stocker cattle, and organic produce and field-cut lavender plants. Flint, a Navy veteran, realized the farming/ranching and preserving skills he learned as a child are a dying art, so he hopes to pass those skills on to his own children by making Raben Ranch a success. With his award, Flint will rehab 7,500 feet of pasture fencing, build a High-Tunnel in the market garden, upgrade the drip irrigation system and overhaul his small tractor.
- Tona Trice, an Army veteran who owns Hops Meadow Farm in Romney, West Virginia, the first Black-owned hops farm east of the Mississippi. In addition to 313 forest-farmed hops plants, Hops Meadow has four cattle, three llamas, three chickens and two rabbits. Tona’s goals include building a stable base of breweries producing seasonal beers from her farm’s hops, building a sustainable beef and pork business to complement brewery-focused agritourism and reducing farm expenses.
- Tim Zamora of Zamora Farms in San Lorenzo, New Mexico. After six deployments, Tim retired from the Army in 2021 and fully committed himself to his family’s farm. They currently have 490 fruit trees, nine heads of cattle and two horses on 21 acres and hope to develop a sustainable, veteran-friendly agriculture business that utilizes all available resources to provide fruit products, wood chips and cattle locally, regionally and nationally.
As of April 1, 2023, the Company operated 2,164 Tractor Supply stores in 49 states, including 81 stores acquired from Orscheln Farm and Home in 2022 that will be rebranded to Tractor Supply by the end of 2023.
