Wisconsin National Guard unit training for Afghanistan mission

The classrooms included cattle stalls, sheep pens, fish hatcheries and farm fields, and the lessons covered soil and seeds, livestock, water management and even women's handicraft production. Not typical training for Wisconsin National Guard Soldiers and Airmen, but important knowledge for an atypical unit, the 97th Agribusiness Development Team, as it wraps up a five-day "Agriculture 101" crash course through the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS).

"The unit's job over there will be to facilitate the food supply chain management of agribusiness," said Col. John Schroeder, 97th ADT commander. "A complete supply chain management from planting through marketing - working with universities, with the ministers at the village level, the province level all the way up to the national level."

The National Guard began applying the agribusiness development team concept - used successfully in Central America the past two decades - in Afghanistan in 2007. Staying true to the image of the Concord Minuteman, with one hand on a musket and another on a plow, the ADT initiative leverages the skills of Citizen Soldiers to help Afghan farmers identify local solutions to local agricultural problems in a region of Afghanistan that one day could be considered the bread basket for that part of the world. Agribusiness development teams are one part of a broad agriculture strategy being implemented by the U.S. and Afghanistan governments, as well as non-governmental organizations.

Much as Wisconsin's first agribusiness development team, the 82nd ADT, was reorganized in May to become an element of the Kunar Provincial Reconstruction Team, the 97th has also reorganized under the PRT concept and will only deploy up to one-quarter of its 60 members next year. Schroeder will not be among the deploying troops who will replace the 82nd ADT members in the Kunar PRT. About 80 percent of Afghanistan is involved in agriculture, making it a large part of the PRT mission.

The "Agriculture 101" training is similar to that given to the 82nd ADT last year.

"Most of the changes we made [were] largely in the form of increasing hands-on training and decreasing sit-down lecture time," said CALS Outreach Specialist David Kantor. "Our feedback from the 82nd was good, and based on it we kept many of the topics from last year."

Capt. Craig Giese of Lodi, Wis., the officer in charge of the deploying ADT element, said the training will have his Soldiers and Airmen well prepared.

"This is going to give us a good baseline on how things should be," Giese said. "As long as we go there with a mindset that we're not going to change the world over there and we're going to implement small changes, we'll be okay. I think we'll do great things."

One change that may have an immediate effect concerns the commander's emergency response program (CERP) funds. Giese said that it will be important to transition Afghans from U.S. military funding toward Afghan government support.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Steven Artz of DeForest, Wis., will be responsible for the unit's local economy purchases, but will also facilitate with Afghan locals to open up their own funding avenues. A supply and logistics specialist for nearly three decades, this will be his first deployment.

"I really thought it was pretty neat, what we were going to be doing, actually trying to help the Afghans take care of themselves and improve their lives," Artz said. "I was intrigued by being part of a smaller element like this with a very unique mission. It has proven to be very interesting. It's been interesting to see everyone in an all-volunteer unit keeping their amazing attitudes."

Staff Sgt. Ross Templeton of Concho, Ariz. - attached to the Arizona Air National Guard's 162nd Fighter Wing - grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin and will function as a forestry management specialist for this deployment, his first.

"I'm very excited," Templeton admitted. "I grew up in production agriculture and I was always involved in 4-H. I'm involved in the dairy production marketing board here in Wisconsin. I don't know that I expect to see that a lot in Afghanistan. A lot of what we're expecting to see is very, very small farms centered on keeping their families alive.

"Obviously the first thing we need to do when we get there is understand what they do and why they do what they do," Templeton continued, "and then take what we do and why we do what we do and try and merge those together to help them do what they want to do better."