By Laura Dimmit
news@joplinglobe.com
ANDERSON, Mo. — After 22 years in the Oklahoma National Guard, Maj. Doug Christerson is being deployed overseas for the first time.
It was his agricultural background as much as his military training that was needed for the mission.
Christerson, originally of Anderson, is part of the 145th Agricultural Development Team preparing for work in Afghanistan. But, the unit will not have the standard peacekeeping mission. The goal of Christerson’s unit will be to work with Afghan farmers to help them increase productivity and improve safety.
Agricultural Development Teams, requested directly by the Pentagon, began forming a year ago. Christerson said the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., requested a unit from Oklahoma. The members of the 145th were handpicked for their experience or degrees in agricultural fields.
Christerson, a husband and father of three, has a long background in agriculture, having grown up on a cattle and sheep farm in Anderson. He said that as a high-school student, he was a member of the FFA Organization, just as his two daughters are now. But the 45-year-old Christerson never thought his years on the farm would apply to military service.
“This is such a unique mission that I never thought we would do something like this before,” he said. “That’s why they needed people with the right skills.”
He currently works at the Oklahoma National Guard headquarters in Oklahoma City. He previously spent 15 years as a helicopter pilot.
Eventually, Christerson said, there will be 20 units similar to his. Currently, there are about half that many. When the 145th deploys in October, it will be part of the second rotation of these teams to work in Afghanistan.
“Our goal is to go over and work with two provinces, Paktika and Paktia,” Christerson said. “We’re going to work with them ... and help them get more production out of their crops and more money.”
Christerson discussed the importance of farmers in small villages having the opportunity to export their goods to larger markets. He said one team in Afghanistan has been working to set up co-ops of beekeepers who produce honey and transport it to Kabul, the Afghan capital. Doing that brings the farmers a much larger profit than just selling in their own village, he said.
In another province, Christerson said, a unit from Texas helped build a slaughter and processing plant.
“Before they had that, they would (slaughter) animals right there on the street in the market area,” he said.
Members of the unit also went through classes preparing them for the environment in which they will be working.
“We are getting a good base and thinking outside the box to come up with things that (the farmers) can understand and use,” Christerson said. “They still use oxen to plow with like our grandparents did in the 1920s and 1930s, so we are going back to that type of era.”
Basic training
The 145th Agricultural Development Team recently finished 10 days of training exercises at Oklahoma State University that included learning how to can vegetables.
