Minuteman Minute | Agribusiness Development Teams

National Guard members have unique civilian skills and knowledge not found in the active components. Agribusiness Development Teams leveraged those skills to train and educate locals in Afghanistan.

Hi, I’m Will Roulett, director of the National Guard Memorial Museum here in D.C., and this is your Minuteman Minute! This beekeeping suit was worn by Sgt. Robert Moore during his deployment to Afghanistan with the Tennessee National Guard’s Agribusiness Development Team, or ADT. ADTs were developed in 2008 to provide agriculture-related education, training and sustainable projects, which were U.S.-funded but locally operated and maintained. The first ADT came from the Missouri National Guard and arrived in Afghanistan in February 2008. These National Guard teams leveraged the civilian expertise of their members in several specialty areas like agronomy, veterinary medicine, hydrology, marketing, soil science and engineering. Sgt. Moore was an agriculture professor at Tennessee’s Austin Peay State University when he deployed. While in Afghanistan, he educated locals in beekeeping with the goal of improving crop pollination and ultimately the country’s economy. Come see this – and a whole lot more – at the National Guard Memorial Museum. I’m Will Roulett, and that’s been your Minuteman Minute, brought to you by the National Guard Educational Foundation.