photo by: Emma Delk

Oglebay Park Head Grower Nathan Harler, left, shows Grow Ohio Valley Executive Director Jason Koegler Oglebay’s developing hydroponics facilities.

WHEELING — Grow Ohio Valley will utilize a $418,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to address food scarcity in the Appalachian region by creating a food hub network spanning 14 counties and three states.

The planning grant to begin the food hub network, called “Project Everberry,” is part of the ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies. The funding will be dedicated to the initiative’s first year of development, including creating a comprehensive, action-focused plan to develop the multi-state food hub network.

The research phase of the program will involve choosing the location of three growing centers in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The produce grown at these food hubs will be sent to the program’s central food hub, GrowOV’s Wheeling Food Hub.

The food will be processed at the Wheeling Food Hub and distributed to other food hubs in the 14-county network.

“We’ll put all the food together, package it, seal it and put it on the truck at the Wheeling Food Hub to take to respective hubs,” GrowOV Executive Director Jason Koegler said. “These local hubs could be anywhere, from a local grocery store to an elementary school.”

The initiative was titled “Project Everyberry” because strawberries will be the first food the network will distribute. Koegler said the fruit was chosen to launch the initiative because of its “economic viability” and popularity.

“There have been similar ventures that haven’t succeeded that have primarily grown lettuce or tomatoes,” Koegler noted. “Those ventures did not do well in part because the profit margins of lettuce, for example, make it impossible to compete with growers in California. Even though they grow strawberries in California, they’re being sent over here, causing them to lose quality, which gives us an advantage.”

To begin developing the plan, GrowOV and program partners will engage with food system experts, academic partners, state officials, local communities and professional consultants to assess each state’s needs, attributes, barriers and assets in this endeavor.

Once the project’s year-long research and development phase is completed, GrowOV will apply for a $10 million ARC ARISE implementation grant. The funding would be used to implement the project, including creating the growing centers.

One of the primary focuses of the initial planning will be determining where to establish the Pennsylvania and Ohio growing center locations.

Koegler said the Pennsylvania center will be next to a power processing plant, while the Ohio location will be next to a natural gas production facility. Both growing centers will capture wasted heat from the facilities to fuel their greenhouses.

“At these two locations, we’ll be taking another step towards sustainability by capturing wasted heat that otherwise wouldn’t be used for these power plants to fuel the greenhouse,” Koegler said. “That’s eliminating a lot of energy costs required for the growing centers.”

While the location of the Pennsylvania and Ohio plants is still up in the air, the location of the West Virginia growing center has already been decided: Oglebay. “Project Everberry” will use Oglebay’s hydroponics technology at its greenhouses to grow strawberries for the program.

Oglebay is completing updates on its two lower greenhouses to install hydroponics systems. Hydroponics uses a water-based nutrient solution rather than soil to grow plants.

Oglebay and GrowOV will collaborate during the “Project Everyberry” planning phase to determine where an additional hydroponics growing facility can be located in the park to grow strawberries.

“Part of the planning grant will be working with consultants to figure out where the growing center would go and what it would look like,” Oglebay Head Grower Nathan Harlan said. “I’m most excited about growing strawberries because they’re much more engaging than lettuces. There is also potential for us to grow other crops, depending on economic viability.”

Apart from contributing strawberries to the program, Oglebay’s growing center will be an educational resource for “Project Everberry.” The growing center will host tours to inform the public about the project and sustainable agricultural practices.

“Our site will be about engaging the public and teaching them about the program,” Harlan said. “The Pennsylvania and Ohio sites will be primarily production-focused while we will be more public-focused, which will affect the center’s design.”

Koegler believes that growing strawberries using Oglebay’s vertical hydroponics planters will make the program more “economically viable” than other attempts to create food networks.

“To create this model, we’re using a product with a higher profit margin and huge demand,” Koegler said. “Strawberries are a $2 billion annual industry, and everybody loves them. Strawberries aren’t going to solve food insecurity or serve the total diet of a region, but they will help us create the model of a food hub network.”

Other project Everyberry partners include CNX, EnergiAcres, Food Helpers and the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks. Higher education institutions, including Ohio State University, West Virginia University, Penn State University and West Liberty University will also collaborate on research, development and public education for the project.

Koegler said the project aims to create a blueprint for sustainable food models that can be replicated in other food-insecure areas of the United States.

“We want to create a blueprint for sustainable food models that can withstand the pressure of a growing population while mitigating environmental impact and revolutionizing advanced food system capabilities,” Koegler said. “In essence, our project represents a pioneering effort to address the complex challenges facing modern agriculture. Through its multi-state, multi-partner approach, it inspires to catalyze a shift towards a more sustainable and resilient ecosystem.”