MANSFIELD, Ohio – Since its inception, the Richland County Gro-Op, a cooperative of urban and rural Richland County farmers that grow and sell produce year-round, has met and exceeded expectations.

“This was a pilot effort and from where I sit, it’s been wildly successful,” Dr. Kent Curtis said. “The cooperative is growing, and that was the idea, to seed an entire urban agriculture production local food system that would be economically sustainable, so it wouldn’t have to continue to go back and ask for foundation support.”

Curtis, professor of environmental history at The Ohio State University - Mansfield, helped launch the effort in partnership with the North End Community Improvement Collaborative in Mansfield.

“I walked through the door and said, here’s this idea I have and they nearly fell out of their chairs and they were like, oh my God, this is what we’ve been talking about,” Curtis said upon his initial meeting with NECIC.

The two joined forces to develop an infrastructure that would provide fresh local food, economic development, and revitalize a neighborhood. Three years after the foundation grant that helped launch the initiative ended in 2021, the Richland Gro-Op includes 15 members, multiple farms, and is self-sustaining.

Initiatives driven by personalities often fail when key participants move on. This concerned Curtis as well.

“I did a big project in Florida called the Edible Peace Patch Project – schoolyard gardening in low-income neighborhoods – almost entirely on my own and nearly burned myself out,” Curtis said. “When it came to Mansfield, my goal was not to build something I was going to be in charge of. My goal was to catalyze something that would motivate the local ambitions that already existed.”

Incubating a community of practice and developing a sustainable system is what both Curtis and NECIC had in mind. “We were lucky that we were both here with the kind of vision, ambition, connections, and the willingness to take risks,” Curtis said.

Before Curtis arrived in Mansfield, NECIC decided local food was something they wanted to work on. So, they launched the North End Local Food Initiative, one aspect of which supports over 25 community gardens throughout Richland County.

NECIC’s economic development study included a local food initiative. The plan recommended a farmers market in what was designated a food desert in the North End community. “The farmers market started as a way for North End residents to have access to fresh healthy foods,” said Suzy Beeson, first-year manager of the North End Farmers Market.

The market sits on the urban farm site and is open Thursdays from early June through late August. Over the past nine years, attendees in and outside the North End community have developed a loyal following.

“We’re the only farmers market in Mansfield right now and one of the very few markets that will accept multiple forms of payment,” Beeson said. “We accept WIC coupons, SNAP, EBT benefits, Senior SNAP, and Produce Perks, an EBT/SNAP match program.”

The multiple payment system benefits vendors as well. “A lot of markets don’t want to mess with that because it is complicated, Beeson said. “But it’s nice for the vendors. We handle that on the back end for them so our vendors don’t have to give it much thought they can accept multiple forms of payment.”

Curtis and NECIC founder and CEO Deanna West-Torrence shared their experiences and ideas before deciding to pour resources into the urban farm initiative. “Deanna and I spent months just kind of getting to know each other before we put in for a $2 million grant,” Curtis said. “The rest, as they say, is history. It was a great partnership.”

Walter Bonham, a founding member of the Richland Gro-Op, also developed the cooperative’s business plan which sells about 80 percent of its produce to redistributors who buy in bulk, with the remainder going to retail stores, restaurants, and farmers markets.

Before he began farming, Bonham and others went through an extended training season, spanning a year and a half, with the NECIC Urban Farm, OSU-M, and Central State.

“There was a fair amount of training that went on,” Bonham said. “They had us growing crops and harvesting together before we started individually.”

Persevering through COVID, developing marketing strategies, and training farmers would not have been possible without the assistance of the North End community and the support system.

“A big thing that’s made it successful is our community and our network,” Bonham said. “We’ve been able to rely on a lot of moving parts and open hands that have helped us along the way.”

Curtis continues to spread the idea of self-sustaining local food systems. through a grant from the university to work with all the extension educators and those who developed the Mansfield program. “We’re at the point now where Mansfield is our working model of what a local food system like this can look like,” he said.

Currently, Curtis is working with Marion City Schools, the United Way of Toledo, and the Hall Hunger Initiative in Miami Valley to develop local food systems in those communities facing economic struggles.

“This kind of a system fits because local dollars get recirculated and that’s what was lost when all those jobs went out,” Curtis said. “Walmart comes in and Target comes in, they’re convenient, but they’re leaving 10 cents behind. But a business like Richland Gro-Op is leaving 75 cents behind – that’s the stuff of vibrant local economies.”