How grower-funded vegetable and small fruit research works

Ohio vegetable and small fruit growers pay for their own research through a checkoff that has been running since 1993, and the program that spends that money is small, grower-run and reported in public. This article walks through how the Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development Program was created, who sits on its operating committee, what it funds and how a grower who does not want to pay gets the assessment back. It also shows where the written rules and the annual forms sit, so you can read them yourself before the next crop goes in.

The details cited in this entry were checked on the opgma page.

The story of the program starts with a vote, not with a legislature. Ohio vegetable and small fruit producers passed the program themselves in February 1993, under provisions of section 924 of the Ohio Revised Code. That sequence matters. A checkoff written into law but approved by the people who pay it looks different from a fee handed down from outside, and it shapes how the program talks about itself: the stated aim is to improve the profitability and marketability of vegetable and small fruit crops through research and development. The words are about the trade's own bottom line, not about a general fund.

Why growers fund research instead of waiting for it

Varieties, cultural practices and the small adjustments that make a crop worth growing in Ohio conditions rarely arrive on their own. The program's primary purpose is to provide funding for crop research, so that producers can develop new varieties, new cultural practices and other work that lifts the profitability of vegetable and small fruit crops. Read that list again and notice what is not on it. There is no promise of a building, no promise of a staff, no promise of a marketing campaign. The money goes to research, and the research is meant to come back to the field.

For a grower weighing the assessment against the return, the honest answer is that the program publishes what it supports rather than what it returned. Anyone can look at the supported research and judge for themselves whether the work touches their own rows.

How the program was set up under Ohio law

The enabling language is specific about both the mechanism and the limit. The program was passed by producers in February 1993 in accordance with provisions of section 924 of the Ohio Revised Code. That single sentence carries two facts a grower can use. First, the program is a creature of state law, which is why it has articles and rules and regulations attached to it. Second, it exists because producers voted it in, which is why the same page that describes the program also carries a refund form.

The Ohio Revised Code section is the legal home. What it says in full is not reproduced on the program's page, and this article does not fill that gap. If you want the statutory language, that is where to read it.

Who sits on the OVSFRDP operating committee?

The committee named on the program page has twelve members, listed with a town beside each name. Steve Hirsh of Chillicothe chairs it. Keith Grobe of Elyria is vice chair. The other members are Cameron Way of Waverly, Steve Finney of Wooster, Tony Matthies of Urbana, Wesley Ebenhack of Circleville, Scott Witten of Beverly, Mike Pullins of Urbana, Judit Endler of Huron, Andy Westhoven of Liberty Center, John Sweeting of North Fairfield and Phil Riehm of Tiffin.

Two things stand out in that roster. Urbana appears twice, with Matthies and Pullins. The towns run from the lake plain at Huron across to Liberty Center in the northwest, down through Chillicothe and Circleville and over to Beverly in the southeast. A committee drawn this way is a working map of where Ohio vegetables and small fruit are grown, not a board assembled from one corner of the state.

Where the money comes from and how it goes out

The program's income is an assessment on vegetable and small fruit production, and the page's own paperwork shows the shape of it. There is an OVSFRDP 2025 Assessment Form and an OVSFRDP Refund Form 2025. The presence of a refund form is the part worth pausing on. A grower who pays the assessment can ask for it back, and the program publishes the form to do it. The page does not state the assessment rate, and this article does not guess at it.

On the spending side, the stated purpose is funding for crop research. The program also publishes a document called OVSFRDP Supported Research, which is where the actual list of funded work lives. A grower who wants to know whether the money has touched onions, berries or high tunnel work should start there rather than with a summary.

What does the program publish for growers to read?

Four things sit together on the program's page. The first is the operating committee roster. The second is a set of program articles and rules and regulations. The third is the year's assessment form and refund form. The fourth is the list of supported research. Together they cover the three questions a grower usually asks about any checkoff: who decides, what are the rules, and where did the money go.

That is more transparency than many programs of this size offer, and less than a full annual report. There is no published budget total on the page, no line item breakdown and no multi-year table of awards. What exists is the governing text, the forms and the research list.

Reading the rules before the season, not after

The articles and rules and regulations are the part of the program that governs how a grower interacts with it: when the assessment applies, how it is collected and how the refund works. Because the page places them next to the forms rather than burying them, there is no reason to learn the process by surprise at the point of sale.

For a market gardener selling direct, the refund question is the practical one. If a grower decides the program is not for them in a given year, the refund form is the route, and it is published openly on the same page as everything else. Nothing about the process is hidden behind a membership.

How the program fits Ohio's wider produce trade

A grower-funded research program does not operate in a vacuum. The same trade deals with food safety standards, inspection and the marketing agreement that governs how Ohio produce is represented to buyers, and those systems are documented elsewhere on this site. Research money and compliance money come out of the same farm budget, which is why the size of the assessment and the size of the return both matter.

The Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development Program is the reference page for the checkoff itself. It carries the committee list, the governing articles, the assessment and refund forms and the supported research, and it is where a grower goes to see the program's own record rather than a secondhand description of it.

Are the results of that research published in one place?

The program page publishes the list of supported research. It does not publish a single consolidated report of findings, and this article will not pretend otherwise. What a grower can do is take the funded projects and go looking for the results in the places where Ohio research is normally published. Ohio State University Extension maintains a fact sheet library that covers vegetable production, and that library is one of the obvious places to look.

Its vegetable tag collects information on onion and garlic growing, broccoli cultivars and pest management, tomato growing, seed treatment for bacterial pathogens, and the effects of lime and gypsum on vegetable yields and nutrient availability in muck soil. Muck soil work is directly relevant to the vegetable ground in parts of Ohio, and a fact sheet numbered ANR-0102 sits on that subject. There are also preservation sheets, a piece on maximizing nutrients and phytonutrients in Ohio produce, and a community supported agriculture piece on planning family meals from a share. None of that is the program's own output. It is the surrounding literature a grower would consult after seeing what the program chose to fund.

What a grower can do with this before the next season

Pull up the program's page and read the articles and rules first, because they govern the assessment you will see. Then open the current assessment form and the refund form so you know both routes exist. Then read the supported research list and ask one blunt question: did any of this touch my crop, my soil or my market? If the answer is yes, the checkoff is doing what it was voted in to do. If the answer is no, the refund form is there, and the committee roster is public, which means the people who decide are named and reachable.

The program has been running since February 1993 and has published its committee, its rules and its research list for anyone to read. What it has not published is a plain accounting of what each funded project returned to the farm gate. That gap is the one a grower has to close by asking the committee directly, and the names and towns are all on the page.

• Entity: Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development Program (OVSFRDP), the grower-funded checkoff for Ohio vegetable and small fruit research, passed by producers in February 1993 under section 924 of the Ohio Revised Code.

• What it is: a program that funds crop research to develop new varieties and cultural practices and to improve the profitability and marketability of vegetable and small fruit crops.

• Who runs it: a twelve-member operating committee chaired by Steve Hirsh of Chillicothe, with Keith Grobe of Elyria as vice chair.

• What the page carries: the committee roster, program articles and rules and regulations, the 2025 assessment and refund forms, and a list of supported research.