OSU Pres. Gee stops in Morrow County

By LeAnne Gompf -

The pur­pose behind The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dent Dr. E. Gor­don Gee’s annual state tour is sim­ple. He loves the state of Ohio and has made a com­mit­ment to visit at least half of the coun­ties dur­ing his “sum­mer tour” to see first hand how the university’s land grant part­ner­ships are working.

“The state is our cam­pus,” Gee said. “We need to be in every cor­ner of the state to con­nect our insti­tu­tion with the hearts and minds of Ohioans. As a land-grant uni­ver­sity, that is our call­ing and responsibility.”

His stop August 1 included the work­ing mar­ket farm of Matt and Corinne Gompf who own and oper­ate Her­itage Har­vest Farms on County 46 near Galion.

Matt Gompf grad­u­ated from OSU in 2001 and is the cur­rent FFA Advi­sor for Mount Gilead High School. He and his fam­ily are rais­ing veg­eta­bles for local mar­kets and build­ing a com­mu­nity sup­ported agri­cul­ture busi­ness. This is the sec­ond year for mar­ket gar­den­ing that grows every­thing from arugula to zuc­chini. They try to grow things that are dif­fer­ent that other mar­ket ven­dors do not have.

Matt com­mented, ”Start­ing out as a young cou­ple and acquir­ing a small farm was the first step in mar­ket­ing fresh and all nat­ural veg­eta­bles. What you see today is the cul­mi­na­tion of an eight-year dream. We want to make a con­nec­tion with our cus­tomers so they know where their food is com­ing from.”

While Her­itage Har­vest is not a cer­ti­fied organic farm they do prac­tice organic farm­ing. They also par­tic­i­pate in the CSA (Com­mu­nity Sup­porter Agri­cul­ture) a pre-payment pro­gram that is a direct rela­tion­ship between the buyer and the grower. You receive a weekly or bi-weekly sup­ply of every­thing in sea­son for a spec­i­fied amount.

“Every­thing we sell is grown on our farm; we do not buy or resell from the pro­duce auc­tion.” com­mented Corinne. “We also are licensed by the Mor­row County Health Depart­ment to sell farm fresh eggs.”

Matt and Corinne were excited that Pres­i­dent Gee chose their farm as part of the sum­mer tour.

“As an alum­nus and as an agri­cul­ture instruc­tor I think it is impor­tant for the pres­i­dent of our land-grant uni­ver­sity to be out in the com­mu­nity show­ing inter­est,” Gompf said.

You can find Her­itage Har­vest Farms at both the Galion (Tues­days) and Mount Ver­non (Sat­ur­days) farm mar­kets through the end of September.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Aug 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.