Replay of Grow Ohio Valley | Black Swan Organics | Danny Swan | Wheeling, OH

This replay is a must listen episode about building soil health that was originally published February 2017.

It is Monday, January 2nd, very early in the morning and I am headed back to school today. I know you are going to love this guest from Black Swan Organics and Grow Ohio Valley in Appalachia!

What a great guest to follow up after Jean-Martin Fortier because Danny is basically doing everything JM Talked about. A great educator and farmer you are going to love this episode as much as I did!

Grow Ohio Valley.org is a nonprofit organization working to improve food justice in Appalachia.Grow Ohio Valley is working to fashion a new economic landscape, one offering increased prosperity, improved health and a better environment.

Things they do is change:

• Vacant city lots become fertile and productive.

• School children who think it is “normal” to grow and eat healthy food.

One thing I am curious about is their “Food Stamp Challenge”

From Black Swan Organics andGrow Ohio Valley here’s Danny Swan.

Tell us a little about yourself.

Sure, I’m living here in Wheeling West, VA. It’s kind of hybrid Appalachia Coal town and mid west Rust Belt town. Has a lot in common with some of it’s larger brothers, like Cleveland and Akron. Had lots of steel mills which have largely gone away and coal mines, that are dwindling, kind of post industrial situation.

I grew up about an hour away, and I came to live in the big city about 10 years ago. At that time kind of found a love for organic gardening trying to share that with other people since in a variety of ways.

Sharing the Love

One of which is Grow Ohio Valley, a company founded with other people here in Wheeling, West VA to bring this local food movement, which is pretty fringe here. You’d call it a rust belt climate….

What does that mean a rust-belt climate?

Wheeling, it’s been a hard up town. It was pretty prosperous up until the 60s and 70s and before. As factory work moved overseas, and as coal ran out or other forms of jobs, there are:

• high unemployment rates
• everything that goes with that
• poverty
• low scores on health performance
• low educational performance
• high drug usage which is a big thing we’re seeing right now.

It’s a kind of mentality where people just want a job … want things to get back to normal as they remember it … so things that relate to long term health, don’t...