Ohio produce trade news: what moved this season

A Two Day Gathering That Anchors Ohio's Produce Calendar

Ohio's fresh produce trade does not scatter itself across the year. It picks two days, gathers in one place, and works through the questions that decide the next season. For 2027 those days are January 18 and 19, when the Ohio Produce Network holds its annual event. The Ohio Produce Growers and Marketers Association organises the programme, and if you grow vegetables, tree fruit or berries for sale in Ohio, the two days are built around the decisions you are already making in the off season.

The event carries a new name. Formally known as the OPGMA Congress, the Ohio Produce Network now runs under the shorter title, but the shape of the gathering has not changed: formal educational programmes, a trade show, and time set aside to talk with peers in the same business.

What Is the Ohio Produce Network Actually For?

The organisers describe the two days as the annual gathering for the fresh produce industry in Ohio, markets included. That phrase matters for anyone who sells produce rather than only grows it. The programme is not aimed at a single link in the chain. It is aimed at owners, managers and other employees across the trade, and the sessions are meant to serve the viability of a business as much as the skills of the people working in it.

The educational programmes regularly cover production techniques, disease and pest mitigation, management, marketing and retailing strategies, food safety, and emerging technologies. Those are broad headings, and the organisers present them that way rather than as a fixed syllabus. What the Ohio Produce Network page makes clear is that all of these sit inside one programme, so a grower can move between a session on a crop problem and a session on how to price or sell that crop.

Who Should Set Aside the Two Days?

The event is open to the entire fresh produce industry. Fees are discounted for association members, which means non-members can attend and pay a higher rate rather than being turned away. If you are weighing whether to send an employee, the Ohio Produce Network page states directly that programmes are designed for skill enhancement for owners, managers and other employees, not only for the person whose name is on the farm.

The two days also include a trade show, which is where equipment, inputs and services for the coming season are on display, and ample opportunities to network with peers. That wording is the organisers' own. For a grower who spends most of the year working alone or with a small crew, the value of standing next to another grower with the same disease pressure is not something the page quantifies. The page simply notes the time is there.

Why Hold It in a Family Friendly Place?

The organisers say the event is hosted in a family-friendly destination so that nobody is left at home. That is a small line in the announcement, but it tells you something about who attends and how the two days are planned. A January meeting in Ohio asks people to travel in the middle of winter. Building the event around a place the whole household can use removes one reason a grower or a manager might otherwise skip it.

The page does not name the venue, and it does not publish a room rate or a schedule of sessions. What it does say is that registration details are not yet posted, with a line asking readers to check back soon. If you are planning travel, that is the piece still missing from the announcement.

What Does the Programme Cost, and How Do You Register?

The Ohio Produce Network page does not publish the registration fee or a member rate figure. It states only that fees are discounted for members and that the programmes are affordable and accessible for the entire fresh produce industry. Registration information is marked as coming soon, so the practical steps, the form, and the payment details are not yet available on the page.

Questions about the event can go to the association office by email or by phone at (740) 828-3400. That is the route the organisers give for anything the page leaves open, including the details a grower needs before committing two days in January.

Where Does the Rest of the Trade Calendar Fit?

The Network is one date on a year that also carries regulatory deadlines. The Ohio Department of Agriculture's Division of Plant Health has announced that Ohio pesticide certification and training updates will go into effect January 1, 2027, which lands just before the Network's two days. Anyone whose licence or certificate needs renewing should look at that date on its own, not as an afterthought to the January meeting.

The same division carries a set of ongoing responsibilities that touch produce farms directly. Its staff register pesticides, license pesticide applicators, investigate pesticide use complaints, verify label statements on feed and fertilisers, test germination of packaged seeds, inspect honey bee colonies, and regulate plant nursery stock. It also works with federal agencies to control invasive pest species. None of that replaces the Network's educational sessions, but it is the regulatory floor under them.

For the full programme, session topics, and registration once it opens, the association's own Ohio Produce Network page is where the organisers publish the details as they are confirmed.

Which Pests Are on the Division's Watch List?

The Division of Plant Health names several pests that Ohio growers should know by name. Spotted lanternfly has the potential to impact the viticulture, tree fruit, and nursery industries, which puts it squarely in front of the orchard and small fruit readers of this journal. Box tree moth is an invasive pest that feeds on boxwoods, a concern for nursery stock rather than for vegetables. The division also maintains an Asian longhorn beetle explainer video among its featured items.

If you find a regulated pest, the division runs an online reporter that asks for a photo and a location. That is a concrete step a grower can take the same day, and it feeds the state's picture of where a pest has moved.

What Rules Apply to Application Equipment?

Two regulatory notes sit alongside the pest list. Any Golden Malrin fly bait still in the channels of trade must now bear Restricted-Use Pesticide labelling, which changes who may buy it and how it is handled. Separately, any person applying any pesticide by aircraft, including uncrewed aircraft systems, must hold a Commercial Pesticide Applicator License with category C-1, Aerial Application, on it. The division's wording is broad enough to cover drones, and it does not carve out small operations.

For growers who use aircraft or UAVs for applications, that licence requirement is a personnel question, not an equipment question. The division also offers a way to reserve a seat for a written pesticide exam and to view results, and a renewal route for a dealer licence or a new nursery inspection certificate.

Where Can You Check What Is Registered Near You?

The division points growers to the Ohio FieldWatch registries, described as online mapping and search tools that promote awareness between crop producers, beekeepers, and pesticide applicators. For a farm that keeps hives nearby, or that sprays next to a neighbour's sensitive crop, the registries are a way to make that awareness mutual rather than accidental.

The division frames its own purpose plainly: to hold businesses that produce, process, and distribute plant-based agricultural products to high standards of integrity and safety. It also publishes a treatment map for the current spongy moth control season, which is worth checking if your land falls inside a treatment area.

What Is Still Unsettled for January?

The Ohio Produce Network's page confirms the dates, the city-agnostic promise of a family-friendly destination, the two-day structure, and the mix of education, trade show and peer time. It does not yet publish the venue, the session schedule, or the registration fee. For a grower planning the winter, the practical move is to check the association's page again as January approaches, and to note January 1, 2027 for any pesticide certification or training update that applies to you.

Two days in January, one deadline on New Year's Day, and a pest reporter that takes a photo and a location. Those are the dates a produce farm can put on the wall now.

About the Ohio Produce Network

The Ohio Produce Network is the annual gathering organised by the Ohio Produce Growers and Marketers Association, formerly known as the OPGMA Congress. Its two day programme combines educational sessions, a trade show and networking for Ohio's fresh produce industry, with registration details published on the association's own page.