The valley roots food hub (vrfh) is a program of the SAN luis valley local foods coalition (LFC), whose mission is to foster an equitable local food system that restores the health of the people,…

The valley roots food hub (vrfh) is a program of the SAN luis valley local foods coalition (LFC), whose mission is to foster an equitable local food system that restores the health of the people, community, economy, and ecosystem. Vrfh is a wholesale aggregator and distributor of local produce and value-added products from area farmers to regional restaurants, institutions, and customers across the SAN luis valley (SLV) and into colorado's front range and western slope. Vrfh promotes economic development around a local food system and serves family farms by filling a GAP between local, small-scale farmers and local plates. Vrfh is located within a unique campus of agricultural businesses in mosca, colorado, just north of the SAN luis valley's commercial hub of alamosa. Aside from vrfh's aggregation and distribution warehouse, the campus also contains a potato and quinoa packaging facility, and will soon be home to a value-added potato distillery and biodiesel plant. All of these enterprises provide an abundance of organic food waste material. Vrfh currently uses composting to process some of this material, but the need for renewable organic waste management is expanding, and the opportunity to demonstrate new technologies in the SLV is immense. With assistance from an epaanaerobic digestion cooperative agreement, vrfh will install a high-efficiency anaerobic digestion system to process food and organic waste at its mosca campus. This project will increase the use of anaerobic digestion (ad) to manage organic materials while also producing fuel to be recycled back into the processing and cooking operations at the mosca campus. Activities:the proposed project will demonstrate the technological feasibility and cost-effectiveness of such a project in the rural, high-alpine SLV region of colorado. Innovative methods and approaches will be incorporated, including solar heating, cast concrete, hydraulic-pressure biogas gasholders, and algae scrubbers (further described in question 9). This project will result in the creation of a renewable energy park at the mosca campus, where the outputs of one micro-industry are the inputs for another. Plans for the campus also include a wood chip gasification system for processing heat that generates biochar. When combined with digestate, biochar has shown promise to build up depleted soils for better water retention and nutrient bioavailability. The park will be a demonstration and educational space for learning and sharing the benefits of ad and other forms of renewable energy possible in the SLV and around the country. Subrecipient:no subawards are included in this assistance agreement.outcomes:results will be shared among the agricultural community, businesses, researchers, educators, and other partners across the region and beyond. Our team will create reports along the way of successes, milestones, and lessons learned. Tours will be offered to educators, students, government agencies, and other interested parties. Finally, vrfh general manager, nicholas chambers, is an adjunct instructor at santa FE community college's (sfcc) biofuels lab and will incorporate this project's planning, engineering, construction, and operation into the curriculum. In the future, classes, retreats, and events will be held at the site by sfcc and other organizations to continue the learning and sharing of ideas. This system will be innovative and unique for the SLV and will provide numerous opportunities for demonstration, education, and expansion into other parts of the region. Agriculture is the main economic driver in the SLV, so there are exciting opportunities to expand anaerobic digestion as a method for processing organic material by-products at other businesses and operations. This project aims to create new ad capacity for the region and identify strategies to manage organic materials.