Join us as we kick off the 12th annual Tennessee Local Food Summit at Harding House Brewing Company in Nashville, TN. Enjoy Harding House’s seasonal “Farm Hands” collaborative beer with $1 of every beer going towards educating and connecting Middle Tennessee’s local food community, followed by a discussion about local agriculture and beer.

RSVP HERE.

6:30 PM - Networking

7:30 PM - Farm to Tap: A Conversation on Local Agriculture & Beer

Farm To Tap is a partnership launched by the Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild and the Tennessee Department of Agriculture in 2021 to encourage Tennessee brewers to use Tennessee sourced ingredients in their beer.

Don’t miss a chance to hear from local brewers, malters, yeast wranglers, and farmers about ways they are collaborating to produce Tennessee beers.

Panelists include:

Eric Landis, Tipsy Mule Hop Farm

Will Atkinson, Riverbend Malthouse

Emily Stutzman, Lipscomb Institute of Sustainable Practice

Jeff Mello, Bootleg Biology

Tera Ashley, Caney Fork Farms

Nate Underwood, Harding House Brewing Co

PRESERVING HERITAGE BREEDS, Cynthia Capers of Heniscity Farms

THE CARE FARMING NETWORK AND OLD SCHOOL FARM, David Cloniger and Jayme Mangano of Old School Farms

SEED SAVING, PRESERSERVING GENETIC DIVERSITY, COMMUNITY CULTURE AND ADDING TO YOUR BOTTOM LINE, Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

BEYOND FRESH: CREATING VALUE ADDED PRODUCTS, Megan Bruch Leffew of UT Extension and Patricia Szappanos Hart of TN Department of Agriculture

FARM BILL BASICS, Kevin Hensley of TN Farm Bureau, Olivia Cleveland of National Young Farmers Coalition, and Greer Gill of US Department of Agriculture

Enjoy a gourmet dinner sourced from local farmers and artisans and prepared by the chefs at Cumberland University.

As we continue to envision and actualize our work of transforming the dominant agri-food system into one that is more sustainable, just and regenerative, we are blessed to have ancestral principles and worldviews, especially of indigenous and African American food ways, that can serve as guiding lights along our pathway.

Engaging our local communities in food system transformation processes is by no means an easy challenge, but these guiding lights are essential to bringing about a fundamental change in our thinking that can usher in a paradigm shift at all levels. This sacred work "begins anew every single day".

About Jim Embry:

Jim Embry, who considers himself stardust condenses in human form, was born in Richmond, Kentucky, a grandson of small farmers who were also social activists. This family legacy of activism was passed down to him as a 10-year-old participant in the Civil Rights Movement. Often times called an “eco-activist” or labelled as Black & Green, Jim has worked to connect social justice, food justice and environmental justice within other social movements for the past 50 years. Jim now serves as director of Sustainable Communities Network and cultivates collaborative efforts at the local, national, and international levels with a focus on food systems. He is at home at every level, whether as a five-time USA delegate to Slow Food’s Terra Madre in Italy, a visitor to Cuba to study organic farming, his extensive work in urban agriculture, or planting on his 30-acre farm, Jim maintains that the local food and sustainable agriculture movement is the foundation of a sustainable community. His belief is that we need some big ideas that connect humans in a sacred relationship with the Earth, which will require us to think not just “out of the box” but “out-of- the-barn”.