2026 Mid-Year Reflection: What We’re Building Together
Now more than halfway through 2026, we’re taking a moment to look back.
We don't often stop to take stock. This is the kind of work where progress can be easy to miss while you're in it—one farmer gathering, one webinar, one new connection, one storm response at a time.
But eight months into the first year of our three-year strategic plan, those moments are adding up.
We’re building stronger markets for Tennessee farmers. Creating more opportunities to learn and connect. Helping farmers recover when the unexpected happens. Bringing more people into the local food system. And laying the groundwork for what comes next.
None of it happens alone.
It happens because farmers show up and tell us what they need. Partners bring their expertise and open doors. Funders invest in ideas and give them room to grow. And supporters like you believe that a stronger local food system is worth building.
On August 29, we’ll bring this community together at Local Table: TN Local Food’s Summer Supper—and we hope you’ll join us. Every ticket helps sustain the work you’re about to read about and carry it forward into the second half of the year and beyond. Join us at the Local Table!
Keep reading to see what your support has made possible so far in 2026—and what we’re building together next!
With Gratitude,
Allie Beukema
Director of Programs & Development
We put our plan to work.
January marked the beginning of Year One of TN Local Food's 2026–2028 Strategic Plan, developed with support from The Frist Foundation and shaped by conversations with farmers, partners, funders, and food-system leaders across Tennessee.
Those conversations helped deepen the core priorities that guide our work: Connect, Support, Educate.
And one message came through again and again: Tennessee farmers need more than educational opportunities. They need reliable markets, stronger connections, practical resources, and organizations willing to listen and respond.
So that's what we're building.
We also grew our capacity to do this work. Kaitlyn White joined TN Local Food as our Marketing & Communications Coordinator, and our Executive Director, Natalie Ashker Seevers, transitioned to full-time leadership. We also welcomed Tamara Hart to our Board of Directors, bringing extensive legal expertise and deep agricultural roots in East Tennessee.
So far this year, our community has made an extraordinary investment in what’s ahead.
That support is helping us put the goals of our strategic plan into action.
To every person and organization that has invested in this work: thank you.
Support: We showed up for farmers.
When Winter Storm Fern hit, you helped us respond.
In February, Winter Storm Fern knocked out power across Middle Tennessee for days. For farms, that meant generators running around the clock to keep transplants and grow rooms warm, products spoiling without refrigeration, and lost restaurant and market sales just as spring planting was beginning.
Nine farms turned to the TN Local Food Farmer Relief Fund for help. With the Fund facing the possibility of being nearly depleted, Farm Aid stepped in with a $5,000 contribution that helped us fund every eligible applicant.
Since 2023, the Farmer Relief Fund has distributed more than $27,000 to 37 Tennessee farms facing unexpected emergencies. That work has been sustained in large part by the remarkable ongoing generosity of Farmers Friend, whose monthly support helps ensure we can say "yes" when a farmer needs us.
We're deeply grateful. But this year's response also underscored something important: if Tennessee farmers are going to be able to count on this resource when disaster strikes, the Fund needs a broader community standing behind it.
We brought growers together.
At our annual Middle Tennessee Growers Meeting in February, approximately 30 growers gathered around the table to learn, share resources, and make meaningful connections.
At Tennessee Ag Day on the Hill, we joined farmers and agricultural advocates at the Capitol to help elevate the importance of local food and farming in Tennessee.
And last month, farmers and food-system partners filled the pavilion at Bells Bend Farm for our Nashville Food Hub Farmer Listening Session. Interest was so strong that we had to close registration when we ran out of space.
Our job that evening was mostly to listen.
Growers shared what they need from new market opportunities—from better logistics and stronger institutional relationships to greater certainty about what buyers need before they plant. They also raised important questions about pricing, ownership, and governance.
Those aren't questions to answer for farmers. They're questions to answer with them.
Conducted in partnership with Think Regeneration and with support from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, the session is helping ensure farmer voices remain at the center as new market opportunities take shape.
Each gathering looked a little different, but the goal was the same: to give farmers useful information, stronger connections, and a greater voice in the systems that affect their businesses.
Connect: We started building stronger pathways to market.
One of the clearest priorities we've heard from farmers is also one of the most complicated: finding reliable markets for what they grow.
This year, we've begun laying the groundwork for a Value Chain Coordination program designed to help bridge that gap—connecting Tennessee farmers with buyers and institutions while helping both sides navigate the challenges that can make local purchasing difficult.
We've been learning from organizations already doing this work successfully, building relationships with institutional buyers and food-system partners, and listening closely to farmers about what would actually make new market opportunities useful to them.
A developing partnership with Vanderbilt Dining is helping us explore institutional purchasing in practice, while our work with partners around the emerging Nashville Food Hub is helping us think through how coordination, aggregation, and distribution can work together.
What we heard from farmers reinforced the need: growers aren't simply asking for more places to sell. They're asking for greater certainty, stronger buyer relationships, better coordination between production and demand, and markets they can plan around.
That's where TN Local Food can play an important role: helping farmers, buyers, and partners find one another, understand one another's needs, and build relationships that last.
We're still designing the program—and building the funding needed to make it possible. This spring, we submitted a USDA Regional Food System Partnerships grant application to support this work while continuing to seek additional partners and investment.
The goal is simple: more Tennessee-grown food reaching Tennessee tables and stronger, more reliable markets for the farmers who grow it.
We launched the Tennessee Farmers Market Trail.
This summer, in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Farmers Markets, we invited Tennesseans to explore farmers markets, meet the people behind their food, and discover just how much is being grown and made close to home.
From its May 16 launch, the Tennessee Farmers Market Trail welcomed 348 participants, generating 407 check-ins from visitors representing 69 ZIP codes across Tennessee and beyond. Along the way, participants explored new markets, connected with local farmers and vendors, and discovered more of what Tennessee’s farmers’ market communities have to offer.
Most importantly, every visit represented someone walking into a farmers’ market, connecting with the people behind their food, and choosing to spend their dollars with local farmers and small businesses.
Thank you to our five participating markets—and the managers, staff, volunteers, and vendors who made the Trail possible:
And thank you to every person who scanned a QR code, tried a new market, struck up a conversation with a farmer, and carried something Tennessee-grown or Tennessee-made home.
Educate: We kept learning together.
Education remains at the heart of TN Local Food's mission—not simply sharing information, but creating opportunities for farmers and communities to learn from people doing the work.
At Wholesale vs. Retail: How to Harvest, Pack, and Deliver Your Products, farmers gathered at Hydro House Farms to explore how to prepare and deliver products for wholesale and retail markets, including key differences between the two. Participants also heard directly from an experienced Nashville chef about what buyers look for and how to maintain crop quality when selling to restaurants.
At our Grower-Chef Dinner & Mixer with LUNCH Sewanee, hosted in partnership with Southeast TN Young Farmers, farmers and chefs connected over a shared meal and learned how Mallory and Trapp build direct relationships with local growers to source ingredients for their farm-to-table restaurant and catering business.
Through our Sustainable Animal Husbandry & Fiber Farming series with Bugtussle Farm, participants explored livestock management and fiber production through the lens of Eric and Cher’s regenerative, biodynamic, diversified family farm. Listen to the series podcast to learn from Eric and Cher and their decades of hands-on experience.
During our farm tour at Healthy Flavors Tennessee, organized with Southeast TN Young Farmers, participants explored Dan and Nadia Spatz’s greenhouse growing systems and learned from more than a decade of their experience feeding their community. The day also created space for farmers to compare notes, ask questions, share what’s working, and learn from one another.
And our Agriculture, Local Food & Public Health five-part webinar series, developed with the TN Department of Health & UT Institute of Agriculture, is bringing together experts and community members to explore the connections between the food we grow, the communities we build, and our health.
The conversation continues on August 19 with “Climate Resiliency and Agricultural Impact.”
And there's much more learning ahead.
This December, we'll bring farmers, ranchers, food-system professionals, educators, and advocates from across Tennessee and the Southeast together for the 16th Annual Tennessee Local Food Summit: Reimagining Our Food Systems, December 4–6 at Tennessee State University in Nashville.
With 30+ workshops, panels, demonstrations, and opportunities to connect, the Summit will explore what it takes to build stronger farms, healthier communities, and more resilient local and regional food systems.
Registration is now open—and we hope you'll join us.
Eight months in. A lot more to build.
When we adopted our three-year strategic plan, we knew the food system we want won't be built through a single program, grant, event, or organization. It will be built by connecting the pieces—creating stronger relationships between farmers and buyers, expanding opportunities for farmers to learn from one another, connecting more people with local markets, and bringing together partners and funders willing to invest in a stronger food system.
That's the work your support makes possible.
And on August 29, we invite you to join us at the table.
Join us at Local Table: TN Local Food's Summer Supper
August 29, 2026 | Hachland Hill Retreat
Local Table is more than our summer fundraiser. It's a celebration of the people behind Tennessee's food—and an opportunity to invest directly in the work you've just read about.
Join us at beautiful Hachland Hill for a farm-to-table dinner from Chef Carter Hach featuring Tennessee-grown food, live music, drinks, and a live and silent auction.
Come for a beautiful summer evening.
Come to meet the farmers behind the food.
And come knowing that your ticket helps TN Local Food continue building stronger farms, healthier land, connected communities, and a food system where more of what Tennesseans eat can be grown right here at home.