GOOD GATHERING

For more than 40 years, Jeff Poppen has been sustainably growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs on his Long Hungry Creek Farm in Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee. Over the last 20 years, the man known to many as The Barefoot Farmer has. In 2011, Poppen launched the first Tennessee Local Food Summit as a way to help fulfill his mission: Bring a community together to teach how local, sustainable agriculture benefits us all. Those benefits are wide-ranging, from the wellness of our bodies, to the health of the environment, to a positive economic impact, to the delicious pleasure of eating seasonally.