Chattanooga Gains Ground With New ‘Harvested Here’ Label

By Laura Childers


Gaining Ground is led by Jeff Pfitzer.

 This July, Chattanoogans supporting local food are celebrating a new label called Harvested Here – Chattanooga Grown Within 100 Miles. The circular green label is the latest initiative of Gaining Ground, a program started by the Benwood Foundation in 2010. The foundation made an investment in Gaining Ground for a three-year period in order to help increase production and consumption of local foods.

Gaining Ground hopes the label will help citizens distinguish between foods with misleading labels and foods that are actually grown within a 100 mile radius of Chattanooga.

Mark Tant, a farmer from Tant Hill Farms, said he planned to use the label.
“The sales part isn’t as much of an interest as the cause,” he says. “Our heart is for educating the community because there are so many out there today that resell what they have found outside of the state.”

Tant and his wife relocated to Chattanooga from Nashville because they saw Chattanooga as a promising area for farmers. Although he sells produce to restaurants like Alleia and Blacksmith’s Bistro, he also enjoys selling straight to consumers.

“People are really interested in local and organic foods. We realized that people were looking for clean food, but the demand was not being met by the supply. We have the land and the energy, and we like the idea of being able to help,” Tant says.

Tant is not the only farmer working alongside Gaining Ground to help Chattanooga’s foodscape go green. Farmer Dave Waters, who plans to use the label at the Chattanooga Market, feels Chattanooga is experiencing a big learning curve.

“People are so used to getting cheap food at the grocery store that they don’t realize how bad it is for them. It takes education and a serious event to really change, but I think Chattanooga is headed in the right direction,” he says.

Waters grew up in Meigs County but spent much of his life in the military and working as contractor for the Pentagon. But the more he learned about factory farming, the more he felt like he needed to do farming right. At age 50 he moved back to Tennessee in order restore the family farm to sustainable practice.

However, Waters doesn’t see the label as a quick fix. To him, the food movement will have to go through a more organic process in order to catch on.

“This will have to get more momentum and more people involved. I think Chattanooga will see change, but it will take time.”

Spoken like a true farmer.