Return to the knowledge.
Build toward the future.
A Central Appalachian agricultural enterprise rooted in land, heritage and the possibility of doing things differently.
It begins with home.
T&T Organics is owned and operated by Jason Tartt, Sr., a farmer and entrepreneur from McDowell County, West Virginia. He grew up in a community where gardens, livestock and practical knowledge were part of everyday life. That experience remains central to the work.
His philosophy fits in four words: RETURN AND GET IT. Recover what our elders knew, and build the future with it.
Our approach asks what belongs in this landscape, what people already know and what can be built when experience is connected to new tools, research and markets.
Value in what others overlooked.
Jason finds value in places others have written off or forgotten — and Central Appalachia is first among them. Where some see only decline, he sees land, knowledge and people with something to offer.
The Akan principle of Sankofa — often shown as a bird reaching back for an egg — teaches that the past holds what we need to move forward. It is the root of RETURN AND GET IT.
Garvey’s call for self-reliance, ownership and pride in heritage shapes how T&T approaches land and enterprise: build institutions, keep value in the community.
Knowledge recovered is meant to be shared. Jason’s goal is to spread it — to farmers, families, neighbors and especially our youth — so they can build a future here at home.
Founder · U.S. Army Veteran
Jason Tartt, Sr.
Jason Tartt, Sr. is a farmer, entrepreneur and community builder from McDowell County, West Virginia, and the owner of T&T Organics. He grew up in a place where gardens, livestock and practical know-how were part of everyday life. That upbringing still shapes everything he does.
After years away — including service in the U.S. Army and a career in government contracting — Jason came home. He brought an operator’s mindset with him: an idea needs people, resources, a workable process and a path to customers.
Today he farms the land of Berwind, a historic Black coal camp where his father grew up and where his great-grandfather once grew vegetables on the hillsides. Jason has turned that land into a 300-acre demonstration farm and economic development hub, raising peaches, pears, plums, apples and cherries, along with mountain-range poultry, goat meat, eggs, honey and maple syrup — all raised naturally.
Jason is also co-founder of Economic Development Greater East (EDGE), a nonprofit focused on building the coalfields’ economy beyond coal. Together, T&T and EDGE run the DRT — a Demonstration, Research and Training environment where dozens of people have trained since 2020, many of them now launching their own agricultural businesses.
T&T Organics is a for-profit enterprise; EDGE is a separate nonprofit collaborator.
On the record.
PBS’s The Food Principle: Roots Rising documents Jason’s return home after years away and his focus on farming, community and the local economy.
Invest Appalachia’s November 2022 update named Jason among its Community Advisory Council members.
Invest Appalachia’s October 2025 spotlight featured his community leadership and his selection as a West Virginia Conservation Farm of the Year finalist.
See Media & Recognition for more coverage.
Black agricultural legacy. Appalachian possibility.
As a Black-owned enterprise, T&T connects its contemporary work to a wider history of agricultural knowledge, institution-building and entrepreneurship. The Big Six makes that connection explicit through six distinct historical figures and six principles for the work ahead.
Our aim is not simply to produce more. It is to help build the conditions for people to grow, learn, create businesses and participate in an agricultural economy rooted in their own communities.