Yep, you heard right. Farm Aid is rolling into Kansas this summer -- August 13 to be exact. Farm Aid was started in 1985 and historically has had the goal of raising money for American's family farmers and ranchers.
The annual event's founder, and main attraction, is the ever popular cannabis smoking, long hair sporting Willie Nelson. Nelson, along with his pals (and fellow board of directors members) John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Neil Young, will be raising money for family farmers at the new Livestrong Sporting Park in KCK.
I love that these high profile celebrities are continuing to embrace the farming way of life and are on board to help preserve agriculture. I found this statement on their website:
Independent family farmers are the pillars of their communities. They grow high quality food, are active in civic life, and are essential to the economic vitality of both their hometowns and the nation. As stewards of the land, family farmers work to protect the soil, air, water, and biodiversity in addition to producing high-quality, healthy food for everyone.
Below, you can hear Dave Matthews give testament to the importance of family farmers and healthy food from healthy land.
Favorite part: if you want healthy food, you go to the people who make healthy food from healthy land.
Tickets have already gone on sale and can be purchased at TicketMaster. For more information on Farm Aid, check out their website.
Will you be going to Farm Aid 2011? Do you think Nelson, Mellencamp, Young and Matthews are suitable spokespeople for agriculture?
Until next time
~ Buzzard ~
Great topic and post, Brandi. I sometimes have mixed feelings about FarmAid. It is clear that its leadership is largely supportive of local family farmers. I love that. It's great. They're also big fans of organic. Also great. But I have read articles and heard interviews in the past where they bash on conventional agriculture and further permeate myths about "factory farms" and big, bad corporate ag. That isn’t so great. But I did enjoy their website article on food elitism – a very practical response to that issue.
ReplyDeleteI love what FarmAid is doing and I think its heart is in the right place. If I lived in KC, I would probably go and love it (I’m a big Willie fan – I met him at CFD one year and about died). I just wish they could do it without chiding the rest of the industry.
Laurabelle
ReplyDeleteI had heard the same about Farm Aid. My point, however, was merely that they support sustainable agriculture and family farming. I too, support sustainable agriculture and family farming. Like you said, their heart is in the right place but they seem to have wandered off track.
I absolutely agree that it's an organization worth supporting. They've re-designed and completely overhauled their website content since the last time I visited it (probably a year or so ago), and it’s much better now. It used to prominently feature a lot of Food, Inc.-like propaganda, but the new sight has toned that down a lot. Maybe they realized that it doesn’t do any good to promote a great cause if it’s done in a negative manner.
ReplyDeleteAll the same, great post. You inspired my Grooveshark to a Willie Nelson-filled day, and that makes me very happy :).
Good luck in your 10K this weekend!
Thanks for the good luck and thanks for reading! I too, am glad they have revamped their marketing efforts.
ReplyDelete