New England reaps the Farm Aid show
A first for region where group is based
By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff  |  July 15, 2008

Back in 1985, America's farmers were struggling to survive a financial crisis, and Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp staged a concert to help them. For years Farm Aid, the country's longest-running benefit-concert series, traveled the country, while Farm Aid, the educational and fund-raising organization, hummed year-round in its Ward Street headquarters in Somerville.

This year, the organizers are bringing the show home.

Mellencamp is scheduled to hold a news conference today at the Copley Square Farmers' Market to announce that Farm Aid will be in New England for the first time, on Sept. 20, at the Comcast Center in Mansfield. Nelson, Mellencamp, Young, and fellow Farm Aid board member Dave Matthews will headline the concert, and more performers will be announced in coming weeks.

"In the beginning it was Willie's intention to take it different places where as many farmers as possible could go to the show," said Farm Aid executive director Carolyn Mugar. "Family farming has grown enormously in New England, and they've been asking us for a long time to come here. We're very happy to be shedding a light on New England agriculture and how people can do more to support it."

With a host of issues looming large in the public consciousness, from the skyrocketing costs of food to reducing carbon emissions, this year's event will be a timely reminder of Farm Aid's simple mission: to keep family farmers on their land.

"The only way to solve this is to do it locally," said Nelson. "Let your neighbors grow your food so you don't have to import it. That addresses not only the big expense, but the environmental problem. And at the same time you're getting better food." Since 1985, Farm Aid, which set up shop in the Boston area when Mugar was selected as executive director, has granted more than $418,000 to groups across New England. Among them are the Farm School in Athol and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, both of which train new farmers; City Sprouts in Cambridge, a group that develops gardens and food-awareness curriculum in the city's grade schools; and the Boston Public Market Association, which is working to establish a year-round farmers' market in the city.

"It started off as a humanitarian effort, but we quickly grew into a big tent in agriculture," said Mugar, who oversees grants to an extensive resource and support network for family farmers, groups that promote fair farm policies (ensuring that family farming is economically viable while providing food at affordable prices), and programs that promote closer connections between farmers and consumers. "We're really creating an alternative to the industrial chemical food system."

Concertgoers will get a taste of that alternative when Farm Aid takes over the Comcast Center's concession stands to serve 100 percent local, organic, and family-farm food. (The concert is being sponsored by Whole Foods Market and Horizon Organic, which together will contribute a minimum of $350,000, with additional funds coming from in-store fund-raising and donations.)

New England farmers will gather in the Homegrown Village, a hands-on destination at the concert site where interactive exhibits will showcase aspects of farm life. Last year's Farm Aid featured an exhibit called Food Miles, a mock market where people loaded up baskets with fruit and vegetables, took them to a register, and were told how many miles the food had traveled, and how much energy was expended getting it from farm to shopping cart.

"We're encouraging people to be curious about their food," said Farm Aid associate director Glenda Yoder.

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture is a South Deerfield-based nonprofit organization that has been the recipient of Farm Aid grants since 1998. Initially, Farm Aid helped fund an 800 telephone number to deliver social services for farmers in crisis; more recently Farm Aid supported the organization's nine-year-old Local Hero campaign, reportedly the nation's longest-running "buy local" program for farm products.

"Farm Aid is vital in the sense that they're here every year," said Philip Korman, the group's executive director. "The challenge with foundations is this year they're excited and next year they're excited about something else. Farm Aid supports the mission year to year."

So does Dave Matthews, who first performed at Farm Aid in 1994 and was invited to join the board in 2001. Matthews owns the Best of What's Around farm, near Scottsville, Va., where he grows organic vegetables, flowers, and herbs through a community-supported agriculture program.

"The corporate philosophy still dominates, but people are realizing that it's not healthy and that we need to change the way we view ourselves in connection to the planet," Matthews said

Nelson reflects on 23 years of Farm Aid with a mixture of pride in the organization's good work and frustration that the issue is ongoing.

He believed that the first Farm Aid concert, thrown together in six weeks in response to a tidal wave of farm foreclosures, would be the last.

"I was just naive enough to think that once the people came to hear the plight of the family farmer and how it affects them things would change," Nelson said. "I was naive enough to think that things in Washington could change. But here we are."

Tickets for Farm Aid go on sale July 28 at 10 a.m. at ticketmaster.com and 617-931-2000.

They're playing in your backyard, Nellie!

Goin'?

SunshineSuperman wrote on Jul 15^th, 2008 at 6:38pm:


Ever heard of the Berkshires?

SunshineSuperman wrote on Jul 15^th, 2008 at 6:47pm:


Sure.
They grew thieving fundamentalists...