Against the Grain: The Farm Aid Podcast

In Part I of this special two-part episode of "Against the Grain," we take you back to Chillicothe, Missouri to mark the 40th anniversary of the longest sustained farmer protest in American history.  Starting in March of 1986, farmers and movement allies blockaded the Farmers Home Administration office in Chillicothe for 145 days. Organized in large part by the Missouri Rural Crisis Cent...

In Part 2 of this special two-part episode of "Against the Grain," we take you back to Chillicothe, Missouri to mark the 40th anniversary of the longest sustained farmer protest in American history.  Starting in March of 1986, farmers and movement allies blockaded the Farmers Home Administration office in Chillicothe for 145 days. Organized in large part by the Missouri Rural Crisis Cent...

In this episode, we take you back to Farm Aid 40, where we recorded a panel discussion on the FarmYard Stage. Our guests include farmer Amanda Koehler, activist Lisa Bellanger and Farm Aid artist Madeline Edwards. Although we could not have anticipated the shocking events that occurred in the Twin Cities just a few months after this panel, the administration's earlier disruptions to the farm...

Live from Farm Aid 40: Policymakers talk about the current farm crisis In this episode, we take you back to Farm Aid 40 in Minneapolis, where we spoke to some of the state's leading policymakers about issues facing farmers in the current crisis and about how to get a Farm Bill passed. Our colleague, Hannah Tremblay, Farm Aid's Policy and Advocacy Manager, helps frame our conversation by...

In this final episode of Against the Grain's Artists & Activism series, we take you back to Luck Reunion where we recorded a panel conversation in front of a live audience. This panel had four artists who lived through various climate disasters and have been working to sustain their communities in the aftermath. Listen in as we talk to Farm Aid board artist Margo Price, JJ Tourville, Matt...

In this penultimate episode of Against the Grain's series on Artists and Activism, we get personal - as in "the personal is political."  We talk to Waylon Payne, Allison Russell and Hunter Park (who performs as She Returns from War) about how their personal lives (and, really, all of our personal lives) are political and politicized, even if we're not the ones framing them that...

In this episode of Against the Grain’s series on artists & activism, we talk to Lukas Nelson, Micah Nelson and Allison Russell about their experiences with climate change at home and on the road, and what artists — and all of us — can do about it. For 40 years, Farm Aid has stood with family farmers against corporate power, bad policies and climate disasters. As Farm Aid Founder and President...

In this episode of Against the Grain's series on artists and activism, we zero in on artists catching flak for taking a public stand. We'll hear from Allison Russell, Grace Bowers, Emily Nenni and Dylan LeBlanc. Taylor Swift gets a special mention, and not just for the title of the episode! Farm Aid 40 will be at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, September 20th. Tickets...

In this third episode of Against the Grain's series on Artists and Activism, we talk to artists who come from farming backgrounds and have joined Farm Aid over the years to stand up for family farmers. We hear first from the legendary bluesman, Taj Mahal, who grew up picking tobacco and working on a dairy farm in Massachusetts before studying animal husbandry and agronomy in college. Like Taj...

In this 2nd episode of Against the Grain's series on Artists and Activism, we talk to artists using their storytelling skills and platforms to engage with important social and political issues. You'll hear from Farm Aid board artist Margo Price, Kyshona and Tami Neilson; as well as Steve Duncombe, co-founder of the Center for Artistic Activism. 

In this first episode of Against the Grain's new series, Artists and Activism, we focus on the American folk music tradition. Music journalist Dorian Lynskey provides valuable historical context. He reminds us that music and politics have mixed from the beginning - even before the dawn of recorded sound - but that its folk musicians who popularized activist song and the trend of showing up in...

Against the Grain is the Farm Aid podcast, designed to bring the magic of Farm Aid’s annual festival to listeners year-round. This season, in our series Artists and Activism, we'll talk to more than two dozen artists who are using their art and their voices as vehicles for political engagement and expression on issues that matter to them - and to all of us.

Against the Grain is heading back to the Luck Reunion festival, held on Farm Aid president Willie Nelson's ranch outside of Austin, Texas. The night before the festival, the Luck Family Foundation puts on a PotLuck dinner, bringing chefs from across the country to prepare a regionally-sourced meal that is cooked over an open fire. Proceeds from this dinner benefit Farm Aid and the Texas Food...

In this episode of Against the Grain, join us backstage at Farm Aid 2024 in Saratoga Springs, New York, for an interview with Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones. Farm Aid Board Artist Margo Price invited Representative Jones to join us in Saratoga Springs, and we caught up with him after he and Margo returned from a panel in the HOMEGROWN Village. You may know Representative Jones already...

In this special episode of Against the Grain, we dig into our recently digitized archives to highlight Farm Aid's awe-inspiring founder and president, Willie Nelson. You may remember that we discussed how the first Farm Aid concert came together in the first episode of the podcast, but in this episode, we highlight the range of work Willie has done for the family farm movement outside of the...

In this episode of Against the Grain, we take you to the FarmYard Stage at Farm Aid 2024 in Saratoga Springs, New York. There we made our first recording of an Against the Grain episode in front of a live audience, under the big tent out in Farm Aid's HOMEGROWN Village. Every year at Farm Aid, farmers and artists come together on the FarmYard Stage to talk about pressing farm and food issues....

In the midst of this election season, the shocking devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton seemed to get attention from the candidates only briefly. Media coverage, meanwhile, has tended to focus on the bigger population centers, while the destruction to family farms and the food systems of which they are a part is barely mentioned. And yet, according to USDA estimates, crop losses alon...

On this episode of Against the Grain , we’re bringing you as close as possible to an actual taste of the Farm Aid festival... We're talking about the mind-blowing, family farm food that festivalgoers eat each year at Farm Aid! Our guests are Farm Aid's Associate Director, Glenda Yoder and our Culinary Director, Sonya Dagovitz who, together, established HOMEGROWN Concessions® in 2007. As...

As we heard throughout the first season of Against the Grain , American farmers have historically struggled to get the United States Department of Agriculture to listen to, and address their most pressing concerns. That was certainly true when Farm Aid was founded in the midst of the 1980s farm crisis when farmers were pushed off their land due to loan foreclosures. We've also heard that ther...

Food desert is a term that is used in reference to the absence of good quality, nutritious food in a particular geographic area. But as Chef Bleu Adams of Indigehub says in this episode of Against the Grain, a more appropriate term is "food apartheid" because there's nothing natural about the absence of good food for Native Americans. For Tribal producers and eaters, the legacy of c...

As Farm Aid artist Micah Nelson says, "the soil is the most fundamental source of life." When Micah and his family were riding out the pandemic at their ranch in Luck, Texas, they decided to start growing their own food. But as anyone who lives in Texas Hill Country can tell you, it is rough, rugged terrain, frequently distinguished by densely packed, seemingly inhospitable earth. Fortun...

We just got back from Luck Reunion, a music festival held on Farm Aid president Willie Nelson's ranch every March.  There, we got to interview a lot of artists, farmers, and chefs.  In this special bonus episode, you'll hear from superstar chef Rick Bayless, who traveled to Luck from Chicago.  Rick recounts how, years ago, when he lived in Mexico, he noticed that no matter where he trave...

How do farmers lose land? As Kenya Crumel of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance says, it's not like losing a set of keys: "Nobody's just accidentally losing land." Rather, she explains land has been taken – specifically from Black farmers – through a variety of means over the last century. The decline is staggering! In the 1920s Black farmers held somewhere between 15...

We know some of you may be traveling in the next week or two, so we created this bonus episode as our holiday gift to you. In this episode we’ll highlight one of our Farm Aid board members, the legendary Neil Young. Enjoy and happy holidays from Against the Grain and Farm Aid. Learn more at https://www.farmaid.org/blog/neil-young-truth-to-power/

As Farm Aid board artist Dave Matthews says, “the vast majority of people are good, the vast majority of people are community driven and want to take care of each other,” and understanding that fact can motivate us to change the farm and food systems that prioritize corporate profits over communities. In this second episode of Against the Grain, called “Hoodwinked,” you’ll hear from artists Dave M...