HOMEGROWN Chili

Farm Aid's Going to the Super Bowl!

"Farm Aid knows family farmers. Our mission is to make sure you do, too. Farm Aid is introducing football fans to family farmers by serving HOMEGROWN Chili at the Super Bowl. It's good food from family farms, including some from right here in Indiana." — Farm Aid co-founder John Mellencamp.

Learn about the farmers that make our HOMEGROWN Chili and get the recipe to keep the fans in your home happy!

Occupy the Food System

Ask Farm Aid

Bill D. asks:

I saw Willie's "Occupy the Food System" op-ed on The Huffington Post recently. It really got me thinking, and I'd love to hear more about how the occupy movement relates to farmers?

Ask Farm Aid has the answer!

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Just Label It!
Just Label It!

We have a right to know what's in our food — tell the FDA that we need mandatory labeling of all GE foods.

Take Action

Farm Aid Board Artists

Willie, Neil, John, and Dave want fair markets for farmers and ranchers. Do you?

Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews come together every year to perform on the same stage for family farmers. Now they've come together to demand fair markets for farmers and ranchers.

You can join them by adding your name to take action in support of family farmers.

Take Action

Farmer Resource Network

The Farmer Resource Network

Connects family farmers with hundreds of organizations that have ideas for diversifying and strenghtening their farms.

Go to shop

Ask Farm Aid

Ask farm aid

Occupy for Family Farmers

How does the Occupy Movement relate to family farmers? Ask Farm Aid has the answer.

Farmer Hero

Farmer hero

Jim Gerritsen

This month we spoke with an organic Maine farmer who traveled to New York City to attend The Farmers March as part of Occupy Wall Street. Read Jim's story.

For Farmers

1-800-FARM-AID

email: farmhelp@farmaid.org
and visit Farm Aid's
Farmer Resource Network.

If you are a farmer looking for advice, assistance, or just some resources for your farm, Farm Aid is here to help.

Farm aid 2011 concert gear
 

Dave Matthews

Dave Matthews

http://www.davematthewsband.com/

Dave Matthews has chronicled his life's travels so often that when asked, he can rattle off the details without pause. It goes like this:

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1967. Moves two years later with his family to Westchester County, NY, where his dad, a physicist, goes to work for IBM. Then, in the early `70s, to Cambridge, England, before returning to New York — where his dad died in 1977. The family moved back to South Africa in 1980, where Matthews went to a few different schools and "got more wise about the evils of government, there and in general." O.K.; pause for a breath.

The key move for Dave Matthews Band fans, of course, was when he relocated in 1986 to Charlottesville, VA, where his parents had lived before he was born. Though he also logged time back in South Africa and in Amsterdam, it was in Charlottesville where Matthews — who took piano lessons as a child before picking up the guitar at age nine — became part of the local music community and hatched the idea for his own band. "I didn't really have a vision, or a plan," says Matthews, acknowledging that some of his musical sensibility came from spending time in so many different places as a child. "I'm sure it gave me a little bit of an openness. The most diverse music in the world is in America, 'cause there's so many different cultures here, but what tends to be pushed to the top is often a narrow view of what there really is. So maybe (his travels) just gave me a wider pool of listening."

Matthews says his principal goal with the band was to surround himself with the best players possible. To this day he remains "amazed" that he was able to recruit and retain the four musicians he rather modestly refers to as his superiors. "I was just looking for people that I liked," explains Matthews, who feels he's "gotten a bit better" over the years. "Could I play with them was more of the question, I think. We just ended up fitting together. The band wasn't something that I was looking for; it was very much I loved the people I asked to play with me. There was a connection at the beginning, and I think what we've been about is not some grand scheme but more the spirit of everyone, which is why we ended up with this band and why it sounds like it does."

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