My name is Michael Stewart Foley and I’m Farm Aid’s Cultural Impact Director. In my previous career as an academic historian, I wrote a lot about social movements – including the 1980s family farm movement – and the power of music to bring people together to effect meaningful social and cultural change. For our family farmers, no organization has done that better than Farm Aid.
When folks attend or watch a Farm Aid festival, they celebrate family farmers through iconic musical performances and hear directly from farmers about their connection to the food we eat and the land they nurture to grow it. In moving the festival around the country, people who attend can learn from exhibitors in the HOMEGROWN Village and taste the delicious family farm food from our HOMEGROWN Concessions®. By sharing these stories and communing together over music and food – two of our most important cultural touchstones – Farm Aid inspires people to envision a food system that shifts away from corporate concentration and mass production; to one in which family farmers can thrive.
For the same reason, I’m excited to announce Farm Aid’s support and participation in the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s plans for a major farmer mobilization in Washington, D.C., the week of March 6, 2023, to demand climate solutions in the next Farm Bill. More than anyone, farmers are stewards of the land, and the use of sustainable, regenerative agricultural practices have the potential to reverse climate change.
We hope that you’ll stand with Farm Aid just as we continue to stand for family farmers. Together, we’re building a movement that enables them – and our soil and water – to thrive.
