Farm Aid's 25th installment: an experience of a lifetime

On Oct. 2, I experienced the musical highlight of my 30-year life.

“Let’s go!” I signaled to my best friend Kris, as we slammed shut the hatch to my Ford Escape early on the morning of Oct. 1.

Rummaging through the cloth travel sack I’d slung onto my lap, I made a final ticket check. And after securing two stubs from the bottom of the bag, I read their inscription to my traveling cohort — “Farm Aid 25: Growing Hope for America. Miller Park, Milwaukee, WI.”

When Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young organized the first Farm Aid concert back in the fall of 1985, Kris and I were five-year-old schoolmates, sporting Stride-Rite sneakers and making mud pies in my sand-paved driveway. We knew nothing of the family farm crisis facing our country.

Now, 25 years later, we’ve shed our child-sized Stride-Rite shoes for size 8 1/2 boots. And that morning, while my Honeysuckle Rose CD played its trademark track, “On the Road Again,” we scooted out of that same sand-paved driveway, northbound for Farm Aid’s silver anniversary concert.

With local farm land falling to residential developments these days, not only transforming Epsom’s landscape but that of other farming communities, the Farm Aid movement has become perhaps my most championed cause.

And yet, despite more than two decades of Farm Aid action, many are unaware of the organization’s work.

While this year’s quarter-century celebration corralled thousands of concertgoers into Milwaukee’s Miller Park stadium, its musicians and iconic red-bandana wearing president, Willie Nelson, are mere frontmen for the non-profit organization.

Farm Aid’s mission is to keep family farmers on their land. And since its inception, Farm Aid has raised more than $37 million to stop farm foreclosures, aid farm families in crisis, and address farm policy. Farm Aid protests factory farms and educates farmers and consumers on issues such as genetically modified food and growth hormones.

After arriving in Milwaukee, Kris and I joined other Farm Aid members for a pre-concert march in the downtown district. Overall-clad farmers and friends waved pro-family farmer banners and “Stop Factory Farm” signs, while a crew of two-legged dairy “cows” kept pace with the pack. The march culminated at Pabst Theater for a Farm Aid-eve concert.

The following day, a cool north wind woke the city of Milwaukee with a 20-degree drop in temperature. And so we Southern gals wrapped ourselves in sweatshirts, sweaters and toboggans for our first frigid Farm Aid concert. Once inside Miller Park’s gates, we combated the cold with hot apple cider, fried cheese curds and barbecue pork chop sandwiches – all sold at food stands throughout the stadium featuring locally grown food. After this noon-time snack, we returned for more local food stand treats — doughnuts, corn dogs, and sugar-powdered funnel cakes. And of course, more apple cider.

By snack stop number three, we were primed for the 7 p.m. Farm Aid board of directors line-up of Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Neil Young and Willie Nelson.

Nelson’s son, Lukas, joined this year’s concert, performing a Jimi Hendrix electric guitar piece with his teeth. And Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler made a surprise appearance, opening Nelson’s set with their previously recorded duet, “Once is Enough.”

“We’ve been so excited about this concert,” Wisconsin organic dairy farmers Brian and Katy Drews said, while standing beside me in a concession stand line. “This is our first overnight trip in 12 years.”

“12 years!” I cried to the young couple, who turned to one another and smiled.

“Somebody has to milk the cows,” they replied.

Willie Nelson says family farmers like the Drews are our nation’s unsung heroes. And at that moment, I realized that despite the day’s musical marvels, the Drews were the true show stoppers at Farm Aid 25.



Read more: The Daily Dispatch - Farm Aid’s 25th installment an experience of a lifetime