Against the Grain: The Farm Aid Podcast

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 solidarity with those fighting oppression. We talk to folk musicians Steve Earle, Rainbow Girls, Tré ...

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 and Wine Alliance. In past podcast episodes, we featured interviews with chefs we met there last year ...

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 annual festival. Year-in and year-out, for forty years, Willie has shown up to work shoulder-to-should...

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 alone could trigger seven billion dollars in insurance payouts, while the Associated Press reports da...

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 there's a range of reasons why farmers - particularly farmers of color and Tribal producers - feel a sense ...

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. Fortunately, Micah's mother, Farm Aid board member Annie Nelson, encountered Tina and Orion Weldon at the farmers...

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 and 19 million acres of land and represented 14% of all American farmers. Today, Black farmers represent 1% of all A...

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 Matthews and Allison Russell, former contract poultry farmer and whistleblower Craig Watts, and or...