Farm Aid '06: The Press Conference

We just got back from seeing rock legend Neil Young! Wooo! Not at a concert, though, sadly. No, this morning Mr. Young was down at the Reading Terminal Market, not giving a concert, but announcing one: Farm Aid 2006, to be exact. Neil and his friends Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews will all be performing, along with plenty other bands yet to be announced, at the "Camden shed," as Neil described it (that shed being the Tweeter Center) on September 30th.

It's all in support of Farm Aid, an organization whose purpose is to help local, family farms in their increasingly difficult struggles to survive amongst the rise of large, corporate farms and, as Mr. Young describes it, "less than helpful farm policies." Farm Aid was supposedly born from an off-hand remark made by Bob Dylan, and overheard by Willie Nelson, about how we should support family farms. It's 22 years old this year, which makes it "old enough to drink...chocolate milk," says Carolyn Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid.

The concert is all in support of this organization, and Neil Young (co-founder of Farm Aid, and who himself grew up on a small farm in Canada) didn't forget that; in fact, he spent a lot more time talking about Farm Aid and farming than he did about the concert, explaining the organization's goals of giving everyone the choice they deserve in the food they can eat, and of making sure that all food is labelled so we know where it came from. He and a number of the other speakers encouraged us to buy food locally, and avoid the products of corporate farms and fast food restaurants.

Yes, there were other speakers, too, but a number of people left pretty much as soon as Neil was done, including Neil himself. He didn't even hang around long enough to accept, from the Mayor of Camden herself, the key to the city of Camden ("and my house," she added), or the nice T-shirt presented to him by the fellow from Buy Fresh, Buy Local (who "knows how much Neil likes T-shirts"). Our own Mayor Street was supposed to arrive, as well, but he was late showing up, and, uh, well, we decided to cut out early, too. We hope Mr. Street didn't end up talking to an empty room! But after all, today was really all about Neil...and Farm Aid.

Photo by the author; see more photos of the press conference here