Farm Aid: Willie Nelson Highlights Current Crisis Facing Family Farmers

When Willie Nelson and friends take the Farm Aid festival stage in Virginia Beach, Va. Saturday (Sept. 26), they’ll be singing out at a time when the nation’s family farmers are facing unprecedented challenges.

Rising farm bankruptcies, cuts at federal farm agencies, skyrocketing fuel and fertilizer costs, the intimidation of their immigrant labor force, a growing demand for land by data centers — all have combined in a storm the recalls the farm crisis four decades ago, which led Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp to first launch Farm Aid to support family farmers.

“You’re looking at a real crisis happening right now. the same way it was in the early ’80s when I was a child,” says Heath Cutrell, 51, a fourth-generation farmer, based in Chesapeake, Va., who grows corn, soybean and wheat on some 7,000 acres.

Farm Aid remains music’s longest-running concert for a cause. Forty-one years after the first Farm Aid took place in 1985, the festival and its artist leaders still have the backs of those farmers, with Dave Matthews, Margo Price and Nathaniel Rateliff now joining Nelson, Young and Mellencamp on the organization’s board. Since that first Farm Aid, the organization has raised $90 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture.

At the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater, Farm Aid’s guiding artists— with Young joined by his band the Chrome Hearts, and Matthews performing with longtime accompanist Tim Reynolds—will lead a lineup including Turnpike Troubadours, Lukas Nelson, Ty Myers, Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs, Jesse Welles, Sierra Ferrell, Mon Rovîa, I’m With Her, Amythyst Kiah, Lily Meola and Chris Pierce. In an acknowledgment of the history of all American farm land, the Wisdom Indian Dancers will open the show.

“I’m very grateful for those guys walking that walk and talking that talk for and standing there and fighting this battle,” says Cutrell.

The Farm Aid festival will live stream at farmaid.org and via Nugs beginning with the press event at 11:30 ET. SiriusXM will carry the full show beginning at noon on Willie’s Roadhouse (channel 61) and Dave Matthews Band Radio (channel 30) and via SiriusXM radio and on the SXM app. For a second year, CNN will broadcast from the festival from 7 p.m. ET.

More than 40 food and farm groups will participate in the HOMEGROWN Village while activists and farmers will discuss agricultural challenges and solutions at the FarmYard Stage Tent. Cutrell is among those who will participate.

Here are four reasons why Farm Aid this year matters more than ever.

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/lists/willie-nelsons-farm-aid-reasons-it-matters/)._