the purple carrot: Farm Aid

Showing posts with label Farm Aid. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Farm Aid 2011: The music & booths

Time for the last of the Farm Aid recaps!

Missed Part I & II? Farm Aid 2011 Kick Off, Farm Aid 2011 Food

First up, all of the awesome organizations that were set up at Farm Aid booths. They’re all doing amazing things, so be sure to check them out!! Here’s a highlight of several of them:

Slow Food Kansas City

Florida Organic Farmers

Pubpat, “representing the public’s interest in the patent system”

Cultivate Kansas City

New Roots for Refugees

Organic Valley, Chipotle, and Horizon Organic

Music

I’m sure it could go without being said, but the music at Farm Aid was awesome, just like everything else!

The Lineup

The day started out around 1:00 with:

Blackwood Quartet
John Trudell
Hearts of Darkness
Rebecca Pidgeon
Ray Price
Robert Francis
Billy Joe Shaver

As the performances began to air live online the rest of the lineup was:

Will Dailey & the Rivals
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
Jakob Dylan
Jamey Johnson
Jason Mraz
Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds
John Mellencamp
Neil Young
Willie Nelson

Erik got to go down to the photo pit for a bit during Neil Young’s performance, but unfortunately my camera lens is not suited for such photo pit coolness, ha.

Farm Aid was an awesome, awesome event! I’m so glad that it was held in Kansas City this year and that we got to go and experience it all!

“You know, we’re not big, we know we’re small. We’re David and Goliath; there’s an army of Goliath against us, because of the money and the corporate structure that we’re taking on … But we’re still here, every year we come back. Fair Aid is a real thing, about protecting something that is sacred in this country” – Neil Young

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Farm Aid 2011: The food

And we’re back with more Farm Aid!

Missed Part I? Farm Aid 2011 Kick off Party.

Farm Aid Food

I couldn’t wait another post to talk about my favorite part of just about everything … the food! Allow me to start very bluntly.

Farm Aid had, hands down, the best concession options. Ever.

But first … check out what we got in our neat swag bags!

Nice big tote? Raw agave? Chipotle gift card? Ticket for a free shirt? They {unknowingly} know me well!

Those Chipotle gift cards will be used very soon, I can assure you of that. Now to the important stuff … food!

Farmer’s Market Style

One of my favorite things about Farm Aid was that there were booths filled with fresh fruits and fresh baked goods. Why can’t every event have a booth of local produce, seriously?? The fruits included local berries, apples and fresh peaches.

It was so nice to be able to go grab some berries, an apple or a peach if you were hungry and just needed a quick healthy snack.

Fresh tomatoes have been AMAZING lately, too. I love it.

Food Venders

There were also several different booths that had meat from local family farmers for the meat eaters out there. We quite enjoyed Patchwork Family Farms shirts that said “Stop Factory Farms”. In fact, we tried to buy one but there were no sizes smaller than XL.

Food Concession Stands

The menu for their large concessions stand was quite impressive. I made the detailed menu large so you could check it out:

Some highlights from the Homegrown Concessions:

The list is full of important words like “grass fed”, “family farmed”, “antibiotic & hormone free”, “local”, “rBGH free”, “organic”!
Concessions were supplied from:
- Patchwork Family Farms
- Tallgrass Farm
- Ranch Direct
- Coleman Natural
- Pilgrim’s
- Applegate Farms
- Local Burger
- Whole Foods Market
- Waldo’s Pizza
- Paradise Locker Meats
- Eden Foods
- Rotella Roma Bakery
- Farm to Market Bread
- Heinz Organic Ketchup
- Heartland Mill
- Roasterie Coffee Roaster

Not surprisingly, we got the veggie burger, which is made by Hilary’s Eat Well who started Local Burger in Lawrence, KS.

And finished it off with some berries from Mule Barn Berries.

We hung out at Farm Aid pretty much all day from when it started at 1:00. The weather was perfect, I might add, so it was fun to sit, enjoy the breeze, eat good food, and relax before the flocks of people arrived.

A little later, we tried some grilled corn from Youthmarket Farm Stand:

The day was filled with great food, that’s for sure! Since we were there all day, we went back to the concessions later in the night to get a salad or veggie pizza or even another veggie burger and sadly, they were all out!

An apple came to our rescue but I do wish they would have planned for more, because there was clearly a demand for it. One of the concession ladies told us they sold out of some of those things by 4:00. Either way, I still cannot complain, they were awesome concessions!! And, hey, I’m glad they did so well that they were sold out.

Great day, great food!!

Still to come … the vendor booths and the music!

“As long as someone has his hands in the dirt to measure the health of it, I feel like everything else will be okay. As long as there is good food coming to my table from a caring farmer, then I think everything else will be okay” –Dave Mathews

Farm Aid 2011: Kickoff

Finally, Farm Aid recap time!

It was killing me (okay, okay, that choice of words may be a tad strong, but really, it was hard to wait!) that I couldn’t blog about it right away! If only my full-time job was to blog, tweet, look at Pinterest, take photos, and experiment in the kitchen all day … then I suspect I would have had to time to blog about Farm Aid a bit sooner, eh? A girl can dream.

But alas, this weekend my job that makes the money beckoned and I was forced to answer the call. If someone wants to pay me full time to blog, you’re more than welcome. Just saying …

Enough of that, let’s jump right in! We have to start with Friday night … the Farm Aid kickoff party.

Farm Aid Kickoff

On Friday evening, we went to the LIVSTRONG sporting complex to pick up our media credentials and scope everything out.

What is Farm Aid?

Farm Aid is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land in order to guarantee an agricultural system that ensures farmers a fair living, strengthens our communities, protects our natural resources and delivers good food for all.

First off, some background:

Farm Aid was inspired during the mid 1980s when American farmer’s found themselves overloaded with debts which were forcing tens and thousands of family farms off their land.
In 1985, Willie Nelson heard a remark by Bob Dillon that something should be done for our fellow farmers here in America and he agreed. Joined by Neil Young and John Mellencamp, Nelson produced a special concert with the sole purpose of raising funds for farmers, making people aware of struggling farmers.
It was then that Farm Aid was born. The first concert raised more than $9 million.

Farm Aid through the years:

Still dealing with economic hardships of the 1980s, family farms were them confronted with a new threat of factory farms, making their struggle with debt even worse.
The rise of factory farms not only was an assault against family farmers, but also a serious threat to all Americans who valued quality, healthy food and a clean environment.
Farm Aid began to fund efforts to stop factory farm expansions

To this day, annual Farm Aid concerts are still being put on by board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, accomplishing their mission by:

Promoting Food from Family Farms
Growing the Good Food Movement
Helping Farmers Thrive
Taking Action to Change the System

Love it! The Farm Aid kick off on Friday night consisted of local bands, HOMEGROWN concessions, a farmers market with fresh, local farms and many exhibits from related groups in the Kansas City area.

We had an Australian couch surfer staying with us this weekend who came through Kansas City to attend Farm Aid. Thus, it seemed obligatory to take pictures next to “Veggie Willie”.

Kick Off Dinner

After walking around the booths and getting to know Veggie Willie a little bit we checked out a dinner they were having full of delicious looking foods.