NEIL YOUNG SAYS 2006 FARM AID ABOUT QUALITY FOOD

(VIDEO) Neil Young says that the 2006 Farm Aid concert was all about making sure quality growers stay in business and get fresh food to your market.

Neil Young has been a part of Farm Aid since its inception in 1985, and he has seen the cause of Farm Aid go from a financial organization to an activist organization. As always he’s in the small farmer and family farmers. The event on Saturday, September 30 kicked off with a press conference featuring the leaders in the family farming industry and musicians including Young, and co-founders John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson. Also present was board member Dave Matthews and performers Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule and Pauline Reese among others.

The focus this year has been on the quality of food that’s in the U.S. supermarkets and how to get the family farmer, growing superior food to industrial producers, into the market. The quality problem hit home when his daughter complained of the food quality in her school. Young decided to take matters into his own hands.

“Now when she first started going there the first thing she said was, ‘Dad the food really sucks in this place,’ and that was the first comment. So I went to the school later that year and I met with the dean and we met with some people and we started a program called Food For Thought. And what this Food For Thought program involved was farmers from all around the college, which was on a hill in a farm community surrounded by farm, they all started selling their food to the school for the cafeteria.”

Young continued on the impact of Food For Thought.

“..and then the cafeteria started showing that they had organic or at least homegrown food that was there for people to eat. And then they started cooking it a little bit differently — not overcooking it and turning it into boiled stuff. So, anyway the food for thought program now I think is going into its fourth year at this college and I’d like to see — now that we’ve got a little foothold there — I’d like to see the Food For Thought program go to every college.”

Neil Young will next play his Bridge School benefit show in San Francisco. Artists scheduled to play this year include Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Foo Fighters and Trent Reznor.