Farm Aid – and end of the tour! by Diane

Sunday, September 9. I don’t think we could have asked for a better way to end our tour than to spend it at Farm Aid on Randall’s Island in New York City! It was a long day, especially challenging after being on the road for so long and being worn out, but what better way to say farewell to the Eat Well Guided Tour of America than to spend it with tens of thousands of people, brought together to celebrate small farms, sustainable food, and to share in some great music.

The day started early for us – Dawn and Erin went down early (like 8am!) to set up our table on the grounds. This year, Farm Aid very kindly allowed sustainable groups of all kinds (from bigger national groups to small local groups) to have a presence at the festival – among them were:

The Lower East Side Ecology Center
Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York
Waterkeeper Alliance
Watershed Agricultural Alliance
Just Food
Growing Connection
Slow Food
Hawthorne Valley Farm
East New York Farms
City Harvest
New York Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
Norwich Meadows Farm (my local farmer at my farmers market!....)
Regional Food and Farming Project
Lower Eastside Girls Club
Stonebarns Center
The Glynwood Center
World Hunger Year
And, of course, Sustainable Table!

There were many other groups there too – the whole back field of the concert was lined with tents that groups shared. I have to say, the most surprising thing to me, and a sign that things really have changed, is that not long after the doors opened, people started lining up to come to the tents to see what groups were there. And I’m not talking people just walking up to our table – there was a line well over 50 people long waiting to come through our tent to see our materials.

We shared our tent with Slow Food NYC, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, Just Food, and Food Change’s EATWISE (Educated and Aware Teens Who Inspire Smart Eating). Okay, Slow Food and EATWISE’s food samples surely helped draw people to our area, but our magnets were really popular too! We probably got more sign ups for our newsletter and email list than at any event ever before. There was sincere interest on the audience’s part to understand what was happening and why all these sustainable groups were there.

On a sad note, Chickity was kidnapped. Yes, we turned around for a second and suddenly she was gone. We heard later from one concert goer that she’d just had her picture taken next to Chickity, and, apparently, the two shirtless young men who walked off with her were treating her well. We’re just sad that she’s gone. So if you see a four foot animated chicken anywhere around New York City, could you please let us know?...

The other inspiring part of the show is that almost all the food vendors were sustainable – even the funnel cake guy! Seriously! I walked by going ‘oh, yeah, bet those funnel cakes are sustainable,’ but I found out later that the flour used in making the cakes was made at a small mill. Who would have known? Farm Aid organizers think this is the first time a concert of this size has sold almost all local, sustainable good – quite an impressive feat! There was organic food, pastured rasied meats, and all sorts of healthier options – it made eating much more fun because it wasn’t the usual stuff you always see. (I really wish I’d known those funnel cakes were sustainable though – I would have bought one!... But I guess after all those pies – yes, we figured I’d sampled well over 200 pies – that I should probably stay away from anything pie or cake-like for a while.)

If you’re interested in some of the vendors that were at the show, they included:

Gorilla Coffee (roasted in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and beans from fair trade co-ops)
Sambazon (all organic food)
American Flatbread (wood fired flatbread pizza; ingredients from Vermont)
Stone Hearth Pizza (artisan pizza!)
Loopy’s Espresso and Crepe Cart ( Vermont ingredients. I wish I had found those crepes…)
Greenmarket (products from small family farms within 180 miles of NYC)
Patchwork Family Farms (sustainable meat sandwiches and organic buns)
Sparky’s All American Food (great little restaurant/take out join on Lafayette St in Manhattan that’s organic, pasture raised and sustainable.)
Chipotle Mexican Grill (they used Niman Ranch pork in their products)
Ahli Babas Kabob Shop (free range organic chicken and produce from farmers markets in NYC)

A couple of us snuck away at 11am and got into the press conference, which is always fun to attend. I must say, we were lucky the entire tour because we had great weather all the way across the country, even in notoriously humid places like Iowa and Minnesota. No humidity, cool breeze, warm sun – but at Farm Aid, we got a dose of summer. Humid and hot. So even though everything was great (and the heat seemed to break late afternoon), the press conference was in an open field and was a bit sweltering….

That aside, it was great to see Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews up on stage with the likes of Governor Spitzer and his wife, Carolyn Mugar (President of Farm Aid), Alice Waters (the guru of the sustainable food world), Michel Nischan (sustainable chef extraordinaire), Karen Washington (turns vacant lots into food gardens in the Bronx), Zaid Kurdieh (Norwich Meadson Farms – my farmer!), Rhonda Perry (hog farmer from Missouri and head of Patchwork Family Farms), among others, on stage talking about basically everything I said while on the Eat Well Guided Tour. Personally, I found it so inspiring, and also affirming, that even folks in New York and famous musicians like Neil Young were saying the same thing a local group in Montana or Oregon were saying.

I truly believe we’re all on the same page and are just starting to realize that we’re not working in isolation – that even though we might not know other groups outside our area, we’re starting to realize we all have the same goal, which is to provide fresh, local, sustainable food to everyone. And what I like about that is that inherent in all that is access for everyone – groups all over the country are breaking down the elitist image organic food has sometimes had and are working on ways to give access to all. Personally, I would gladly give a little extra money for my CSA share so that someone who might not have as much as I do could afford one – and I’ve seen that so many other people feel the same way. I think we’re starting to realize that we have more than just a responsibility to ourselves – we have a responsibility to each other.

Neil Young made a very interesting comment. He said that we should feed ourselves and let other countries do the same. What a lot of people probably don’t realize is that with the way global trade and the WTO (world trade organization) is set up, some countries have stopped producing food for themselves and are growing things like cotton or coffee. Their soil is dying and they literally cannot feed themselves. We should stop those types of deals and let citizens all over the world grow food for themselves – and grow food indigenous to their areas. What happens now is that a country like ours could hold food imports over the head of a country who needs food in order to get things that we want – and that’s not right. So within our work of promoting local, sustainable food, we’re trying to promote local, sustainable food for people around the world.

New York Governor Elliot Spitzer issued a proclamation that September 9, 2007, was Farm Aid Day. Spitzer was also challenged by one of the Farm Aid folks (Neil Young perhaps?) to have a Farm Aid week next year, and he agreed. I hope they hold him to it!

Okay, I have to admit, I missed most of the show. If I wasn’t at the table, I was back in the food area (I sprung for an expensive ticket so I could sit in a tent and get fed – it was a long tour!....) so I missed most of the earlier acts. (And at my age, I really didn’t know any of them, except for The Ditty Bops, who we did something with in Eugene, Oregon, while on tour.) But I was there for the Allman Brothers. I have to tell you, I never liked them. I was a rock chick while in high school and really couldn’t get into their music – but, I have to say, they were great live. Really impressed me – and the audience totally got into them. Dave Matthews also put on a great acoustic set. And of course John Mellencamp and Neil Young put on a good show. And not much can be said about Willie except that I’d like to see him do a show on his own – I was never into him until one day I was given a CD and surprised myself by liking him so much.

What’s even more impressive than his music is his dedication to saving small, family farms. He has gone to rallies and protests all across the country to help stop factory farming and to support small family farms. And Farm Aid – even though many people only think of them as a concert every year – Farm Aid is an amazing organization of folks who work year round to try to help farmers stay on the land. They’re an amazing group, and I’m proud to have had a miniscule part in their event.

So, at 11pm on Sunday, the Eat Well Guided Tour of America officially ended. I’m still trying to catch up on sleep but will come back in the next couple weeks to start on my reflections about the tour and what I’ve seen. Next week, though, I’m disappearing off into the red rocks of Sedona for a few days to relax and rebuild my energy for whatever new project we come up with next.

For all of you who’ve toured with us across the country, thank you for coming along with us. I hope we can do this again – though next time I think we’ll stay regional and probably do it in something like a minivan. I don’t think we should try to duplicate the huge success of this tour by repeating it – but I would like to try to get out on the road every year or two to see what’s happening. Maybe we’ll start in Hawaii….

But the site will stay up. We still have many photos to add, and I plan to add in commentary on places other people blogged about, and I think others might also have a thought or two to share. We found the entire tour so overwhelming, and the success and response so much more than we expected, that we weren’t able to do everything we wanted to do. So now that things are slowly getting back to normal, expect to see more observations and thoughts about the tour on the Eat Well Guided Tour site at www.sustainabletable.org/roadtrip.

So, again, thank you to all of you who toured along with us, and many many many thank you’s to all the host groups and wonderful people we met while out on the road! I have so many new friends now and so many people to follow up with and thank personally that it’s going to take a little while. But thanks to all of you for making this tour the success it’s been. I credit all the groups who hosted us with our success – we just came along for the pie!

Stay tuned – much more coming soon! This is just the beginning....

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