Willie Meets with Missouri Farmers

As always, Willie’s on the road again, touring nonstop. Before his gig in Columbia, Missouri, on Tuesday, he met with members of Farm Aid-funded group Missouri Rural Crisis Center (MRCC).

MRCC has been working on farm issues as long as Farm Aid has been around. Farm Aid concert-goers know MRCC as the folks who come to our show every year to sell their delicious family-farm pork (seriously, if you miss out on one of these sandwiches at this year’s show, you’ll regret it!). Neil Young fans know them as the designers of the famous Stop Factory Farms t-shirt. Those two points sum up the diversity of a group that is made up of farmers who have created their own brand of sustainable, family-farm pork, Patchwork Family Farms, while simultaneously preventing factory farms from taking over Missouri and, most recently, making sure dairy farmers there can label their milk as hormone free.

Rhonda Perry (pictured speaking with Willie here) and other MRCC farmers updated Willie on all they’ve been able to accomplish with Farm Aid’s help and how things are going on Missouri farms since the recent flooding. Farm Aid this week approved a $7,500 grant to MRCC, which the group will distribute to local farmers hurt by the floods. For his part, Willie tells us that he loves the opportunity to sit down with farmers on the bus to hear about their good work. After the talking's done, the farmers get to hear Willie’s good work on guitar and vocals. We staff members back in the office are humbled by the man who has made family farmers one of his priorities in a life that consists of so many good works and night after night of music.

To read about Willie’s visit with Missouri farmers in the Columbia Daily Tribune, click here.

Photo credit: Don Shrubshell from the Columbia Daily Tribune.