Bob Dylan to perform at Farm Aid festival this weekend<br>
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Bob Dylan will perform at the annual Farm Aid festival this Saturday, announced the organization, which raises funds to help farmers in need.<br>
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He’ll be among a number of stars at the music festival, including Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and more. He last played at Farm Aid in 2023.<br>
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The festival is the primary source of funding to support "year-round work with and for family farmers," according to its website.<br>
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Since 1985, Farm Aid has raised more than $85 million to support programs that help farmers, according to the organization’s press release.<br>
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Dylan, whose songs famously tackled social issues such as inequality and war, has always been part of the DNA of Farm Aid. The festival’s origins date back to a quip Dylan made at a Live Aid benefit concert.<br>
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At the time, Ethiopia was stricken by drought, prompting a movement to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for relief – backed by stars like Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson.<br>
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While on stage, Dylan used the opportunity to highlight an ongoing crisis within the US.<br>
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Related article<br>
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Ron Wood, Bob Dylan and Keith Richards at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the Live Aid Concert on July 13, 1985.<br>
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How a Bob Dylan moment 40 years ago sparked decades of pop philanthropy<br>
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"I hope that some of the money that’s raised for the people in Africa," Dylan said. "Maybe they can just take a little bit of it, one or two million, and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms that the farmers here owe to the banks."<br>
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<img src="http://mamba754.wz.cz/fotoIT/d753732/d753732_20190929b_mb.jpg" style="max-width:400px;float:left;padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px;">Crop prices were crashing in 1985, with bank foreclosures wiping out family farms at <a href="https://www.academia.edu/people/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=alarming%20rates">alarming rates</a> and pushing farmer suicides to record levels. When Dylan gave a shoutout to those who grow the food that ends famines, it struck Nelson – a former cotton-picker turned country superstar.<br>
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Before long, Nelson was on the phone with Young and Mellencamp, and Farm Aid was born. With a handful of exceptions, it’s been held annually ever since.<br>
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The politics around farming are even more contentious these days, with age-old problems remaining and new ones getting worse – including extreme weather that’s becoming increasingly unpredictable thanks to climate change, and a volatile market subject to trade wars and tariffs.<br>
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CNN will be the exclusive television broadcast partner of Farm Aid 40, <a href="https://rutorsite3s7oalfxlcv5kdk6opadvkoremcoyrdm75rgips6pv33did.com">rutorsite3s7oalfxlcv5kdk6opadvkoremcoyrdm75rgips6pv33did onion</a> which is scheduled for September 20 at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.<br>
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CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir will <a href="https://www.medcheck-up.com/?s=provide%20on-the-ground">provide on-the-ground</a> reporting, while John Berman and Laura Coates will co-anchor the coverage.
