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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Bob Dylan to perform at Farm Aid festival this weekend | |
By Jessie Yeung, Bill Weir, CNN | |
Updated: | |
9:23 PM EDT, Wed September 17, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
Bob Dylan will perform at the annual this Saturday, announced the | |
organization, which raises funds to help farmers in need. | |
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. | |
The festival is the primary source of funding to support “year-round | |
work with and for family farmers,” according to its website. | |
Since 1985, Farm Aid has raised more than $85 million to support | |
programs that help farmers, according to the organization’s press | |
release. | |
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 at a Live Aid benefit concert. | |
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. | |
While on stage, Dylan used the opportunity to highlight an ongoing | |
crisis within the US. | |
“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.” | |
Crop prices were crashing in 1985, with bank foreclosures wiping out | |
family farms at alarming rates 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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
CNN will be the exclusive television broadcast partner of Farm Aid 40, | |
which is scheduled for September 20 at Huntington Bank Stadium in | |
Minneapolis. | |
CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir will provide on-the-ground | |
reporting, while John Berman and Laura Coates will co-anchor the | |
coverage. | |
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