Farm Aid is returning to the Empire State this fall with the Saratoga Performing Arts Center hosting Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and others on Saturday, Sept. 21.

“It’s great to be back,” Farm Aid Cultural Impact Director Michael Foley said. “Highlighting the work of farmers in upstate New York.”

What You Need To Know

  • Tickets to Farm Aid's all-day food and music festival at SPAC will cost $85-$325

  • Farm Aid came to New York in 2007 at Randalls Island and in 2013 at Saratoga Springs

  • Willie Nelson spearheaded Farm Aid more than 35 years ago, a project that has raised nearly $80 million for family farmers

The annual music and food festival raises money to help family farmers, while raising awareness of family farm food.

“You have a small number of corporations that kind of dominate certain areas of food production,” Foley said. “It’s really important to think about the family farmers that are out there working in a system to produce the best quality, healthiest food for all of us.”

It’s hard work that often goes unrecognized and is costly.

“The cost of input more than anything,” Jennifer Nelson said of Rosey Rae’s Farm in Schuylerville. “The cost of input is skyrocketing, but people are still paying the same amount for milk they were paying 20 years ago.”

So hard that it's driving small, family-run operations out of business. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Census, New York lost about 3,000 of its 33,000 farms between 2017 and 2022.

“There is a natural attrition as people leave the industry or retire out of it,” said New York Farm Bureau Chief Executive Officer Deanna Fox. “We’re not doing less farming in New York. What we’re seeing instead, farms are consolidating.”

NYFB is dedicated to advocating public policy that supports the profitability of farming and its evolution.

“Making sure that we’re meeting the needs of our farmers,” Fox said. “The needs of farmers are changing as technology related to agriculture changes, and the type of agriculture people are doing changes.”  

But anything to supplement that work is welcomed by farmers, and they say making sure the consumer has a better understanding of where their food comes from is an invaluable asset.

“Seeing our kids know where their food comes from and actually participate in the process and have a relationship with their food, as strange as that sounds, they don’t take it for granted anymore,” Nelson explained.

Willie Nelson spearheaded the Farm Aid effort more than 35 years ago. It has raised nearly $80 million. September’s lineup will mark its third stop in New York and second at SPAC.