this year the festival was held at the alpine valley music theater in east tried wisconsin deep in the heart of dairy country farm aid showcase some of the most innovative family farmers from around tired nation whiskey river no rudra. army president 34 years country music icon willie nelson opened the festival well 1st of all i'm glad to see us all here to do. but very live we're i think a lot of help is needed and we're glad to be here to offer our support what are those challenges as well one is pricing take dairy farmers for instance according to the u.s.d.a. foods 2015 the price of milk paid to farmers has not only been going down but it's also unpredictable from month to month making it hard for farmers to absorb that extra cost farm aid presented $1.00 of the many solution through the small farmer and old traditions on a sense of community through grazing we create a grazing it would help the cows be healthier and it was less labor plus they

talked about the profitability of it our cows actually produce half as much today per col in one year as they used to before we started grazing however with this system for every 100 pounds of milk rather than making $0.50 we might be making $5.00 dairy farming is and economic engine for wisconsin and is essential to the culture of this state agriculture contributes 88000000000 dollars each year to the state's economy and almost half of that comes from dairy dairy farmers across the country are laboring right now under extreme pressure earning less for a gallon of milk than it cost them to produce it since 1973 we've lost a staggering 93 percent of this country's dairy producers faced with the possibility of extinction a group of determined dairy farmers starting in wisconsin but now from all over the country our work. thing together to activate communities build power and propose

solutions to fix a broken system at the same time a resolute group of entrepreneurial women have come together to counter the prevailing narrative that rural america is dying. the way. music icon neil young explains why we're america and the family farmer is worth saving i think myself that the solutions. are simple and big i think we need to have legislation to make sure that all the farmers in america you sustainable practices for their corporations thanks for the farm thank you if you're farming in america thanks for in canada for that matter c c. you should follow sustainable practices and not destroy the earth. it isn't just milk that according to the u.s.

government data as of september 30th the 2019 over 40000000 pounds of pork bellies is sitting in warehouses unsold uneaten and without a home stockpile in 40 years this is partly due to the decreasing demand for oil is which are the cuts that get us here in the united states unfortunately bacon not as popular overseas as things like him however producers were advised to build up their birds due to swine fever reducing the china by over a 1000000 eggs now the sales to china are not increasing farmers are left. way too much bacon and small hog farmers to short change in the marketplace as the price stays so low only vertically integrated factory farms can show a profit even country music star tiny tucker was moved by the effects this has on farmers and consumers i've learned a lot sitting here listening to all. we all speak it's become. it's made

me more aware when i think about having that glass of milk with my i go to bed i'm going to think of the dairy farmers to know that of a pig grows up in a crate and then that's the bacon you're even i think just we just need to be more aware of what we're buying and not just be more aware but take it to another level we are this country and they are just representing a so we've got to make a stand and we got to tell them what we want and we want things changed one group looking to change policy and perception of farming is the wisconsin based soil sisters the problem of overproduction is a problem that we've all fallen into the system has pushed us to produce more and more and more just to keep our heads above water the average eater isn't connected to the farm and doesn't realize these things and when there is go under it it

doesn't affect the milk they're pulling from the shelf so we as a society have devalued food and cheaper is better and bigger is better and that is not sustainable industrialization of agriculture has really changed the way we treat the land over production due to pricing seems to be the prevailing problem with every sector small and family farming partly because the big industrial sector can absorb the cost a point not lost on the soil sisters our group is based in green county in southern wisconsin so we are in a very traditional conventional industrial area however if you look at a statewide wimmin make up 35 percent of producers in wisconsin and that's a 16 percent increase and if you look at the fact that wisconsin leads organics in dairy and livestock are 2nd in vegetables only to california slightly longer growing season were part of a broader movement and when you're part of something bigger than yourself. start to

change and we saw sisters and we are also sisters if we are committed to our land and our agriculture in our rural areas we do things by changing up the rules and not. going to corporate capitalism but setting up our own systems of collaboration and supporting each other and when you know you're on a bigger team and you know people have your back and you know other women have you back you take risks and you show up and that's what we've been doing what exactly is that stake if groups like the barmaid and the soil sisters don't succeed so we'll sisters chris mary and explain what's at stake if you food security if people can't stay on the land growing food we're going to have to get our food elsewhere and then we're going to be at the mercy of other places. for some the tradition of growing food locally isn't just a way to avoid the large factory farms that are uttered cutting family farms is due to the traditions of their people and their ancestors and a path beyond processed food an illness or

a manthey of the united white corn growers group in a night a wisconsin explains their group started in 20152016 we wanted to take on the responsibility of growing food for ourselves in our community our tribal program. had been taken on the responsibility of growing corn for the community but it would sell out so fast that it wasn't able to sustain the whole community talked with a lot of people and people just started saying hey we should grow this together we shouldn't be having individual plots we should do it the old way we do have quite a few people in our group that have diabetes and they do want to eat better and they didn't have access to food that was bad they didn't understand how to cook it before but if you were to go back to a traditional diet and meet with our food circle that has to do with the seasons and the cycles and the ceremonial food that's already identified you don't have diabetes anymore and in many ways had we listened to the native wisdom of food we may have avoided some of the worst of our health related struggles tied to that food. and right alongside indigenous communities striving to keep their cultural

traditions thriving immigrants are helping breathe life into farming dangly of mike one explains we were farmers. while we migrated here to america as refugees we bought some of that your disciples to america my mom. my grandmother we used to do this together so it brings that memory bags at that nature preserve our there's about 20 farmers we have ideas of better ways of fire. farming isn't just about food though despite how silly that may sound one thing farm a continues to do decade after decade is show that farming impacts communities big and small in ways you might not expect these issues in farming it's order dave matthews explains i remember when i was a kid and my father my father was ill and eventually. he died from his

illness oh my remember after he died my mom started gardening almost like a crazy person. she just ensure just outside digging planting. but in a few days it started to look like she was sort of magical and she just said it helped her heal. being connecting yourself to the earth what i mean is say when i when i compared the sort of over industrialization of farming which severs us from the earth it makes us separate from the earth and it turns us into part of a profit driven machine that doesn't take into account anything but the dollar and there's that compared with connecting ourselves to the earth to know that when we eat and when we pay a fair price for the food that we eat that we're supporting people who are taking

care of the earth it's a system that we need to support because all we're doing is paying them what they're do if we pay them enough to survive we're not paying them too much we're paying them what they do. seem wrong. to me. to stamp out just because that's an. equal to trail.

what's on. the part. of the common ground. leaks last leak. when you.

look at the distance was most of. the back. to school stuff that it's about seem to me there's. just a little. there's a lot of areas in the economy where china has caught up or surpassed us you know the mobile payments markets 50 times the size of the u.s. or over here still writing checks our banking system is not innovated 5 g. we've kind of recently woken up the last couple years and go wow we don't even have a company that can make 5 g. equipment it's been a win win for china and it's been a lose lose for the u.s.

. thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the country's military and the decision little sheltered lives every song came to a complete. the. i was right i'll be instructive you know what they kill me and i see how it destroyed my life any screamed at me and he made me come in and you cam my arm and he raped me just birthing if you take into account that women don't report because of the extreme retaliation and it's probably somewhere near about half a 1000000 women have now been sexually assaulted in the us military and rape is a very very traumatizing. but i've never seen trauma like. women who are veterans who suffered military sexual trauma reporting rape is more likely to get the victim punished than the offender and almost 10 year career which i was very invested in and i gave

a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry this is simply an issue of our and violent male sexual predators for the large part of target whoever is there to prey upon whether that's men or women. so what is a fair price under the current system that price may not even be covering the cost of production according to the united states department of agriculture the retail price of a pound of bacon is around 5 dollars the share of that price that ends up in the farmer's pocket is around $0.69 what about say flour a 5 pound bag will run the consumer about $3.79 the farmer gets $0.44 and since we're talking so much about dairy farmers look at a gallon of milk the consumer pays $4.59 while the farmer if there are

a lucky sees about one dollar and $0.50 per gallon we've had consolidation in the industry for a long time which means that some players particularly processors have a lot of power and that means that in some cases we see farmers. not having places that sell their milk or farmers having to be price takers between being told how much they should be paid and not necessarily that reflecting how much the cost it is to actually produce and he was so proud of the site it had all the falling numbers and everything was just perfect in the trade to find a market for it it was worth nothing i mean those were the. cattle in the home that's very frustrating for me because it should have been worth 5 to 6 times when i actually sold the farm because of the quality remember when we discussed the price of flour and how out of $3.79 cent bag the farmer only saw $0.44 well what

about something like beer a product whose entire quality and taste depend on the grains used in the process while you the consumer will pay $8.99 per sixpack the farmer who made your brew possible they only make $0.04 per sixpack why one reason is the proliferation of factory farming and it's not new since 1997 family ran dairy farms alone have seen their profit margins and market share gobbled up by large corporate conglomerates each year saw these big ag giants buy up and destroy the family farm and he was no mistake he was exactly how our rest of us wanted it earl butz was the secretary of agriculture under presidents nixon and ford but he is most well known for selling out the family farmer to large scale corporate farms instead of giving them a hand when it was possible here he is in 1972 on the subject of hunger and subsidizing food to make it affordable for all we are not on our.

american record or i could have our. at. subsidized food prices the the cost of production is not the birthright of americans who can afford to pay for it and i think we make a mistake if we pursue a teach food policy in terms of a subsidized food policy for americans who can afford to pay for my position as they are for the marketplace just like they do their automobiles or the golf clubs or their t.v. sets. right ready for work and butts kept that position for the entirety of his career that farmers need not be subsidized by the government when prices domestically drop below the cost of production but it's a many in the big bad world believed it was unnecessary because all farmers had to do was sell their surplus overseas in 1991 man at the national farmers union

conference after all bytes to respond to the fact that his plans had not 20 years later actually done much but line the pockets of the very rich i'm a dairy farmer from wisconsin and i was just wondering mr secretary. if you think maybe the conservative views and agriculture may change. you said you learned how to read. maybe can somebody help you see. the reason i ask is a i don't know of anyone in my community. that still supports hopefully your old views about farming that are left they all went broke my concern is that real farmers need change they're real farmers do. we need to restore the economic safety net. in production agriculture in america or the future of real farmers. is is going to be at

a tremendous risk and what was the grandfather of factory farms response to 20 years of his own failed policy we all enjoy a pretty high level of living in this country again primarily because our food system is in the mission hands with a relatively small share of our total production inputs to make it i think it's been a good thing but the adjustments been difficult for some people they're better off to in most cases because they've got a pretty good paint job somewhere and i grew closer probably better off because they left because we're more and more efficient. and i think for those who was left in commercial agriculture of iron over. the idea that the family farmers would be better off just getting out of the business altogether has not abated the same farm a current agricultural secretary sonny perdue told wisconsin farmers that in america the big get bigger and the small go out i don't think in america we for any

small business we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability and sarah lloyd of dairy together explains why the logic of per deal and buts is so very wrong we need the federal government to take action in the dairy pricing so please do call your representatives in washington d.c. because they will tell you nobody wants to talk about balancing supply with demand we're in a free market tell them that their raw tell them that you've met the farmers that are pushing for it and we're a nationwide force and we're growing stronger i think that all farmers and fishermen should be paid decent wages so that they could get dinner to feed their communities in the country and federal policies to support that so we're calling on the government to take some leadership and address the very pricing formulas so that farmers can be fair their wages musician and longtime farm and participant

john mellencamp and why humans are capable of solving the problems farmers and all of us face despite a negative outlook from big ag it seems to me that this world is in motion. and nature calls for diversity diversity diversity it's important to take our minds out and simply observe what is going on around us. as opposed to thinking we have an answer and giving in the jerk reaction and then just chill out creativity human beings are the only ones on the other only. these are new sir. the ability to be creative. and creative they are at farming 29 t. really misses are extraordinary people who are looking at the issue of food and farming from some pretty pretty creative a fetus williams the executive director of alice's garden in milwaukee is one of them i was this garden is a 2.2 acre urban farm that's been around since 72 we like to say that

we use gardening as the carrot. to get people to come through the gates to impact their higher quality of life so along with having a production farm area we have an herbal apprentice program that has 72 apprentices learning with me we have 105. and we have a whole wellness and every cultural program for the community when you're looking at urban context and especially in communities of color and especially in the african-american community you're looking at the sentence of people who grew the food who built. this place a long time ago it may have been by force but now it is by choice part of why i'm here as a honestly believe that the labor force that exists in the urban concept is going to be part of the solution to solve the crisis for the role of

a small rural farmer that isn't just the soil feeding america the ocean and our waterways are as well one elementary school lunch lady from martha's vineyard in massachusetts explains. the 1st ever elementary school lunch lady to incorporate sustainable seafood taste food and i am now translating my mission and my trip across the united states sharing the real trick is not in. connecting with your farmer connecting with your patient and eating what the ocean provides and provide instead of offering. chicken fingers hamburger pizza a hot lunch and a salad bar everything all day i just offer one hot * lunch that focuses on local and sustainable food a salad bar option and then a sandwich shop to give them their better experience allows them to feel some sense of power and accountability they connect with who brought their food to them the story of where their part came from bringing people closer to their food allows them to understand that somebody works really really hard to make them healthy and

they need to be thankful and account to. be on the talk about what a fact is a market and consumer base that is misinformed about the true cost of the goods they buy a rapidly changing climate and a government that doesn't seem to actually be working for farmers but instead for big farming companies dr arthur c. evan chief executive of the american psychological association explains why he and the e.p.a. were at farm aid 2019 this is a new partnership that we have with farm aid and it's because farmers are under a tremendous amount of stress right and i think there's a greater recognition that in addition to addressing the economic challenges the farmers are facing there has to be in tandem with that. some efforts to address the mental health challenges that from the space for one thing i think people are talking about these issues much more than they have historically i think we have a search that is showing the rise in suicides particular in certain populations

that is bringing more attention to this i think that there are some realities economic realities that people are facing and i think that the fact that people are experiencing stress related to their inability to take care of their families to take care of themselves i think is something that we just have to pay more attention to i personally strongly feel that there should be a single payer system in place so that farmers are guaranteed access to health care so that you know that farming is a dangerous profession. and we need a lot of times they don't have the money or not getting the money these days to fix equipment when they should be so that we just our government system should be there to support farmers making sure that health care is a right we're going to have to use more of a public health framework think about how we in this people in the community to be helped and so the support how we can use strategies of cycle education and it's

clear to us that there are not enough resources and that even if we change the models if we have this more people if we do all of those things at the end of day we have to have more resources for these issues in farming communities and so we're going to be looking at how we can help raise the awareness of that and work with the farm community to see that i'm. going to do salmon and trying to do something for the farmers. if you don't have a duty to move you. please.

tell the guys you live but if she warn you posted by you than i did the dishes at the bazemore those jeans need be speech and she me you believe true she. does and about that some of them when you die g.t.s. overwhelming in the news i mean that you're getting such a ball. a lot of people see sawing as if fights about 2 kids each other both sides most called. discipline but as in the adults to me as if i choose. and then. here in chief if you follow that cabinet 5 days doing it. in english 98 for people who simply do something new.

today there are good terrorists and bad debt it's the bad debt it is said those in yemen who the united states deems to be a threat the good to those what in syria the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions really throughout the world. where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up right away military windows funding and arming these death squads there's no any more because there's always a small people for a really good this is a profit. you know world a big part of the lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the

time is now for washing clothes for watching the hawks. a lot of it here is economy where china has caught up or surpassed you know the mobile payments market 50 times the size of the u.s. over here still reading checks our banking system is not innovated. recently walking up the last couple years and go wow we don't even have a company that can make. it's been a win win for china and it's been a lose lose for the u.s. .

caught in the crossfire right. there in baghdad over sunday's deadly american airstrikes in a country which the pentagon says targeted iranian backed militants. we go in search. of. a slew with headlines saying that germans are getting increasingly frustrated it's slow internet speeds and coverage we ask locals just. see this is impossible to understand 7 years ago i was driving through the baltic republics and poland even today i don't connection in germany. and the new years miracle we find out what happened to a little boy from the.