Big Apple to host Farm Aid concert
NEW YORK, June 11 (Reuters Life!) - New York will play host to Farm Aid, a benefit concert to help family farms, singer Willie Nelson announced on Monday.
"Farm Aid 2007: A Homegrown Festival" will be held on Randall's Island in the East River between Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens on September 9 and will feature Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp and Neil Young.
"Farm Aid is coming to New York because your enthusiasm for family farm food is keeping family farmers on the land," Nelson told reporters.
Since it was first organized in 1985 Farm Aid has raised over $30 million to support local organizations working to strengthen family farms, organizers said.
It has been held in cities such as Lincoln, Nebraska, and Seattle but never before in New York.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Mellencamp and Nelson in making the announcement. He also unveiled a plan to increase the city's reliance on soybean and corn-based biofuel, which he said will help farmers.
Starting next summer, a percentage of the city's heating oil purchases will contain biofuel, reaching 20 percent by 2012.
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Taliban may wait out Washington's "endgame"
Washington's hint of an Afghanistan endgame in saying U.S. troops won't still be there in 2017 might help win over a war-weary public, but there is no guarantee a notoriously patient Taliban won't just wait the Americans out. Full Article | Full Coverage
Woods home after car crash
