Farm Aid Encores, Appeals for Limits on Food Chemicals

Financially strapped Farm Aid returned Saturday with its first concert in 2 1/2 years, as performers sounded a message of concern not only for the family farmer but also for the land they till.

Farm Aid President Willie Nelson topped the list of performers who said they were forging a coalition with family farmers, environmentalists and consumers to work toward reducing chemicals used in food production.

“Somewhere between a lot of chemicals and no chemicals there’s a happy medium,” Nelson said before performing the first song of the show in the Hoosier Dome.

The organization, through its first three shows in 1985-87, raised $12 million and has distributed some $9 million to churches, farm organizations and service agencies.

Carolyn Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid, said Saturday’s event was arranged because the organization has run out of money. She said midway through the show that it had generated about $1 million in revenues and donations.

The lineup at the Hoosier Dome also included Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, Dwight Yoakum, K. T. Oslin, Lou Reed, Guns ‘n Roses, Richard Marx, Jackson Browne, John Denver and a Soviet rock band, Gorky Park.