Neil Young speaks out on the Farm Aid funding controversy

A little more than a week ago, the Chicago Tribune ran a story charging the Farm Aid organization gives just 28 % of the money it raises to family farmers. The goal of Farm Aid is of course, to raise money for family farmers.

At a pre-Farm Aid concert press conference last Sunday, an angry Neil Young tore a copy of the Chicago Tribune in half.

Neil's calmed down slightly since then, and is quoted here in today's Chicago Tribune, while being interviewed by the Trib's Geg Kot.

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(Greg Kot writes)

Clearly, Young had plenty to discuss with his visitor. But the first order of business was Farm Aid and the Tribune article. In response to Young's remarks and a phone conversation with the artist last week, James O'Shea, the Tribune's managing editor, said: "The Tribune stands by its story."Young said he'd be talking to his lawyers about filing a lawsuit.

Young: "We've enjoyed a lot of respect and support from people over the years, especially here in Chicago," he said, "and we have to let people know they can't do this to us."

Q. You're taking this personally.

A. Yes, I am. This is going to turn into something as big as I can make it. I'm going to try to do everything I can to rattle the cages of the people responsible and to let them know that if you try this again, the same thing will happen. [The article] has been on CNN and all the wire services. It's been distributed around the country. The fallout is as bad as you could imagine. The potential is that it damages Farm Aid's reputation to the point where we can't help the farmers. If everybody believed it, it would be very undermining. We're a grass-roots organization. We've been taking on corporate entities for a long time trying to protect the family farm. And frankly this article looks like it came from a corporate entity. I'm not going to back off, unless we get cooperation, a retraction, some sort of a sign in the paper that is agreeable to us that this was irresponsible, not factual, and slanted. If we can't get that we're going full on the attack. This is a severe blow that needs to be answered.