Dear John,

We have VERY exciting news to share! Margo Price and Annie Nelson have joined the Farm Aid Board of Directors. Their backgrounds and interests make them valuable members of our board.

Margo grew up on an Illinois farm that went under during the Farm Crisis of the 1980s. She has been a staunch advocate for Farm Aid’s mission long before her first performance at Farm Aid 2016 in Bristow, Virginia. And, she has not missed a Farm Aid festival since!

Annie Nelson, who met husband Willie Nelson shortly after the first Farm Aid in 1985, has always helped out behind the scenes at the festival. She's also worked for decades standing up for family farm agriculture and finding ways to create opportunities for local, independent farmers. We couldn't be more thrilled to welcome these two extraordinary women to Farm Aid!

Thinking of starting a garden this spring? Peas are one of the first crops you can plant. All it takes is a little bit of space, seeds and some know-how.

Check out our Growing Peas HOMEGROWN 101 and learn how to get started.

Cooking: This past month we've been cooking from the book Recipes from Turtle Island, which our friends at Slow Food USA compiled from indigenous chefs. Among these chefs is Elena Terry, who was a vendor for Farm Aid's HOMEGROWN Concessions in 2019. Check out her recipe for Blue Corn Milkweed Pods with Green Chile & Chokecherry Sauce.

Watching: Minari is a beautifully filmed story of a Korean-American family who move to Arkansas to start a farm in the 1980s. All too often, stories about immigrants (and farmers, for that matter) fit neatly into well-trodden archetypes, but this film took the fully-realized characters to unexpected places.

Listening to: There's a new Neil Young album! Young Shakespeare was recorded live in Connecticut in 1971 and transports the listener to a different time and place. We could picture ourselves in that audience a few weeks before Harvest was released. It's amazing to hear Neil casually introduce songs that went on to influence our lives, and the music world, over the past 50 years.

Reading: The Seed Keeper By Diane Wilson tells the story of Rosalie Iron Wing, a Dakhóta woman who was removed from her family, community and culture, and placed in foster care with a white family. As an adult, Rosalie finds peace in gardening using traditions she retained and those of her husband, a farmer dealing with the technological advances of agriculture. Through seeds, Rosalie finds a way back to all she thought she lost.