Interview by Kelly Besaw
Photos by Chris Besaw
Syracuse Music Collective sat down with Nathaniel Rateliff before he took the stage at Farm Aid 2024 to discuss his views on issues facing American family farmers.
Syracuse Music Collective: I noticed that you and the band have been playing Farm Aid for several years now, what made you get involved and why do you keep coming back?
Rateliff: I think originally, we were just asked to be a part of it, and I think this is the eighth one. I think I missed one so maybe it is just seven due to covid, but it has been eight years since we started coming. I’m not sure how we initially got invited but after we came the first time, it was something that I told the people who work with us that I was like I want to do this every year because it’s important to us. That led to a discussion that led to us to starting the Marigold Project.
Syracuse Music Collective: As a musician and person of influence, how do you perceive your role and the role of other prevalent influencers in initiating change in our country’s farming practices?
Rateliff: Well, I think information is key you know. One of the reasons we’re here at Farm Aid is to learn and I feel like every year I leave with more information than I came in with and I think just trying to assist with making that information accessible on a larger scale is key in terms of our platform. But you know just continuing to help be a voice is another way. To voice that Farm Aid exists. I don’t know if people know that and people don’t think about food because our culture is such that it is based on instant gratification and capitalism plays into our desires and if anything it creates unnecessary desires to consume without thought or consideration for where products come from whether that be our food or water or anything that we are consuming and even our clothes. You know we still need cotton and other fibers to make what we wear as well and I think that all of that goes back to farms including water, what are we doing with water?
We live in Colorado and forest fire season is a thing that is being talked about in the west and it is no longer a season but happens to be a year-round climate situation that we are dealing with. Even this year, I had a wildfire that broke out directly across from me in my valley and was evacuated for seven days in the little bit of time that I did have at home. Luckily, we didn’t have any damage and neither did the surrounding area. There were no structures burned so in some ways we got lucky that the fire did what it was supposed to do naturally.
That is a long-winded answer, and I apologize. My point is to try to give people information. I think there is so much divisiveness in our country right now that knowing where our food comes from is not about being on any particular side and I think we all just need to figure out how to come together and realize that maybe the capitalists and corporate greed is not on the side of the working class or the people at all.
Syracuse Music Collective: That is a great answer. I think you pretty much answered my next question, but I am going to ask it anyway. Year after year we gather at Farm Aid to shed light on the issues facing family farmers in America and the core issues seem to remain the same. Why do you think our country has been so slow to see legislative change and real solutions to solve those core issues family farmers face?
Rateliff: At the core of that, we have a problem in the structure of our system in that politicians when you talk about their job it’s a political career to each individual you know and I know there are some politicians out there who are trying to do good work but they are trying to do good work with the benefit of expanding their own personal career and then you have gerrymandering and things that allow people to hold office for longer terms than necessary and then they continue to work toward their own personal agenda continuing to advance their own career and the way to advance their own career is to be in the pockets of big business and corporate greed and capitalism. I think the idea of capitalism is great that we all have an opportunity to rise from nothing into creating greatness. I have been fortunate enough to come from nothing and I have no education and I’m here. So, some of that is true but really the way the system is set up, there’s an unfair advantage for people who already come from wealth. You have the issue of nepotism and generational wealth that is an unfair advantage on this supposed idea of capitalism that doesn’t really work with those things because we continue to feed into those same families who have always had money. It’s hard to… I don’t know how that will change, and it feels like the pendulum is going to have to swing pretty hard another way and potentially even see some of our system fall apart and I think we are seeing the early stages of that now. I feel like we will reap the repercussions of corporate greed and I’m not sure that the families that have generational wealth will feel the same pains. So, I don’t know if that changes and I don’t know if everybody sees it that way either because we are pitted against each other and the country is actually founded on that.
Syracuse Music Collective: Politicians don’t get far in their careers if they don’t sell their soul at some point.
Rateliff: Exactly! I’ve got four more years until I am fifty and then I will start running for office (chuckles).
Syracuse Music Collective: That would be great. You’ve got my vote. We really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today. Can’t’ wait to see your set later.
Rateliff: Thank you. See you then.
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