Neil Young Refuses to Play Venues ‘Fed by Factory Farms’

Neil Young is refusing to play live performance venues that use manufacturing unit farms, a choice that might critically jeopardize his capacity to tour.

“When I look at the compromise that I would have to make to do that, the things that I don’t believe in, that I’d have to endorse, it doesn’t turn me on,” Young defined throughout an interview with Canada’s CBC Radio.

Factory farming is a type of industrial livestock manufacturing, aimed to maximize product and decrease prices. It has come underneath harsh scrutiny for practices that many individuals think about to be merciless to animals, in addition to being detrimental to the atmosphere. Though controversial, the observe is nonetheless prevalent, with just about each main foodservice and catering firm receiving not less than a few of their meals provide from a manufacturing unit farm.

Though Young — a staunch environmentalist and supporter of sustainable household farming — can take measures to make his tour as inexperienced as attainable, there’s little he can do a couple of venue’s catering contracts.

“I can deal with the power for the venue, I can make it clean. I can make the P.A. clean, the lights clean, the electricity in the building clean. I can clean up all my vehicles. I’ve got the right fuel. I can do all of that. But the food — all those places are fed by factory farms,” the rocker famous.

“I can’t support it,” Young continued, admitting he’d need “good food that has to be clean food, sustainably grown, and presented in a sustainable way.”

“Unless the venues are clean, and that they work that way, I won’t be there,” the singer declared.

Young’s final public dwell live performance came about in September 2019, although he has performed a spattering of personal performances since then. The rocker beforehand mentioned he was avoiding a return to the highway out of warning surrounding the COVID pandemic. “Things have to be underneath management and going in a single path for some time earlier than I’m going to exit and play,” he explained in December 2021.

Now, almost a year later, it appears his concerns over factory farming may continue to keep Young from touring.

“I’ve seen an excessive amount of,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer declared. “I can not do it. I consider in what I consider, and it is grounded in science. I do know what is going on on within the planet, what prompted it, what we’re persevering with to do, and I can not help buildings, organizations and firms that won’t change that. If they alter it, then I can think about going.”