Homeplace Under Fire is the story of the frontline, grassroots work of American farm advocates and their thirty-year fight to keep family farmers on the land.
The Farm Crisis of the 1980s drove hundreds of thousands of family farmers into foreclosure. Yet, out of that crisis arose a legion of farm advocates who have refused to stand idly by and watch their way of life go up in flames.
Ordinary Americans taught themselves extraordinary skills. As fellow farmers and rural leaders, they studied laws and regulations, started hotlines, answered farmers’ calls from their kitchen tables, counseled their neighbors, and went toe-to-toe with lenders – giving their all to keep neighbors afloat.
Homeplace Under Fire celebrates these advocates and their remarkable work. Thousands of farmers are alive and in business today because of them. As Willie Nelson says in the film, these advocates are the best of America.
Farm Aid partnered with Charles D. Thompson of the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies to direct this film.