Hope, Beats, and Beets: Tractor's Mad Farmer Tour Rolls into Austin on Solstice

Storytelling takes root at Festival Beach Food Forest

DENVER, June 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- On Friday, June 20, Festival Beach Food Forest will host a free, open-to-all Summer Solstice gathering in collaboration with Tractor Beverage Company's Mad Farmer Tour—a traveling celebration of food, farming, and imagination for a regenerative future.

The tour draws inspiration from poet-farmer Wendell Berry and his Mad Farmer poems, which championed imagination and deep reverence for the land. Tractor's tour channels that same ethos—connecting communities through shared meals, storytelling, and hands-in-the-soil creativity.

"We wanted to plant something meaningful in Austin," said Duke Stump, Chief Brand Officer at Tractor. "This is about bold ideas, hopeful stories, and the kind of community that makes real change possible."

The evening will feature organic beverages from Tractor, live music, hands-on workshops, storytelling sessions, and conversations with artists, farmers, and food visionaries.

Special guests include:

• Dr. Ietef "DJ CAVEM" Vita – Eco hip-hop pioneer and vegan chef redefining food justice through beats and beets
• Leah Thomas – Ecofeminist and founder of Intersectional Environmentalist
  
• Chef Derrell Smith – Culinary storyteller and host of Mad Good Food on Tastemade

This Austin stop also marks the official debut of Tractor Beam, Tractor's bold new Future Farmer's Almanac—a literary platform rooted in what the brand calls soilpunk: visionary storytelling that blends climate optimism, fiction, and radical hope from the ground up.

"We see Tractor Beam as a call to the dreamers, soil-lovers, and future-builders," said Claire Gustavson, co-editor of Tractor Beam. "It's not just about imagining what's possible—it's about telling stories that allow us to see how we can grow it, together."

"The Mad Farmer Tour was born to meet people where they are—on rural farms, urban gardens, and in the heart of their communities," said Alex Ring, Community Director at Tractor. "Festival Beach Food Forest feels like the perfect expression of that ethos: a living, breathing space where people and plants grow side by side."

Located along the shores of Lady Bird Lake, Festival Beach Food Forest is a public edible garden where visitors can forage freely. Designed using permaculture and regenerative principles, it's a model for community stewardship and land-based learning—an oasis of what's possible when humans work with nature, not against it.

Event Details:
Friday, June 20, 2025 — Summer Solstice
Festival Beach Food Forest, Austin, TX
Free & open to all | Family-friendly | Local food & music | Rain or shine

To RSVP or learn more, visit: drinktractor

About Tractor Beverage Company
Tractor Beverage Company crafts Certified Organic, Non-GMO drinks exclusively for foodservice. With the Organic Impact Tracker, Tractor brings radical transparency to every pour. Through the Mad Farmer Tour, the company sparks conversations around food, farming, and the future. With the Farmhand Foundation, Tractor helps farmers transition to organic farming and build healthier soils. Tractor exists to change the way foodservice drinks are made—and to invite people everywhere to fall in love with soil, again. For more information, visit drinktractor.com or follow @drinktractor on Instagram.

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Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis
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SOURCE Tractor Beverage Company