Farms Race: The Obama's White House Garden Has Given Fire to an International Movement

Why doesn't Mid America CropLife Association bag up that horse$!%? that they are churning out and sell it as fertilizer. Doesn't the name Mid America CropLife sound so down home and wholesome? It makes me want to sit on my porch and roast some yummy GMO corn!

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Most gardeners and environmentalists, while thrilled by the Obamas's veg garden, are saying: Good start, but what about making sure there's no environmental damage being done on the White House grounds? First and foremost, get the South Lawn off drugs. Ditto the sickly hybrid tea roses in the Rose Garden. And how about increasing the wildlife habitat? And many here in DC suspect that stormwater there is being rushed directly into the city's overloaded system and contributing to pollution in the Cheseapeake. And so on.

So to encourage America's First Families (including governors and mayors in addition to the Obamas) to switch to sustainable landscaping is Green the Grounds.org, a national media movement designed to do what Roger Dorion's Eat the View did for growing food. So far, the only green examples among governors are Ohio, Maryland, and New York. Maria Shriver's office tells me their statehouse grounds are sustainable but I haven't received detailed info about that yet (though I'm optimistic).

So while we're lauding all these new kitchen gardens, let's also make sure to Do No Harm on these high-visibility landscapes, and use them to teach homeowners to likewise be responsible in their gardening practices.

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I'm thrilled about the reaction we're getting from all sides about the White House "Organic" garden. It seems Ghandi-esk to foment this kind of reaction with veggies.

Go Garden!!

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Good on 'em - may they continue to inspire!
xox

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My article about Gardening and Monsanto was #4 on 3/21/2009 at Opednews but has mysteriously been deleted from my authors page. However it was published on many other sites, i.e. Marketoracle.

Grandmother Scores Huge Victory over Monsanto
Written by Robert Singer

We are having trouble figuring out why Monsanto made Percy Schmeiser a hero for the growing movement against GMOs, but we don’t have to look very far to find out why Monsanto director of public affairs Brad Mitchell is debating Linn Cohen-Cole, a Grandmother on Opednews.

Linn’s most popular Opednews articles in the last 6 months (by Page Views)

#2 Goodbye farmers markets, CSAs, and roadside stands
#4 Monsanto's dream bill, HR 875
#12 Monsanto bills being rushed through Congress, set to destroy organic farming.
#37 Raids on Seeds (LIFE, itself) ... by Monsanto
#49 Farming: Why Obama's government is George Wallace, Monsanto is the KKK.

Although her articles are posted to assorted blogs and websites they don’t appear on Huffington Post, Daily Kos or other mainstream sites. So why is Opednews experiencing on-going denial of service attacks and Brad Mitchell pointing out the obvious problems with Linn’s arguments? [1]

As employees of Monsanto, our reactions alternate between amusement and incredulousness. Nowhere on the Web have we seen so much outlandish misinformation about Monsanto in one place. We’ve considered writing responses in the comment section of each post, but frankly none of us have the time to correct so much misinformation.

OrangeClouds115 at Daily Kos does an even better job explaining the truth about HR 875, "The Bill That Will Kill All Farms and Eat Your Babies"
I've got a number of things on my radar but there's one very stupid thing that is causing a huge commotion for no good reason. It's HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act, a bill by Rosa DeLauro with about 40 cosponsors (mostly progressives) and no chance of passing (yet). The bill is flawed. It's not perfect. She's introduced it into previous Congresses without this much fanfare and panic among the blogs. So let's get the facts straight so that I don't have to see any more erroneous and crazy, paranoid diaries on the rec list.

Don’t get me wrong, I wrote “Scared to Codex Death” of Monsanto and “They Call It ‘Pharming’ And It’s Phrightening!” 6 months ago: but HR 875, 876, 877 or 878 will probably pass thanks to Monsanto’s “unelected” representatives in the Congress regardless of Linn’s unrelenting attacks.

Irrespective, Round 1 has been decided and it goes to Linn Cohen-Cole and the urban farming movement.

Linn and the urban farming movement are threatening Monsanto’s ability to control the people.. with food (controlling oil is for nations).

Thanks to Linn and urban gardeners, a very loud and important conversation about Food is finally taking place in America and around the world.

People are finally asking the obvious questions: Who controls the food? Where does it come from? Is it healthy? Will there be anything to eat? And why has it been so cheap for so long?

And the question that scares Monsanto to death
Why don’t I and all of my neighbors just grow our own food...on one square foot of land? [2]

The conversation at Starbucks is no longer about which stocks or houses are going up but which vegetables sprout the fastest and how many crops can I get in before winter.

Read the entire article

Grandmother Scores

and the sequel

The Monsanto Connection

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If she's never tended a garden before, Michelle is about to find out that weeds do not proliferate when the garden is well mulched, and mulching helps maintain moisture in the soil, and deters pests. In any case, digging, weeding, planting and mulching are the joys of gardening, done in the spring time when everyone wants to be outdoors. Keeping a garden is physical work, just enough to make you feel wonderful, and is a highly functioning symbol of that inner work that we all need.

Go first lady! The good of your simple act will be so far reaching, and the best reward will be earth's bounty on your table.

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They wanna grow cool gardens just like you dudette !

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P.U. -- The bad grammar in sentence #1 alone of Monsanto's letter (quoted in this article) makes me wonder about what the continuous ingesting of chemically-fertilized foods does to the brain:

"..the Obama[']s...and their guests..." WHY do you put the possessive apostrophe where it does not belong? This word is PLURAL, not POSSESSIVE. Yech. Awful. Stupid. But !HARK! -- read on:

"...the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun...and I shudder."

That makes ME shudder. And retch. I can't get around this one: "makes...Janet...and [I]... shudder." Makes I shudder? How utterly vomitatious.

Sorry. If someone writing an "official" letter from a "professional" standpoint has this faulty a command of her native tongue, then I simply will not take that letter, or the writer, seriously. Either she was very badly educated or she is too lazy to write (e.g. think and organize effectively) a proper sentence/paragraph. Makes me question the soundness of her entire viewpoint.

Hey, Monsanto -- I go waaaay out of my way to avoid buying anything chemical to aid in my garden's growth. And...I am not alone.

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Enjoyable article!

Seems strange, though, that anyone would write about the White House garden without mentioning Michael Pollan's tremendously influential NY Times piece, "Farmer in Chief" , or the Brockmans' White House Farmer group.

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Come on, now is the time to dust off Carter's Solar Panels and put them back to work!!!

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see to it that it happens. Veggie gardens, solar panels, wind turbines, etc ... are going to be mainstream as Peak Oil catches up to us all. The way I see it, planting a veggie garden and the hostile reactions from Big Agri is a strong signal. Big Agri relies on crude oil supplies for all their junk processing needs. While Peak Oil will slowly but steadily continue to catch up to us all, we might have a better chance of defeating Big Agri.

In addition, given our unfortunate lack of true leadership, we must not let Congress and the White House sell us out with policies such as HR875 and similar. If we had real represenation, HR 676 and not HR 875 would be given a higher priority.

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No matter what she does the world loves her. It doesn't take much. I find that remarkable. Times are not good, but I believe this very American family (and dog) in the White House is the best thing to happen to us in a long time. It's not a cure all by any means, but it certinly can't hurt. People can't wait to see her coming and she has a way of making them feel better when she gets there. Anna

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How is the garden doing? We're having another miserably cold spring here in Klamath County, Or., and if I'd have started a garden when you did, all I'd have to show for it would be blackned stumps, due to frost. It was fourteen degrees here a few days after you started your garden. Rocks seem to do well here, though.

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As soon as the "little people" start making decisions for themselves like "I don't want chemicals, genetically altered stuff, pesticides in my kid's of my food the gloves come off. Same goes for energy, water, communications etc. These huge mega corps are all for democracy as long as THEY can call the shots. When WE the people start voting with our feet in the marketplace they scream and cry "RIGHTS!!" "DEMOCRACY", "NO FAIR" as loud as the bully who gets it back on the playground. The paid whores and media shills are put into motion as we can see with this "organic garden" dustup. Like the US "representative" of the people who claimed altenative energy was the greatest threat to democracy ever. Question is, WHOSE democracy?

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or persons or groups attempting to be individuals

vigorously suppressed & oppressed BY AMERIKKKAN corporations & media

& ONE FUCKING GARDEN is supposed to be a 'gee, look at what Americans can do for you & your activism'

are you shitting me?
get over yourselves!

stop kicking the World in the teeth.

we'd really call that CHANGE.

~1,700 East Indian farmers committed suicide *last month* based in large part of the efforts of AmeriKKKan corporate influences & pressures of fucking EVIL institutions like Monsanto & Coca-Cola.

come on, get over yourselves.

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Yes! And what if Monsanto and friends could distribute fertilizer bought from dairies producing chemical-free, antibiotic-free, growth hormone-free milk? How would that affect our streams and rivers? Instead of lobbying for more petrochemical supporting legislation, Monsanto and friends could move forward for the benefit of all!

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