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Big Agriculture takes umbrage at Mrs Obama's organic garden

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
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SUPER Site Supporter
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...as/article6146396.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

Big Agriculture takes umbrage at Mrs Obama's organic garden


America's powerful agribusiness lobby has hit back at Michelle Obama's decision to make her new White House kitchen garden entirely organic, urging her to consider the use of appropriate "crop protection products".
Wearing her finest Jimmy Choo boots, Mrs Obama broke the ground on her vegetable plot on the White House lawn last month, enlisting the help of local schoolchildren to help make a point about the need to tackle childhood obesity.



The kitchen garden is White House's first since Eleanor Roosevelt "dug for victory" in the Second World War, and pictures of the photogenic First Lady getting to work gained massive worldwide coverage.



To the anger of Big Ag, however, Mrs Obama has aligned herself with the growing movement of "locavores", people who grow their own fruit and vegetables at home or try to buy only locally-grown food. The principles of organic gardening, which focuses on building healthy soil, mean that she will not be able to use chemical products to tackle pests or give her plants a boost.



Shortly after she got to work on the plot, Mrs Obama received a letter from the Mid-America CropLife Association (MACA), which represents the companies producing the pesticides and fertilisers underpinning "conventional" American agriculture.



Addressed to "Mrs Barack Obama", the letter congratulated the First Lady on "recognising the importance of agriculture in America". Farming is America's largest industry, generating 20 per cent of GDP and directly or indirectly employing 22 million people.



The letter does not mention the word "organic", nor even "pesticide" or "fertiliser" but highlights the role played by farmers in preventing soil erosion and the massive yields achievable thanks to technological advances - technologies that can see a single acre produce almost 20 tonnes of strawberries of 110,000 heads of lettuce in a season.



"Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today," MACA wrote.



"If Americans were still required to farm to support their family's basic food and fibre needs, would the US have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?
"We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and ageing parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs."



The letter "respectfully" encourages Mrs Obama to recognise the role played by conventional agriculture in feeding America's growing population and is carefully worded not to be provocative.



But Bonnie McCarvel, the MACA executive director, was not so diplomatic in an e-mail forwarding the letter to MACA supporters and members, in which she said: "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made (us) shudder."



More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition supporting Mrs Obama and asking MACA to stop its "propaganda about pesticides".
"Stop asserting that the First Lady is somehow disserving our nation's citizens by encouraging them to grow their own food locally, sustainably and without your industry's chemicals," the petition says. "We know better and you should, too."
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
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I will have to give a big THUMBS UP to Mrs Obama for the symbolism of the garden. I believe that big agriculture is actually a threat to us, companies like Monsanto are effectively forcing legislation through that will make it difficult for organic production to exist in the marketplace and those that still produce organically will face many legal and financial obstacles in their path between them and the consumer.

Now is Mrs Obama going to actually do anything with her garden? Or is this going to affect policies? Or will this actually inspire people to take up gardening and even try their hand at organic gardening? To those questions I have no answer.

But anyone who kicks Monstanto in the ass gets some level of credit from me.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
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I think everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt. You can't let companies like Monsanto set laws and define the industry but at the same time we can't get the crop productivity and density from Organic. Organic farming is not able to meet the levels of production that are required to meet the ever growing populations. Additionally, Organic farming may be less efficient on many fronts than conventional farming.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I agree with everything you just said, but the reality is that Monsanto IS trying to dictate our laws.

One of the problems we have in the US is that we used to feed the world, we are now a net importer of food from other nations! I think we really need to look back to our grandparents and their little garden plots and the fruit tree (or two) they had in their yard. My grandparents had a small patch garden in Whiting, IN which is an industrial town stuck squarely between Chicago's old Wisconsin Steel Works and the largest Standard Oil (later Amoco, now BP) refinery in the world. They didn't buy Miracle Grow, they tossed their used coffee grounds into the garden. They made pie from the cherries that their tree produced. They put up a few jars of food for the winter. They got by just fine. And that was the norm. Now you can't find gardens in most places and out in the suburbs where people have more land they even fewer gardens, and the trees have been bred to produce flowers without fruit (Bradford Pear).

We'd become a food exporter again if only 10% of the suburban homes grew SOME small amount of their own food.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
I agree with everything you just said, but the reality is that Monsanto IS trying to dictate our laws.

One of the problems we have in the US is that we used to feed the world, we are now a net importer of food from other nations! I think we really need to look back to our grandparents and their little garden plots and the fruit tree (or two) they had in their yard. My grandparents had a small patch garden in Whiting, IN which is an industrial town stuck squarely between Chicago's old Wisconsin Steel Works and the largest Standard Oil (later Amoco, now BP) refinery in the world. They didn't buy Miracle Grow, they tossed their used coffee grounds into the garden. They made pie from the cherries that their tree produced. They put up a few jars of food for the winter. They got by just fine. And that was the norm. Now you can't find gardens in most places and out in the suburbs where people have more land they even fewer gardens, and the trees have been bred to produce flowers without fruit (Bradford Pear).

We'd become a food exporter again if only 10% of the suburban homes grew SOME small amount of their own food.

What? You want people to get their hands dirty?:shifty:
 

muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Corporate farms are driving the family farmers out of business. On a similar note the new ag. secretary is trying to institute the microchip tagging of all livestock. They have been beating this idea around for years. The big producers would be exempt from having to do it but the little guys would be forced to spend a small fortune to implement it.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Corporate farms are driving the family farmers out of business. On a similar note the new ag. secretary is trying to institute the microchip tagging of all livestock. They have been beating this idea around for years. The big producers would be exempt from having to do it but the little guys would be forced to spend a small fortune to implement it.

Yup this tagging requirement would even apply to someone who has a half dozen chickens in a back yard coop and takes eggs to the local "farmers market" in town. Its a BAD thing.

Monsanto, ConAgra and the corporate farm lobby are going to totally screw up our ability to feed ourselves and drive us further into a net food importing nation so we can get fruit from Chavez and other friendly dictators.
 

muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
That is why I have never gotten away from raising my own food and eating wild game. When it hits the fan and it will soon I won't have to worry about eating imported stuff fertilized with human waste. The quality and safety of foreign food scares me almost as much as our current government.
 
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