Pesticide Lobby Bugged by Michelle Obama’s White House Organic Garden
Are you worried that an organic garden on the White House grounds might cause some Americans to start eating a wide variety of chemical-free, locally grown produce? The Mid America CropLife Association, a lobbying group for agribusinesses giants, is.
Just a few days after Michelle Obama invited local fifth graders to help plant the White House Kitchen Garden, the MACA, a group which represents and is comprised of former executives from Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and DuPont Crop Protection, sent the White House a letter (which can be viewed in its entirety here) expressing their disappointment that she had not “recognize[d] the role conventional agriculture plays in the US.”
But that’s not all. The group went on to provide a dose of propaganda educational information, including little known fact that “technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.” Drawing a clear line between technology, undefined, and sustainability does not, in the strictest terms, suggest the group’s total disapproval of organic farming methods.
That outright statement came in an email MACA sent their members shortly after sending the first lady aforementioned letter, in which they said that the idea of an organic garden “made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.” [italics mine].
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MACA also informed Michelle Obama of the apparent causality between agricultural engineering and national pre-eminence in just about every field:
If Americans were still required to farm to support their family’s basic food and fiber needs, would the US have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?
At least one group is reacting to the new War on Homegrown Tarragon.
Quickly responding to MACA’s below the beltway tactics, Credo, the mobile phone company founded on the principle of social responsibility, has launched a campaign asking concerned citizens to “Tell the Pesticide Peddlers: We support Michelle Obama’s organic garden.”
How ungrateful of Credo, which evidently fails to realize that, were it not for the “advancement in…communication” made possible by agricultural engineering, they would not even exist.
Photo Credit: White House blog
Hi
Going organic or using man-made pesticides is a choice, like most things are in this country. Personally, I try to buy organic whenever possible. It would be awesome if the companies that sell pesticides take some energy to re-invent themselves and provide organic products in addition to what they have on the market today.
I’m shuddering, but it’s not from anything the First Lady is doing.
These pesticide companies are a pestilence.
I love your characterizing it as the War on Homegrown Tarragon.
Keep on blogging for sustainable, safe living!
OK, I don’t believe that the Obamas can possibly represent EVERYONE’S Interests in America, whether it be commercial, non-commercial, personal or communal. The Obamas made the garden with the sole concept of eating healthily. Why do these corporations have to take it as a slap to their face, I simply do not know. It’s as good as saying that if the Obamas are rightly telling their daughters that it is bad to smoke, that it is a slap to the faces of the cigarette/tobacco corporations.
Get a grip, and don’t be so sensitive!
I think the organic bunch are similar to the flower children of the 60’s - bloomin idiots!
Unless you want to go back to living in caves that is.
When you are in the lion’s den, you should not ask a lion for the way out. Don’t look to the corporations that led us into food insecurity for a solution. Good for you Michelle Obama. Follow your heart.
I don’t think the MACA people are understanding that they’re not going to bring the people back to the 1700s by planting a garden.
Sheesh. Talk about over-generalizing.
I think its great that they have a garden, and that they’re teaching kids where food comes from. Maybe kids wouldn’t be so overweight if they didn’t believe that corn comes out of a bag of chips.
Its not like everyone is going to garden and never buy food again. Most of us would starve. I’m one of those people. I can’t garden at my apartment. I don’t buy organic (excepting a few items where it really counts).
Some of the most entertaining times when I was a child was when we planted and cared for our family garden and got fresh lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans and peas. It was fun!
I put the link to the petition on my blog. What a bunch of oversensitive babies, thinking the President’s family garden is going to make everyone go back to raising their own food.
I raise organic and I try to buy organic. I was willing to live and let live until the started trying to outlaw organic methods. Now I think the pesticide companies executives should be tried as war criminals, as they have declared war on our health in the name of profits! They have declared war on organic farmers and gardeners, now it’s time we fought back!
a shovel at a time, a seed at a time, we may assume self control, one by one to restore the balance.
the pesticide peddlers need not worry overtime, if past observations presage the future, plenty people will run to the small bottles department for killer solutions at first sight of a (gasp) bug on their precious newborn lettuce.
so conditioned are most gardeners that a modicum of perfection is expected in nature, fertilizers and herbicides will fly off the shelves to stave off those awful spots on the re-discovered beauty of vegetable gardening.
it is indeed comforting to observe a prominent family promoting healthful projects. time to take responsibility.
I agree with the person who wrote that the pesticide developers would do well to take a lesson from the First Lady. They have destroyed agriculture as it has been known for thousands of years, with only an eye for their own profit. Boo Monsanto, Dow and Dupont.
Listen…
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That was the world’s tiniest violin playing, “My Heart Bleeds For You” to the MACA.
rotflmao