Whoever wrote this story is an illiterate moron.

Pangolin,

I almost put this part in the post but didn’t want to take the space. Oops. It’s a complex question reaching into every aspect of life—for just one example, the nuclear family may have to be re-extended (possibly redefined, however).

Jefferson had slaves; we have energy slaves. Each of us in the US has the energy equivalent of about 200 slaves, as far as I can tell from quick calculations. Although we need to rapidly and drastically reduce our use of fossil and nuclear fuels, and significantly reduce our energy use in general by increasing efficiency and changing our lives in ways exactly like this, we may still have a considerable energy advantage we can use to save time on necessities and still be able to care for our children and aging parents—better than they’re cared for now. Michelangelo and George Washington Carver didn’t have slaves and yet did OK. Whether people farm or do other things to support themselves and their families is not the issue. Either way they will support them; their work and desires will determine what is valorized, and produced, and invented. We lead the world in invention and production of trivialities and destructive products—weapons, Viagra, whole industrial systems for allowing infertile people to produce children that cost more than some people make in their whole lives, vast wasteland realms of entertainment… When we get our priorities back to basics which help people, we will become leaders in those fields—wind and solar energy, preservation of wilderness, farmland, wetlands, wild species and heirloom crops and livestock breeds, ecological knowledge, permaculture (aka ‘how to fit in with your local ecosystem and still make a living’) and other useful sciences and technologies. Leading the world in the science of killing a thousand different ways is our great shame, not something to brag about.

Household/homesteading permaculture (actually “dynamically durable agriculture”; it’s arrogant to think of anything we do as permanent) does not necessarily require bank investments and should be a major part of our transformation. We have, it seems, available people power at the moment to do it, as things were done by the WPA. The investment may be compensated for with less television and Facebook, instead, so less time, money, creativity and thought given to advertising, and who can argue with that?

As a preemptive answer to your next objection, that it can’t be done that way… in just a couple of years we grew 40% of our vegetables in gardens when inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Garden, and despite our more urban population, can take a similar direction again. Given more than a couple of years and probably increasing motivation as climate changes begin to take apart civilization, (or actions exactly like this avoid that fate), we should be able to produce more than enough to force corporate ag to change. Money we spend shifts constantly and one more shift will be, in some ways, no big deal. In other ways, of course, such a shift would be revolutionary, but that’s another subject.

Actually, since farmers own less than 20% of the land they farm they mostly work for corporations, and whether those corporations are in hock enough to be considered bank property is also another question.

And the question is in a way, moot. That 20 tonnes (an unusually high figure; the average is considerably less) is bought at an unsustainable, currently externalized price in soil loss, water loss and fouling, community destruction, energy use and global heating, etc. We cannot forever externalize it. The reintegration of that price in the visible price we pay is happening now, and not just in the food biz. It is one way to look at the current economic collapse. When it happens (not if) to agriculture the transformation may look like exactly what I’m talking about.

See Wikipedia and www.manicore.com/anglais/documentation_a/slaves.html for energy slave stuff.

Hasn't BigAg poisoned us enough already? These are people with absolutely no morals or ethical standards. All they care to see is the money. Shame on them and BRAVO!!! Mrs. Obama.

“The letter … highlights the role of technological advances … that can see a single acre produce almost 20 tonnes of strawberries…

Permaculture, with integrated plant (and animal) communities, can approach or equal in total biomass the yields of “conventional” agriculture (the dominant form for less than 50 of the last 10,000 years, 1/200th of the time we’ve been growing crops. More damage has been done by this agriculture to soil, water, land, world ecology and human society than all the other 99.5% of the time combined—an inevitable consequence of dependence on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, monocultures and an emphasis on yield above all else.

"Today… Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors.
Due largely to diet, life expectancy is now going down in the US. Our diet is in part determined by policies favoring low-fiber, high-fat, carcinogenic and other disease-causing diets with high levels of meat and dairy products, fried foods, overprocessed foods which come from the factory farm with less nutritionthan organic food that gets lower with transport and processing. The consumption of such foods is partly determined by racial, class, and regional inequalities exacerbated by the dominance of corporations.

"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?”

Ask Thomas Jefferson, who had time to run a farm, run experiments with crops, keep detailed journals of them, run a country, invent gadgets and advances in more fields than most people know exist, and write some document or other about freedom and rights and putting together a country. No one is suggesting requiring anyone to grow their own; the US is anything but a leader in transportation; and conservatives constantly cut federal, state and local funding for the arts, from elementary school to adulthood. So what are they talking about?

"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…”

I assume the MACA is being intentionally dense; it’s hard to believe people who’ve been away from the farm obtaining advanced degrees in marketing, law and chemistry could really be so stupid as to not guess that people who grew a substantial part of their food could not only quit one of their jobs and watch the kids while both the kids and parents helped, but that their lives and relationships would be better for it. Our lives differ from our grandparents’ partly because we’re on an ever-faster treadmill we can’t get off, of needing job money to pay for things we can’t do for ourselves because we work so much because we need to pay for things we don’t have time for because…

Isn’t it amazing that the minds of these people are so full of rage and fear they can’t let even tiny remnants of life, freedom and wildness exist.

And if you don't USE ORGANIC as you CHOSE,

You will LOSE and will be very abused

By AG-biggie-Biz'z neurotoxic OOOZZZE

Oh the humanity !

PLease see our talented reporter Tracey Ullman as Campbell Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4eTbfp74o&feature=player_embedded

Namaste

Next Mr Chips is going to complain when she bakes cookies.

So, have I got this straight? Agriculture lobby = toxin lobby?

LeeAnnG

Several years ago, I began gardening and decided to go completely organic. It's taken a very long time to build up my clay soil with mulch, compost, and wagon loads of composted cow manure. I still have areas with only a couple of inches of good top soil, but it gets better every year. I live in the hills of West Virginia, and I have piles of leaves which I spread as mulch, use as a base under my potatoes, and pile up around my fence to keep weeds from infiltrating. My entire garden is inside a fence because the deer are everywhere.

As noted by MikeCorbeil, spraying with water does not get rid of all the pests. I have had problems with cabbage moths, and I use a tablespoon of Dr. Bronner's lavender soap with one or two drops of essential oils (penny royal, cedar, citronella, and lemon) mixed in 16 oz. of water as a spray. It washes off easily (and also in the rain and must be reapplied from time to time) and is not harmful to anything but the bugs. This mix is also great for an insect repellant and the soap with the oils is a great shampoo to eliminate fleas and ticks.

There are good books about companion plants and some sites on the Internet where the information can be found. Last year I didn't companion plant, and I put my cabbages near my pole beans. Neither did well at all. For anyone who is gardening, it's worth the effort to find out which plants "like" each other and which ones don't.

Organic does taste better. Homegrown organic is better still. Right now, I have asparagus ready to pick; lettuce and spinach large enough for salads; cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, onions, beets, carrots, potatoes, and peas coming up; turnips, tomatoes, peppers, and basil planted; and a whole box of other seeds and some herb plants waiting to go in the ground. I now work full time, so all of this is done evenings and weekends. It is a lot of work, but I still have time to visit family out of state, paint, practice my guitar, and play a lot of poker.

It's easier in the country, but I have city dwelling friends who get an amazing amount of produce from backyard gardens. So good for Michelle Obama.

Speaking of which - Mrs. Barack Obama??? How quaint and sexist!

Did anyone else notice that the picture is of red leaf lettuce when he little sign say's arugula? Oops!

"Iganic. No ferti."
-Aston "Family Man" Barrett, The Wailers bassist

YOU GO GIRL!!! LET'S RUN THEM OUT OF BUSINESS. EVERY ONE WHO CAN PLANT ANYTHING - JUST DO IT!!!!

I've additionally read that farming crops with synthetic fertilizers produces crops, sure, but with much less nutritional value than when the crops are grown naturally, like organically, or with environmentally safe or "friendly", sustainable, ... methods. The statistics on nutritional value that I had read were definitely [striking]. I can't say that they were true, but I believe that even if the statistics were exaggerated, then they're probably still true enough to matter. After all, deep tilling and use of synthetic, ... chemical fertilizers depletes soil fertility, so it's not difficult to understand that this will impact upon nutritional value of food crops.

"samosamo April 23rd, 2009 9:11 pm

The big ag industry would much rather kill or poison everybody to maintain the hold on corporate food supplies."

YOU MEAN like with the Chicanos in California, who are poisoned ... to death and miserable health conditions so that BigAgri can profit from selling all of its damn synthetic chemicals for agri, f.e.?!

A farmer I worked for, as a farmhand, for two full summer seasons back in the 1980s lost his wife quite young to cancer and evidently because she worked in the lab where she mixed the synthetic chemicals used on the farm for pesticides, etcetera. She was a fine person alright, but the chemical industry "did her in". Definitely [no] friend is there in such an industry; although much the same applies to probably most, if not all, large industries. Sh*t, even the organic farmy industry has its monetary predators, but at least they're farming organically; just that they're price-gougers. Not all of them are though and I get some organics at a small grocery store for less than the same, but non-organic vegetables cost in large grocery store chains. It's not true for all organics I buy, but is for some of them, and I'm not speaking of imported organics.

"mookins April 23rd, 2009 9:37 pm

I think we need to grow our food the way marijuana's grown: hydroponically, under lights."

I DON'T THINK SO, and marijuana grown outdoors, in the field, is [better]; just that northern climates aren't particularly good for the non-native plant. With hydroponics, the marijuana doesn't taste as good (neither do greenhouse ... any vegetables compared to field-grown under the full and direct sun!), and the "high" isn't the same, being more pleasant with naturally grown, field-grown, ... crop.

Vegetables that naturally grow in water can certainly be grown in water by us; it's the way they naturally grow. But soil-based plants are the way NATURE made them and Mom knows best!

"wint April 23rd, 2009 9:43 pm

Pesticide free is called weeding and killing bugs can be done with a strong spray of water from a hose or just the act of pinching them to death."

Strong sprays of water won't do for some, if not many, plants, which would be damaged, and in addition to handling insects, the nuisance pest kind, by hand, which is not always a simple solution, depending on the amount of acreage being cropped, for small lots okay, but for much land, no; well, there're two very good methods and they're known as using companion plants and beneficial predatory insects. I haven't used those two methods myself, having personally handled garden insects, harmful ones, by hand in my garden, as well as having used the spreading of wood ash at the base of some plants, like cabbage family crops, f.e., though still got 2 cabbage worms, which were a sinch to spot and get rid of; but know some people who successfully use companion plants, and have read enough about beneficial predatory insects, which certainly make a very sensible, great solution, if you can get them and then keep them in your garden. I don't know how easy it is to keep them in your garden though.

Experts will be able to answer such questions and surely have the answers by now.

With that said, the following article provides a link to a marketskeptics.com page for videos on droughts around the Earth, globally, some very extreme droughts. The link for the videos is in the paragraph immediately preceding the subheading for 'China', just beneath the maps at the beginning of the article.

"Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production",
by Eric deCarbonnel
Global Research, February 10, 2009
Market Oracle

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12252

In the videos page there's a video for Europe and it's entitled, 'Desert of Europe'. If it's the same that I had viewed back in February, then the video includes an important part on Portugal, where the severe drought is NOT due to lack of rains, but due to BAD agricultural techniques; deep tilling and all of the damn synthetic chemical fertilizers, etcetera.

I definitely recommend viewing that particular video given this page is on the topic of BigAgri, though also recommend viewing several of the other videos. Two on extreme drougt conditions due to lack of rains are the ones for Australia and Texas, though, now that I'm recalling this, also videos for So. America, some of the countries there anyway.

Lack of rain and deep tilling surely will be a compounding disaster, because deep tilling seriously depletes soil moisture by exposing too much of the soil to air and thereby causing faster evaporation; I'll add. Mixing compost and some clay, with or for soils that lack clay, that is, can or do both contribute to moisture retention in the soil too, I believe to recall. I know the clay does, but believe to recall that compost is also helpful for this; and too much clay is not good, only needing some. To know how much clay to mix into soil lacking clay, people would need to refer to experts. My garden's soil had natural presence of clay and it was very helpful, but I don't know what proportion of the soil consisted of clay; only knowing it had clay naturally in it and that this helped during dry periods. Watering was not really needed at all, but then we didn't have extreme drought, either. Nevertheless, clay helps; just don't want too much of it, else you'll be in for a different kind of trouble. Maybe compost or peat moss would help for that latter kind of trouble though, and it's evidently a very good idea to use a combination of all of these elements; only needing to know how much of each to use.

Refers to experts for detailed information, most of course.

"PaulK April 23rd, 2009 10:49 pm

The average American child born today has a 1 in 2 chance of dealing with cancer in her/his lifetime."

Does that include or exclude the expected rise in cancer or brain tumours European scientists reported to the I believe European Parliament over the past couple of years or so saying they have found that we can expect a very high increase in brain tumours due to all of the wireless telecomm., etc., technologies people employ? They said the most endangered group, by far, are people under the age of 20, particularly children, but also teenagers, and the reason being that the skull isn't fully formed until the age of 20. But they also said that adults could also suffer from increasing rates, just not as much, and depending on the amount of time they are exposed to the wireless technology waves. The article I had read about this then new report said that the European Parliament had ruled that all European governments needed to alert the general public in their respective countries, but I've neither read nor heard of this ever since, so it seems that it's been and is being very censored or underreported.

I believe they, as well as other researchers, had found evidence of impacts on Nature, the natural environment, and the European researchers (above) said that the then stated expected rates of increase could be considerably less than what the real rates will be, once people have been using the technologies long enough and the youth of today grow older.

The average American child born today has a 1 in 2 chance of dealing with cancer in her/his lifetime. Before modern chemistry the chance was 1 out of 1800. Pesticides are a prime suspect.

Any state university's Master Gardener program would counsel Michelle to go organic.

Pesticide free is called weeding and killing bugs can be done with a strong spray of water from a hose or just the act of pinching them to death. Scraps from the kitchen, no meat or butter or meat products just veggies and coffee grounds and TEA BAGS (finally found a good use for them)and flowers except roses after the fall you do not bag your leaves you ;put them in compost piles with the kitchen scraps and in the spring you should have lovely compost. We have been doing that for the 9 years we have lived here IN TOWN near a church and school with nice neighbors because they like the best veggies and tomatoes around. We share. Compost is a great way to get rid of grass clippings and leaves and kitchen scraps so get a small book and get composting and even if you don't grow veggies you can grow becautiful flowers and make the world a more beautiful place and help the environment to boot.

I think we need to grow our food the way marijuana's grown: hydroponically, under lights. No wasted water, no pesticides, no fertilizer runoff, no risk of crop loss, sky-high yield, year-round harvests at the point of consumption, so no long-haul trucking required and no sacrificing quality for shelf life.

And profits spread out among millions of small farmers serving their immediate locales, not restricted to the shareholder class. Ultimate corporate nightmare!

I called Bonnie McCarvel, Executive Director of M.A.C.A., and left a message on her voice mail saying that, "Mrs. Obama can plant anything she likes and as First Lady should not be told what to do with her garden."

I'm for organic agriculture, but if she were using pesticides I could care less if she has no regard for her family; I'm smart enough on my own to not believe the propaganda.

Joe M. Castorena

The big ag industry would much rather kill or poison everybody to maintain the hold on corporate food supplies. They should be investigated by the CDC as a major heatlh problem being more virulent than the ebola zaire virus which hasn't come close to being as virulent.
When it is too complicated and too big to be done without big corp sticking their meddling hands in it, going back to local organic farming and animal husbandry is better and healthier.
Funny how the salmonnella bug is making such a big come back.

Every time I go to the store and see the prices for sickly veggies, I return home and plant more seeds. The same amount of time wasted going to the store could have be used to plant an entire row of fresh organic greens.

Strawberries must be planted in virgin soil with no history of strawberries. The only way around that was to use soil bromide which sterilized the soil and provided huge crops. That chemical is now banned. Bromine is a member of the notorious halide group of chemicals from which most poisons are manufactured. Experiments have shown that crops planted in fumigated soil incorporated the bromide into the crops we were eating. So much for bigag.

Carniverous birds, especially black phoebes, with their incredibly sharp vision keep my garden almost free of plant pests. Pesticides kill the birds and bees.

When will the white house turn its grey water into Michele's garden?

Except for the fact that I know I would have to eat again right away, I would have puked when I read that article. Everyone with a brain knows that She would never again appear in the garden unless it was for a photo op. When she was on The View shortly before the election she was telling such a preposterous, obviously fabricated anecdote that even that seriously misguided right winger (the cute blonde one) and Barbara were rolling their eyes along with the rest of the cast. And she kept stringing it out way beyond decorum. Contrasted with the article on Haiti's lack of food, it is worth ruminating on that the U.S. turns food into fuel for vehicles, and there is hardly a more obscene action than that when you know that people are starving somewhere.

Obama's wife is as phony as he is and I expect we're going to be inundated with similar nonsensical prattle as the government's PR people have a whole, fresh new world of B.S. open to them.

I've gotten heirloom seeds and turned my house into a nursery - just with the time I could be watching TV. There's always time for a garden. Since there's no sun except in the front yard, this is a front yard garden. It's a challenge to keep it pretty, but that even makes it more fun - and there's a zinnia to brighten the table. Also the folks who walk by cheer the effort. I cheer Michelle!

Mulch with grass clippings (since of course you don't use chemicals on your lawn) and seaweed if you live close to any and oak flowers which right now are fallen in abundance. Compost everything.

Something for you who don't have a clue. A former Ct congressman, by the name of
Toby Mofett who is now an officer in the Poison Place called Monsanto was doing
all he could to destroy Ralph Nader.Mofett was a lefty in the Carter administration. Moffett's idea to cure the gas problem during the Carter administration was to raise the gas tax, 50cents a gal. Nader was right, we have been taken over by Corporate America.

There is a trinity we all must follow or we face collapse and extinction as a species.

1. Personal responsibility
2. Responsibility to others (the Golden Rule)
3. Responsibility to our mother earth, who supports all life on this planet

As was quoted in a recent major motion picture... "If the earth dies, people die. If people die, the earth lives."

I like the "an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans". I guess they think that employees of big corporation farms are like family farmers.

Genetically modified plants strong enough to stand ever increasing doses of pesticide and herbicide, cloned fish, poisoned ground water, ever increasing incidence of autism and cancer. Yes, we really don't grow things like our grandparents did. Much to our own demise.

Ask the farmer who tried to grow organic, and because the Monsanto chemical his neighbors kept spraying leeched into the water supply, his plants took on the traits of the Monsanto treated plants. What did Monsanto do? They sued this real "family" farmer for producing crops with their chemicals WITHOUT PAYING THEM.

From legalized drug pushers, to chemical pushers, to fossil fuel pushers, to "for profit" health care insurers, to the military industrial complex, this country, and the conservative greed hounds that spout their lies on Fox News are headed down a one way street. And all the money in the bank accounts of these criminals won't save us...or them.

All they ensure is that they will be the last to die...of starvation, of pestilence, of cancer and of diseases yet to be uncovered. And in doing so, they can watch their children die with us all.

go michelle. I think its totally perverse that someone should be harrassed for doing the right thing in todays awareness of the environment.
Its a perfect fractal example of how the lobbyists push around the politicians.
good luck.

Millions against Monsanto - drop them a line....

Courtesy of the Organic Consumers Organization
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

Organic TRUTH is tastier, too

If they so much like like their periodic doses of neurotoxic poisons -- why doesn't big 'ol AG &
Mid-America CropLife Association (MACA), just go out and BUY their own
country,
President,
First Lady, and
White House garden ?

"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."

By trying to do the opposite, the Big Aggies point the way forward...quit the jobs, return to the world of our grandparents, and devote the time we are given to be alive to raising our own food...socializing housing is the key...that frees people from needing income, so they can get back to supporting their own needs...

We can all start planting now, then abandon the modern technologies that are killing, literally, everything, and jump to the new gardening life together on Sept. 22, 2012...that's 2-3 seasons of preparation...

Hang in there folks. In fact, start fighting back if you haven't done so already. I'm not giving up the fight against Monsanto out here in St Louis and I even wrote a strong letter to the mayor about this. I will be writing to my other local and state legislators as well. If you have a big agri company located where you live, I strongly advise doing the same and get your friends, family, neighbors, etc ... to join you in voicing your opposition to their 50 years of agri-tyranny. I used to feel sad when I left rural MO to move to St Louis but now that I am finding out that over half my neighborhood came in from rural IL and MO and are just as sick and tired of the agri-tyranny, I haven't hesitated talking to some of these people and surprisingly, even the most conservative folks have teamed up in writing letters of serious concern to our local officials. As Moondoggy and SiouxRose have helped me to realize, we can still fight to restore Mother Earth's beauty and be proud of it.

Politically speaking, Arugula is a rich-liberal-yuppie veggie - associated with expensive restaurants. They probably have Raddichio and Swiss Chard in there too. Outside of eastern US urban areas with lots of Italians, few American have heard of it. Our Republican neighbors here in Pittsburgh couldn't even recognize the kale in our garden - but that might be more of a north of the mason-dixon-line-white thing.

Where's the nutritious (if you keep the ham-hock out), soul-food veggies - collards, kale, mustard greens; etc? They are better suited for the sultry DC climate, as well as the culture of 70% of DC's residents. They would also help Obama politically. He already safely has the white yuppie demographic, but blacks are increasingly wondering about him...

The culture that supports and promotes "conventional agriculture" establishes dominion over all others by promoting dependency on what is more often soil damaging and oil consuming products.

Complete self sufficiency should be the goal of all Agro policies.

Seed Banks
Organic solutions
Local ownership
Local distribution first

Unless I'm not aware of that particular type of arugula, the plant pictured looks an awful lot like lettuce. Maybe it's an east coast variety of arugula...

Michelle should sell the White House produce at the Capitol, with well-designed educational flyers explaining the difference between "good" produce and "bad" produce.

Proceeds from the Capitol Sale would go towards an organic gardening movement in Washington DC.

Some members of MACA:

Aceto Agricultural Chemicals Corp
AMVAC Chemical Corp
Cheminova
Chemtura
...get the picture?

add all the big players
DOw
Dupont
Monsanto
Bayer
BASF

"Dear Mrs Barack Obama" --reflective of a mindset that is firmly entrenched in the 1950s.

Ah yes, listen to the complaints from BigAgribus.

I recommend you rent the movie, "King Corn" for the main course. Then for desert, watch "This American Life, Season One - "This Little Piggy Made Me Vomit".

Yes, ADM, Monsanto... "Better living through chemistry", the companies that care for you.

This just in:

"Monsanto Sues First Lady for Restraint of Trade and Product Disparagement; Seeks Damages of $12 Trillion, Public Apology and a Big Wet Kiss"

I am reminded of story from a high school friend of mine, forty years ago. He was asked if he wanted an apple, and when he said yes, the offerer sprayed the apple with a can of Raid and handed it to him. When he asked why she had done that, she replied, that is what you are normally eating.
It made a lasting impression. We just don't normally see the can of Raid.

Though seaweed spray can increase nutrient absorption and supplies potassium, micronutrients and useful enzymes, it is not a significant phosphorus source. Fishbone meal or crushed phosphate rock are good organic sources of phosphate.

As to mulch, here in western Oregon, anyway, it's good to wait till summer before application, as slugs love to hide in the stuff during the day and then come out at night to munch.

The agri-monsters are most likely especially concerned about the high-profile organic garden at the White House because they are trying to push legislation through Congress which is scaring the BeeJeezuz out of organic gardeners and small organic farmers alike. The bills they sponsor (!!! YES, they are responsible for these sinsiter bills seeing light of day !!!) could even end up making it so the home gardener has to follow impossible restrictions, and even risk invasions by USDA on their porperty to ensure they complying with the new rules they will initiate as the bills insist tracking of produce from everyone, ostensibly under the guise of food safety- even though it is the large-scale agri-monsters whom have the worst food safety records!
Once you know about this, you will surely freak out. I hope Michelle Obama stands up against them on these important issues as well (we'll see). It's a BIG deal, HR 875; HR814- and others , check it out (and raise HELL afterwards), because when they can thoroughly control such sacred survival tools, we are doomed:(
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/27-0
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/03/27-0
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h814/show

PS: Plant Something Soon

"BigAg Ticked at Michelle Obama's Organic Garden"

Good!

That arugula needs a foliar spray of liquid seaweed to deal with the phospherous defficiency that is evident in the purple tint in the leaves, as well as mulch.

I hope the Obamas actually see this site from time to time. It is clear that Michelle is a very, very intelligent and savvy woman. Finally we have a team in the White House who will be responsible in all of their lives. The problems with pesticides and fertilizers and GM foods have become well known in this country, as they have in the rest of the developed world. It is wonderful to see someone of such public status planting organically. I trust she will ignore the blitherings of these agri business profit mongers. I am sure she is strong enough to smile sweetly and tell them to piss off in really nice terms. They will only be satisfied with complete surrender, and that she will never give them. All intelligent Americans love having her as our First Lady. Hmmmm. I think First Woman might be a more appropriate label ....

All these companies care about is money. They don't care about their products. Don't care if it poisons people or makes them undernourished. Just plain evil.

Oh, for Pete's Sake!!! Can't one single thing be done without interference from some megacorporation? Thank you, Mrs. Obama for standing up is something you believe in. The one important factor that these mega agribusiness' do not mention in their 'carefully worded' directives is the fact that they, nor their products in any way nuture the soil. Their way of feeding the multitudes relys on methods that depletes the soil of nutrients resulting in food that is less nutritious and in many cases even toxic. None of these companies address the issue of sustainability and how many more years will they be able to produce in dead soil. Organic farmers not only produce more nutritious and tasty food but they are dedicated to a vow of stewardship in preserving the land for future generations.

Mrs. Obama,
As a botanist, organic gardener, and student of the techniques of permaculture, I applaud your efforts. But upon seeing the photo in this article, I'd like to suggest something: mulch! It keeps mud and soil microbes from splashing up on leaf crops, protects your investment in the soil by conserving water, and helps prevent weeds from taking over.
That being said, best of luck to you in preventing corporate microbes and their own silty kind of muck from undercutting your efforts, befouling your symbolic effort to invest in America's soil, and hijacking the whole issue like weeds--the way they did to organic standards via the USDA.

-Dirt Monkey
------------------------------------------------
If you don't ask yourself why, you know nothing.

If one is interested in the flavor of food one should try organic.

As an experiment, take any produce or meat from a conventional grocery store, cook it. Don't eat it yet. Then take the same product from the organic department, cook it, too. Place both side by side and try the conventional product first, then the organic.

One will find the organic product far superior in taste, and quality.

The nutrition is higher too.

Food satisfaction will see you eating less, enjoying more, and loosing those added winter pounds.

Imagine the AMA's response if she also planted some medical marijuana.