The Obama family is celebrating the first anniversary of their new
kitchen garden, but in my house we're putting two candles on the
organic carrot cake and making a wish for our national food gardening
future.
Two years ago this week, my family and I planted a little garden of
our own in the middle of our front yard. As luck would have it, we live
in a little white cape with southern exposure which allowed us to claim
that we had planted something much more noteworthy: a new food garden
on the south lawn of the "white house."
Although the major networks were not present for our groundbreaking
event, that didn't stop us from growing some media coverage of our own.
We produced a short Internet video of our white house garden planting and used it to urge presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to follow suit upon taking office.
The clip went as viral as a gardening video can hope to go,
appearing on many busy websites and, ultimately, on national TV.
Fast-forwarding to the present, I am happy to report that both "white
house" gardens are flourishing and that a new food garden revival has
taken root.
Like the Victory Garden movement of the previous century, war once
again provides the context for this revival, but this time it's not
nation against nation, but people waging a struggle for health, their
own and that of the planet.
Whether the current home-grown revival sends its roots deeply and
broadly enough in society to make a significant impact on social and
environmental issues remains uncertain. According to a recent survey by
the National Gardening Association, 1 million new food gardens are
planned for 2010.
That may sound like a large number, but when it's compared with the
estimated 20 million Victory Gardens planted in 1943 when the U.S.
population was half what it is now, it would seem that we're only
scratching the surface.
This brings me to my birthday wish. First lady Michelle Obama has
been the best gift the food-gardening movement could ask for this past
year, but I'm hoping that millions of new people will follow her
example this year. To bring these new gardeners into the movement, we
need to educate them about the diverse contributions food gardens can
make to families, communities, and our country's national security.
Many people, including policy-makers, think that a number of new
little gardens won't add up to anything more than a hill of beans, but
our history proves otherwise.
At the peak of the Victory Garden movement, gardens behind homes,
schools, prisons, workplaces and in vacant lots were growing 40 percent
of the nation's produce and helping to conserve financial and natural
resources at a time of crisis.
Last year, my wife and I did some garden math of our own to offer a
more contemporary example. We weighed, recorded and priced every item
coming out of our yard, front and back, over the course of the growing
season. By the time we were done, we calculated that we had saved over $2,200 and had met roughly half of our family's produce needs for the year.
And the food was not only delicious and low in carbs, but also low
in carbon, having traveled less than 50 feet from plot to plate. Saving
money is one financial incentive for growing kitchen gardens, but it
shouldn't be the only one.
Each year, we manage to find billions of tax dollars to subsidize
corn and soybeans, which are used to sweeten soft drinks and fatten
livestock.
Surely some of those funds would be better spent sweetening the
deal for gardeners through innovative fiscal incentives and grants for
new school and community gardens.
We already provide tax breaks to encourage families to put solar
panels on their houses, so why not encourage them also to grow
solar-powered food behind those houses?
Whether we organize it now or it organizes us later, a food garden revolution is coming and that's a very good thing.
In fact, the only downside I see is a nationwide glut of summer
squash, but hopefully many new gardeners will follow Michelle Obama's
lead in sharing some of their bounty with neighbors in need.
Doing so would not only make for a better-fed nation but a more
socially just one too. When it comes to the next healthy, home-grown
revival, everyone should have a place at the table.
