Support A White House Victory/Food Garden

In an NY Times Magazine article, noted author Michael Pollan is adovcating for the creation of a Victory Garden on part of the White House Lawn to address the issues surrounding food. These include the end of "cheap" food, obesity, and the environment.

Part of the solution is to create a "sun-based"regional food economy and system and so the symbolism of a White House edible garden would be powerful.

As Pollan says: "Since enhancing the prestige of farming as an occupation is critical to developing the sun-based regional agriculture we need, the White House should appoint, in addition to a White House chef, a White House farmer. This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture. And that is this: tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime. (Less well known is the fact that Roosevelt planted this garden over the objections of the U.S.D.A., which feared home gardening would hurt the American food industry.) By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America. The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population."

There is a group that has been advocating for this and is led by Kitchen Garden International creator Roger Doiron, they are calling their project, Eat The View.

Check out their site here and sign the petition to get a Food Garden put at the White House http://www.eattheview.org/. One of the things they say you can do to help and to make the case for an edible garden is to identify a near you that you think should be "edible-ized." If you recall, I have posted about the wonderful Victory Garden the City of San Francisco planted in front of their City Hall. And, the Governors of Maine and New York are already eating from gardens planted at their official residences. New school gardens are being dug across the country. Eat the View asks, "What about your town, your local schools, and elected official's residence?"