White House to Veg Garden with School Kids

The garden and food blogs are all atwitter with news that Michelle Obama will be installing a food garden at the White House.

Apparently I was outnumbered in my argument against the garden on grounds that President Obama should think about food policy for the whole nation before he started feeding the First Family produce from the back yard. I also thought there was something politically awkward about the Obamas having a staff to feed them garden-fresh produce in a time of financial crisis, or in the absence of a federal program to help everyone install a garden. Too much symbolism, not enough substance for my taste. (A cohort in the food intelligensia agreed with me, but not very publicly.)

What I suggested was that instead of directing the gardening efforts at themselves, the Obamas should think of adopting a school garden. Kids--especially in an urban environment--need the experience of growing their own food so much more, and it would be a huge boost to the idea of school gardens as well connecting schools to local food. As I said then, there were any number of schools within walking distance of the White House that the Obamas could team up with. To my mind, that was the perfect way for the Obamas to have their garden and eat it too.

Could it be that the White House was listening? The New York Times quotes Michelle Obama as saying that the garden's "most important role will be will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity has become a national concern." To that end, the White House is enlisting a squadron of fifth-grader from Bancroft Elementary School--located just blocks from our house in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of the District of Columbia--to come to the White House and dig up an 1,100-square-foot area of lawn and install a vegetable garden there. Thenceforth, the kids will be involved in planting seeds as well as harvesting and cooking the garden's bounty, all under the supervision of the Obama's personal chef Sam Kass.

The Obamas, meanwhile, will help pull weeds "whether they like it or not," Michelle Obama said.

This has to be considered the ultimate reward for Mt. Pleasant resident Iris Rothman, who for years has been the moving force behind the gardening efforts at Bancroft Elementary. Thanks to Rothman, a large swath of asphalt at the school was removed some years ago and replaced with a huge rain garden. The school also boasts numerous raised beds for vegetables and more than two dozen trees planted, thanks to Rothman's tireless efforts.

Will Iris be involved in the White House project? Will she get a big hug from Michelle Obama in recognition of all her local gardening efforts? We certainly hope so. Congratulations, Iris.

Before we get carried away, however, I would just warn the Obamas that while we appreciate this clever solution to the White House garden question, we are still looking for the food policy piece. Or what if the First Lady were to take on the school lunch issue?

Now there's something she could really sink her teeth into....

Ethanol: Obama's Deal with the Devil

Don't look now but the Obama adminstration is making good on our worst fears, ramping up the pressure for NOT less but MORE ethanol.

Obama's agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack this week announced that he is all in favor a proposal from Midwestern aggies to raise the amount of ethanol that can be blended into a gallon of gasoline from 10 perent to "15 percent or more."

Vilsack, of course, is the former governor of Iowa where they grow a lot of corn. Barack Obama is the former senator from Illinois, the nation's fifth most important corn growing state. Turning corn into ethanol has become quite the cash cow for states like Iowa (which propelled Barack to the Democratic presidential nomination, after all) and Illinois.

It seems like only yesterday we were writing about how the diversion of corn into ethanol had led to a spike in food prices worldwide, causing hunger and even food riots in desperate developing countries as well as a tortilla crisis in Mexico. And we now know how the ethanol process pollutes air and water, to say nothing of the environmental damage caused by all the artificial fertilizers and persticides used to pave so much of the country in corn. Farmers were even taking land out of conservation in the rush to plant more corn.

In our current down economy, however, people are driving their cars less, which means less demand for ethanol. The ethanol industry has fallen on hard times, it seems, and was even begging for its own bailout as part of Obama's stimulus package. Apparently the next best thing is to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase the limit on how much ethanol can be blended into gasoline. The EPA has the authority to do that, but it might just be blocked from doing so by a recent Supreme Court ruling that carbon must be regulated as a pollutant.

Until industry finds something more people- and environment-friendly than corn to use as fuel, we hope corn ethanol is seen for what it is: another way to make money for a misguided agriculture system. This is just one more reason for us to not like the idea of a White House kitchen garden. We can't let Obama make nookie with locavores behind the White House while his actual policies are wreaking havoc on the rest of the country. No, Obama should be judged like every other president: on substance, not symoblic gestures.

White House Food Garden: Time to Go Back to School

It seems the whole world is badgering the Obamas to tear up part of the White House lawn and plant a food garden.

Kitchen Gardeners International started a petition called "Eat the View" that calls on the first family to plant a "victory garden" within their first 100 days in office. Michael Pollan, writing in the New York Times Magazine last year, proposed turning five acres of White House property into a farm, and a website in California got nearly 60,000 readers to vote on who should be the farmer. Now our friend Susan Harris, blogging at Garden Rant, has rolled out a whole cast of characters to design, advise on and maintain a White House kitchen garden.

Apparently the intent of all this activity aimed at the Obamas and their food habits is to inspire the rest of the country to eat better, support healthy agriculture and perhaps even plant a garden of their own. Being an avid kitchen gardener and local food advocate myself, I have a hard time arguing against people growing their own food. However, I do have a couple of issues with the proposal as currently constructed, and would like to offer an alternative suggestion.

First, unless President Obama is willing to declare war on the unholy corporate-government alliance that is responsible for this country's miserable diet, he looks a bit disingenuous feeding his family garden-fresh produce on the public dime. Before he can lay claim to the mantle of Gardener in Chief, the new president needs to demonstrate that he is willing to implement government policies that undo the choke hold that giant agribusiness has on this county's food production. So far we are getting some inklings of reform. But Obama's choice of Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, drew a resounding Bronx cheer from the nation's food advocacy establishment. The new president still needs to establish his creds as champion of an alternate food system. (Obama's support of ethanol is hardly encouraging, but also not surprising, since he hails from Illinois, a major corn growing state. In fact, food and agriculture are not even listed on the Obama White House agenda.)

Second, do the Obamas really want to be in a position of saying, "Hey! Look at us! We're eating a whole lot better than you are!" It's one thing to lead by example. It's quite another to put yourself at odds with the way most of the country feeds itself. The last time the government encouraged people to plant gardens was during World War II when food was being rationed. It made sense for everyone to consider growing their own produce. But the government has no such policy in place. In fact, government policy has been to support agribusiness as we know it, which means tax dollars subsidizing a glut of corn and soybean products, the essence of our poor diet. Last time I looked, the president still represented the whole country, not just produce gourmands and local food fanatics. How does it look for him to be thumbing his nose at the good ol' regular food most people buy in the supermarket?

Third, there is something unseemly about the First Family luxuriating in a garden-fresh diet at a time when the country is in an economic tailspin and many families are just trying to hang on to their homes. Paradoxically, this would be a perfect time for millions of Americans to consider ditching their Turf Builder and planting a food garden instead. Growing your own food for the cost of some seeds saves a fortune in grocery bills. But sadly we are no longer a gardening culture. Those skills were lost with the passing of prior generations. Asking people to start busting sod on their own when the Obamas have a paid staff to do it for them is asking a bit much. If we want to rekindle the gardening spirit, we should do it with an all-out national undertaking and not lay it on the First Family.

Fourth, a sprawling food garden behind the White House would mark the Obamas as glaringly apart from their neighbors in the District of Columbia, where few residents have five acres--or even a fraction of that amount--at their disposal. In D.C., a meal for too many inner-city children consists of a bottle of artificially-flavored high-fructose corn syrup and a bag of potato chips from the corner convenience store. The poverty rate for school children ages 5 - 17 in the District of Columbia is 51.3 percent compared with 34.5 percent nationally, the highest in the nation. This translates into 56,000 children at risk of hunger in Washington, D.C., or 1 in 2 children. More than 12 percent of the city's households struggle with hunger. Some 109,000 residents are eligible to participate in the Food Stamp Program each month, however only two-thirds actually receive food stamps, and of those who do, 74 percent report that their food stamps do not last the entire month.

For all these reasons, past First Families have not spent much time advertising their personal eating habits. Little did we know that White House chefs were busy sourcing local, healthy foods, long before food celebrities such Ruth Reichl and Alice Waters and Danny Meyers started spouting their opinions about how the kitchen at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue should operate. The Clintons grew some of their personal food on the White House roof. Laura Bush was adamant that her family dine on organic products.

The Obamas, too, might appreciate a little privacy around their choice of victuals. But I have a suggestion that would allow them to get behind local food in a very public way without inviting a billion prying eyes into the backyard or private dining room: sponsor a school garden.

I'm surprised Alice Waters has not suggested this before. She's been talking for years about building one of her Edible Schoolyards in the nation's capital. The Obamas adopting a school garden would fit perfectly with what Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack has said are some of his department's highest priorities: improving child nutrition and giving schools greater access to local food. School gardens make perfect sense. If we are going to be a nation of healthy, sustainable eaters, we should teach it to our kids. This would be a great way for the Obamas to connect with the local community, and Lord knows our local schools could use the support. It would be an invaluable opportunity for teachers, school administrators and parents to close ranks around an issue of paramount importance, as well as a rare chance for Barack and Michelle Obama to learn on a personal level the kinds of challenges that public schools--and especially inner-city schools--face in their efforts to embrace healthy food.

The Obamas would learn, for instance, just how hard it is to turn local produce into meals where there are no cooking facilities. (School cafeterias are just glorified food lines any more. Perhaps after helping with the harvest, the president and first lady could take fruits and vegetables back to the White House and have their chefs do the cooking). Some schools don't even have soil: Everything has to be planted in containers. Still, even city kids love to work in the garden and eat the fruits of their labors. They need every opportunity they can get.

Talk about your shovel-ready projects. We've got plenty of schools. Just throw a dart at the map. We've also got numerous organizations that know just what needs to be done to make a model school food garden happen. There's D.C. Schoolyard Greening, a coalition of government and private groups the supports school gardens and helps incorporate gardening activities into the curriculum. There's City Blossoms, a group that specializes in building teaching gardens for children. There's the Washington Youth Garden, whose program centers on gardening with inner-city families and reaching out to city schools with nutrition and cooking lessons. There's the 7th Street Garden, an urban agriculture enterprise versed in all phases of fruit and vegetable production and committed to food security for the needy. There's Casey Trees, a non-profit intent on planting more fruit trees in the city in places where they will be well cared for. And now the Obamas have brought their personal chef from Chicago, Sam Kass, who is all about healthy local food and families.

Putting a school garden project like this together with White House backing would hardly take any time at all, maybe a few phone calls. Most schools would jump at the chance. So I say this to the Obamas: you can have your garden and eat it too. Do it for the kids. Do it for the schools. Every school board in the country will sit up and take notice.

Food System Remake?

Here is what we know is true about food in the United States of America: Everything bad about it--the demise of family farms, the pollution, the unhealthy products--flows from decades of our government working hand-in-glove with huge corporations to build an industrial algriculture system based on fossil fuels that produces a glut of corn and soybeans subsidized by U.S tax payers.

Neither the fossil fuels nor the glut are sustainable in the long term. In the short term they make our land and our people ill, while producing enormous profits for shareholders.

Keep that in mind as you watch President Obama address or not address the problems with U.S. food. I voted gladly for Barack Obama. I hope he is wildly successful. Even so, as we cheered on candidate Obama there was a little voice that kept reminding me that the former senator from Illinois has been a big supporter of turning corn into ethanol, one of the dumbest ideas to hit agriculture since Earl Butz admonished farmers to plant "fence row to fence row," and guaranteed federal tax dollars to pay for the excess.

No need to list all the ways we hate ethanol. (Or maybe just a few, like jacking up the price of food worldwide, spewing pollution into the nation's air and rivers, gobbling up natural gas and water, taking lands out of conservation. This ain't sugar cane, folks, and we ain't in Brazil.) But look here: Now that the price of oil has tanked, ethanol manufacturers are in trouble and looking for a bailout of their own. Could it be that Obama will use part of his huge stimulus package to prop up ethanol?

This is what the New York Times had to say back in December about Obama and his choice of agriculture secretary, fromer Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack:

"Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Vilsack are regarded as staunch advocates of ethanol and other bio-fuels as a way to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil. And Mr. Obama and Democrats in Congress are working on a major economic stimulus package, in which they intend to promote the creation of thousands of new jobs tied to “green energy” industries, including the production of solar and wind energy.

"One of the first major decisions Mr. Obama and Mr. Vilsack may have to make is whether to grant the ethanol industry’s requests for billions in federal aid in the stimulus bill, which Mr. Obama has said he hopes to sign into law quickly, perhaps on his first day in office.

“ 'The big issue for him and any incoming secretary is going to be biofuels, that’s the sector that right now is in such a volatile position,' ” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit group that is a leading critic of federal farm subsidies. American farmers, Mr. Cook said, are “ 'hitched to both the food system and the energy system, both of which are oscillating.' ”

More recently, an editorial in The Post-Standard of Syracuse New York describes the bankruptcy of one local ethanol plant, joining others around the country in the land of insolvency:

"Before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Jan. 14, the $200 million Northeast Biofuels facility outside Fulton had yet to reach full production," the paper writes. "At maximum capacity, the plant would have produced about 100 million gallons of ethanol per year from 40 million bushels of corn, making it the largest ethanol producer in the Northeast. The plant started up in August but shut down about a month ago because of flaws in its piping system.

"To resolve its problems and emerge from Chapter 11 ready to resume operations, Northeast Biofuels will have to raise more money. Credit, however, remains tight. The company had arranged to obtain new financing during reorganization, but the lender it was counting on pulled out.

"And the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's said there's a strong possibility that the company will be forced to liquidate to pay its creditors. In a liquidation, the lenders of the $140 million loan the company used to get started would recover little, if any, of their money, S&P said. That kind of prediction from a respected credit agency could make the company's search for financing even more difficult."

Apparently, the industry's best hope is a handout from Obama. As the Post-Standard notes, "the federal government made available billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to encourage production. Just in 2007, the corn-based ethanol industry received nearly twice as much in subsidies and three times as much in tax breaks as solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy producers....

"When the price of ethanol plummeted with gasoline and credit tightened, many ethanol companies went under. About 9 percent of all ethanol plants in the United States have filed for bankruptcy, and some say that could soon exceed 20 percent."

The Ethicurean blog has assembled an admirable list of the nation's pressing food issues as a measure of the new administration's resolve. Each is worthy of attention, but to my mind, the real test is whether this new president from the Heartland, a man whose star was launched in Iowa and who has drunk deeply from the cup of industrial agriculture, is ready to untie the unholy corporate-government alliance that has our food system in a choke hold.

Watch what he does with ethanol.