The forces behind Eat My View, which collected more than 100,000 signatures, and other similar campaigns must have been rubbing their eyes at the sight of Michelle Obama armed with a shovel on the White House lawn.

She had come to turn the sill on an organic garden; their dream was becoming a reality.

The White House is giving over a sizeable chunk – 1100 square feet in fact – to plant 55 different vegetables, fruit, berries and herbs year round (in keeping with the seasons, of course).

Most of its produce will cater for the White House and visiting dignitaries but some will also be donated to a soup kitchen down the road.

Launching the project, Mrs Obama said she wanted her daughters to eat healthy food and be reminded of where food comes from.

It’s a message the supporters of Eat My View, including prominent activists Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, have been pushing for years. Everyone needs to look at the source of their food and eat as locally as possible. And who better to lead from the front than the new president and his family?

Indeed, despite the historic change in the White House, some organic campaigners fear more of the same under President Barack Obama.

They point to the Monsanto advisers on his team as evidence he was less inclined to listen to the grass roots than his rhetoric might have led some to believe.

And they believe the charismatic 44th President showed his hand even further, when he announced former Iowa Governor, Tom Vilsack, as his choice for Secretary of Agriculture.

As rumours grew that Vilsack was the hot favourite for the job, a petition began circulating opposing his appointment.

Critics claim he is a friend to biotechnology (he was the industry’s governor of the year back in 2001) and is unlikely to promote a change in national food policy.

Rather, he has a record of supporting the likes of Monsanto in its bid to control seed production and push the development of GM crops.

Oddly enough, “Big Organic”, along with some NGOs and other activists started a counter campaign in support of Obama’s man.

Even those who don’t necessarily believe he is the worst choice Obama could have made, however, don’t see him as a force for change.

“Vilsack isn’t likely to lead U.S. food/agriculture policy in new, more sustainable and socially just directions, wrote commentator Tom Philpott on environmental site Gristmill in the midst of the debate. “At least not without a real push from below… he has been a fervent booster of the genetically modified seed and biofuel industries – both of which proffer what I think are dead-end “solutions” to environmental problems and offer little to any but the largest-scale and most commodity-oriented farmers.”

His appointment was officially confirmed just hours after Obama took the oath of office.

In the lead-up to Obama’s big day, there were many prominent voices calling on him to take food more seriously. Leading commentator Michael Pollan wrote an open letter to the incoming president, urging him to act as “Farmer in Chief”, while foodie Alice Waters led a campaign for a “Kitchen Cabinet”, asking the White House to lead the way on healthy, sustainable cooking.

Then there is the much publicised push to get the new president to set up an organic garden at the White House.

All dreams that few now believe will become a reality, despite reports the new First Lady favours organic produce.

Perhaps the election of an African-American to the highest office in the land was shock enough. Organic farming as the way of farming might be a step too far.

But as crunch time moves mercifully closer and the smooth-talking senator looks ever more likely to take up the mantle of 44th president of the United States, Barack has the chance to embrace his inner farmer in a powerfully symbolic, yet practical, way.

On the road: The WhoFarmMobile takes its message to Times Square, New York. Picture: heyheygig

The WhoFarm Mobile, complete with organic garden on the roof, has been travelling the country drumming up support for its mission to make the next resident of the White House an organic man.

More precisely, the organisers of the White House Organic Farm Project, or WhoFarm, want their prez to commit to digging up a good portion of the White House gardens to create an organic haven.

They’ve created a petition to that effect, in which they argue such a farm would be a model for “healthy, economical and sustainable living everywhere”.

The farm would provide fresh food for the president, his family and guests to the White House, as well as for school lunch programs and food pantries in Washington DC.

The main man wouldn’t be expected to get his hands dirty – although no doubt a tilling of the soil would make a great photo opportunity. Rather, it is proposed that school children and those with disabilities work the farm to set an example of “hands-on learning”.

Sowing seeds of the past

The plants can’t be any old garden varieties; this is the White House, after all.  Instead, proponents want seeds taken from the heirloom varieties from the farm of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, as well as donations from generous farmers and home gardeners (GMO free, naturally).

And something good would finally come from the waste (non-verbal at least) generated from the White House, the US Capitol and the US Supreme Court. It would be turned into compost for the garden’s soil.

The duo behind WhoFarm, Daniel Bowman Simon and Casey Gustowarow, say Alice Waters gave them the idea for the project. The sustainable food icon has been talking about her desire to see the president eating from his (or her) own garden for a number of years, a topic she returned to in accepting her Global Environmental Citizen Award from The Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment this year.

Daniel was there to hear it and felt strangely compelled to bring about her dream (which also included edible schoolyards, by the way).

WhoFarm has also earned support from prominent author Michael Pollan, who published an “open letter” in the New York Times Magazine to the “Farmer in Chief”, urging the incoming president to tackle the issue of food head-on and appoint a White House farmer, as well as a chef. “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,” he argues.

It’s certainly hard to think of a better place for the new prez to bring about change than in his own backyard. What do you think?