Obama the Organic Commander in Chief? It’s an interesting proposition, although it’s hard to know where he sits in the great food debate. The only relevant comment I’ve seen attributed to him in this interminable election – what is it with American polls? – was one bemoaning the cost of arugula in organic leader WholeFoods. Whether that means he shops there, or he just thinks organics are over-priced is not clear.
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?
