Farms Race: The Obama's White House Garden Has Given Fire to an International Movement
By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet. Posted May 1, 2009.
The first garden has spurred a race to plant flags on other high-profile plots and lay claim to various other gardening firsts.
When Michelle Obama broke ground for her 1,100-square-foot garden on the White House lawn, the shock waves were felt around the world.
On her recent trip overseas, most of the press focused on the first lady's fashion statements. But world leaders, she said upon her return, wanted to discuss the statement her garden was making.
"Every single person from Prince Charles on down, they were excited we were planting this garden," Obama told the fifth-grade students who helped her seed it.
Reactions at home have run the gamut, from elation in foodie circles to Big Ag's revulsion at the garden's organic status. Meanwhile, the first garden has spurred a race among the gardening faithful to plant flags on other high-profile plots and lay claim to various other gardening firsts, like so many first ascents up mountaintops.
Jimmy Carter had his herb garden, and Hillary Rodham Clinton had a small rooftop garden planted in pots, but this is the first real vegetable garden planted at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden inspired millions of Americans to start victory gardens of their own.
Obama's garden has already exerted a similarly inspirational ripple effect. Politicians and advocacy groups are jumping on the bandwagon here in the U.S., and admirers as far away as Australia have begun clamoring for gardens on the grounds of their own houses of leadership.
"I'm beyond satisfied," says Roger Doiron, founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International. In early 2008, Doiron organized an initiative, dubbed "Eat the View," to gather signatures encouraging the next first family to replace a section of the White House lawn with a vegetable garden. Worldwide, more than 100,000 people signed on.
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http://www.alternet.org/environment/139206/farms_race%3A_the_obama%27s_white_house_garden_has_given_fire_to_an_international_movement/?page=entire
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