President-elect Barack Obama has a few things to attend to in the coming months - wars, health care, education, poverty, to name a few. Many green thumbs would also like to see him tending a White House garden, or at least authorizing one.
A campaign encouraging Obama to plant a garden, launched by Roger Doiron, an organic gardener from Scarborough, Maine, has 20,000 supporters, according to an opinion piece in the Huffington Post. In the column, writer Paula Crossfield referred to an article by UC Cooperative Extension county director Rose Hayden-Smith, a history expert who is actively supporting a movement to re-introduce Victory Gardens in America. She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post's "Civil Eats" section.
Victory gardens, Hayden-Smith is quoted in the article, "helped the family budget; improved dietary practices; reduced the food mile and saved fuel; enabled America to export more food to our allies; beautified communities; enabled every American to contribute to a national effort; and helped bridge social, ethnic, class and cultural differences during a time when cooperation was widely needed."
Crossfield concluded her column a bit skeptically about the prospects of a garden at the Obama White House. She wrote, "(Obama) has been a little tone deaf on ag policy so far." Yikes. Criticism already.
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