Sunday, April 12, 2009

Michelle's Organic Garden

(To the tune of the Beatles' Octopus' Garden)
I'd like to be
In DC to see
Michelle's organic garden cause a fuss....

Wait a minute! How can something as uncontroversial as an organic garden at the White House cause a stir? Easy. Big business. It seems that the Mid America CropLife Association thinks that an organic garden sends the wrong message to consumers about "conventionally" grown food based products. Surely there's nothing wrong with Frankenfoods, right?
And just who is the Mid America CropLife Association anyway? You think, well, Mid America, they're just a bunch of farmers, right, but then you look at the way they spliced two words together to make one where there wasn't before (CropLife) even using capitalization to point out just how clever they are and you know you're dealing with chemical giants like Monsanto, DuPont Crop Protection and Dow AgroSciences.
MACA feels that Michelle, as part of the ever trend setting Obama family, is sending the wrong message because "(t)he time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.” Of course they don't, that's why most of them don't grow their own food.
You don't suppose that maybe Monsanto is worried because second quarter profits have slipped, and that means smaller bonuses? Because that's what it comes down to: some of you still have money in your pocket and that's money that big business wants to take from you, even if they have to force you to take out another mortgage to get it. They don't care that organic farming works to minimize global warming, they can always fan themselves with stacks of hundred dollar bills.

5 comments:

Tom Harper said...

At a quick glimpse, that corporate name looks like an insurance company.

So some of the most powerful ruthless companies in the world are threatened by a few people growing organic vegetables in their home gardens? How sad is that. But it figures. Monsanto once pushed for a law that would prohibit organic dairies from printing on the label that their product doesn't contain a certain chemical made by Monsanto.

Kvatch said...

Also taking into consideration that you wouldn't want Americans getting it into their silly heads that setting up their own gardens might allow them to defray the rise in the cost of store bought food.

Out here on the Left Coast, we've seen the average cost of a trip to the grocer rise by about 25%.

C Woods said...

In my nearly 64 years of life, I've learned that no matter what I do, someone is going to complain, feel threatened or slighted. Too bad.

One has to do what is best for oneself, or in Michelle Obama's case, what is best for her family, DC (by having school children help to grow vegetables and maybe try some foods they haven't tried before) and the country, and set an example for ways that families can save money, and provide their families with fresh, nutritious food. I don't need to grow vegetables, but each year we put in a few tomato plants and some pole beans. I don't care what Monsanto or anyone else does to a tomato, no agribusiness can provide me with a tomato that doesn't taste like plastic.

Agi said...

All those garden-haters should be pleased. Bo the dog is going to dig up Michelle's veggies in no time.

libhom said...

I mostly garden organic, though I don't have an organic source for phosphate.