worth its weight in gold
I have to say I’m a bit taken back and pleasantly surprised by two recent events initiated by the Obama administration.
The first is the organic garden started with great fanfare in the White House side yard. As a symbol of support for local and organic food we can’t get better than this, but that the first family will actually be eating some of that food…I’m blown away. I’m looking forward to reading about that in future months. May the White House garden become a permanent fixture.
Now we see pictures of Rodale dumping organic compost on the grounds of the National Mall in front of the USDA building, and the initiation of The People’s Garden, an organic plot growing vegetables organically and run directly out of Sec. Vilsack’s office. This is really an awesome turn of events.
I’m pretty cynical when it comes to government. Though I tend to lean right on most issues, I don’t put much faith in either party of our government to actually solve problems. In fact, I tend to think many problems would solve themselves if government got out of the way. This is especially true for the advancement of a stronger local food system. Government regulations create barriers (in the name of food safety) to small-scale, local producers and processors. If you don’t believe me read Joel Salatin’s book, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal.
Another reason for my cynicism stems from my experience in Illinois politics. For about 30 years Republicans ruled the State House in Illinois. Towards the end of that era we had managed to build up some clout around sustainable agriculture. Funding for the IDoA Sustainable Agriculture Grant Program reached a high of $750,000. Then corruption-riddled, George Ryan brought the whole thing to ruins and the Democrats won the day and took over the rest of the state (They’ve always run Chicago). I actually voted for Rod Blog that first term. It was a selfish decision really. I thought the state could do more to support sustainable agriculture. I thought Democrats were the environmental party and would place greater emphasis on sustainable and organic agriculture. I thought funding would increase and the world would be saved. Wrong. Rod Blog put a conventional hog farmer in charge of IDoA who wanted nothing to do with sustainable agriculture. Funding was cut. We lost funding all together for one year, before it was restored to about a third of its previous high. We were totally ignored. The Governor never made his legislatively mandated appointment to our committee. The rest of Rod Blog’s legacy is now history, and I learned a valuable lesson.
So despite all the rhetoric from the Obama campaign, I did not expect any action on the sustainable/organic ag front. I still may be disappointed, but these initial steps look encouraging. Let’s hope it’s more than just symbolic gestures.
Organic Horizon 