Agribusiness to Michelle Obama: Use more chemicals in your food.

[babylonsister]

:crazy: What part of 'organic' don't they 'get'?

Agribusiness to Michelle Obama: Use more chemicals in your food.




First Lady Michelle Obama received widespread praise for her decision to plant a White House garden that will provide food for the residence. Obama has been receiving help with the project from Bancroft Elementary School children, who are learning the importance of healthy living. “You can carry a message back to your school about the importance of eating healthy meals,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said yesterday. “You have a partner at the Department of Agriculture to make meals better tasting and better for you.” However, the Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) — which represents agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and DuPont Crop Protection — are unhappy that no chemicals are being used on the food:

“Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical,” the Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) wrote the first lady last month a few days after she and fifth-graders from a local elementary school planted the White House Kitchen Garden.

“As you go about planning and planting the White House garden, we respectfully encourage you to recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S. in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing to the U.S. economy and providing a safe and economical food supply.”

[ellacott]

1. This is the oxymoron of all oxymorons

This country is tone deaf.

[Cha]

16. Not the country so much but the corporateshills who care

nothing for the future of our Planet. Like george will twisting facts about Global Warming in the NYT.

[ellacott]

27. Great point

It's not fair to blame the entire population.

[seafan]

2. First lady's organic garden concerns chemical firms

Damnit, we're just not getting enough pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers in our food. How DARE that radical First Lady thumb her nose at GiantAgriChemical! This madness just writes itself.



First lady's organic garden concerns chemical firms

By Jim Snyder
04/09/09

.....

“Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical,” the Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) wrote the first lady last month a few days after she and fifth-graders from a local elementary school planted the White House Kitchen Garden.

The garden is designed to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for the first family and White House staff and guests. The garden itself doesn’t give the group heartburn. The letter also congratulates the first lady “on recognizing the importance of agriculture to America!”

But MACA, which represents agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont Crop Protection, is rather less thrilled about the fact that no chemicals will be used to grow the crops. The group is worried that the decision may give consumers the wrong impression about conventionally grown food.

“We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents,” the letter states. “The 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.”

The blog La Vida Locavore posted the letter last month.

.....

MACA members just want a little love pointed their way: “As you go about planning and planting the White House garden, we respectfully encourage you to recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S. in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing to the U.S. economy and providing a safe and economical food supply.”

The little people are now on GiantAgriChemical's radar.



'But you little people don't have time for a garden!'--- so saith Monsanto, Dow and DuPont

[MissMarple]

5. More and more organic foods are becoming available in the conventional supermarkets.

And now Michelle Obama is actually promoting organic in the White House garden. Quel horreur.

[greenbird]

12. Regarding this statement specifically:

“We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents,” the letter states. “The 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.”

Bullshit. People all over the country have been proving this statement wrong for ages.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. Agro chemicals are bad for you

especially funicides, insecticides anything -ide

[ellie]

4. Dear agribusinesses:

FUCK OFF!

Love,
ellie

[Jennicut]

6. OMG, like hello? Organic food is food without or with less chemicals

Somehow someone forgot to explain that to them?

[Webster Green]

7. Um...organic is conventional..

Without even going into the other great advantages of organic growing, chemical fertilizers are relatively new, compared to organic methods, which have been around forever.

These people are either complete idiots, or money grubbing, lying assholes. :banghead:

[960]

10. What do you mean or?

They are idiots and money grubbing, lying assholes.

:puke:


I love the WH garden! Can't wait to see the progress, and I hope Michelle really is involved with it along the way.

[dflprincess]

20. My money would be on money grubbing, lying assholes

But I'm a cynic.

How sad that we allow chemical companies to pass themselves off as "agri" business.

[NashVegas]

24. Well, It Was Until WW2 When They Had All Those Chemicals Leftover From Bomb Making

And needed to sell them somehow.

[Kdillard]

8. I hope Michelle Obama respectfully told them to piss off.

[Arugula Latte]

9. I'm sure big agribusiness has nothing but Michelle's best interests at heart.

:eyes:

[Cha]

11. Rec'd~ This is important, imo..

And, may I just say a Big Fuck You to big toxic AG?

I've been eating organic produce for almost 30 years and even worked on a bio dynamic farm in California and I know that the produce tastes better, has better nutrition, and much better for the soil and our Planet.

Stuff it, big toxic Ag..these guys are scary dumb.

[Aloha Spirit]

13. Whoa, they're indoctrinating schoolkids

http://ambassador.maca.org/

Click through the lessons.... They are brainwashing kids.

http://www.maca.org/gallery/d/5092-2/5-6_BenefitsOfBiotechnology.pdf

Check it out, they encourage kids to convince other people about the value of GMO...

I'm thoroughly disgusted.

Hey kids, you know how you're allergic to grapes?
That's because they're covered in petrochemicals.

[Cha]

15. That's heinous sick.. they're at war like

cornered rats.

[tridim]

14. Organic food would be much cheaper if corporate shills like the MACA would shut the hell up.

All produce should be organic.

[Froward69]

19. almost everything we eat

turns to shit anyway... :sarcasm:

Victory Gardens is what they were called.

In fact my cousin dug up the lawn in is back yard... and our grandmas Victory garden was HUGE!! must have fed the whole neighborhood.


oh and to agribusiness... FUCK OFF!

[AtomicKitten]

17. Reminds me of an episode of Rhoda.

She was explaining to Mary about natural look makeup. She said the more you put on, the more natural you look.

K&R

[polichick]

22. LOL - I really enjoyed those two!

[Sebastian Doyle]

18. I hope Tom ShillSuck doesn't sneak some Monsanto Frankenseeds into Michelle's garden

When she's otherwise occupied. :evilfrown:

[polichick]

23. Ironic, isn't it? Organic for the First Family; Monsanto for the world...

Maybe now the President will rethink that appointment.

[avaistheone1]

33. That is the change I am looking for.

Monsanto is poisoning the world with their chemicals and their GMO genetically modified seeds.
Monsanto is yuck.

[ima_sinnic]

21. growing organic is much MUCH cheaper, to just about free, compared with growing w chemicals

mulch deeply between rows with old rotted hay or grass clippings (to stifle weeds & keep in moisture): free or small change (farmers who sell hay usually have some old useless hay that they will practically give away)
dig vegetable scraps into the ground, or compost in a compost pile: free
a diversity of crops all interplanted for insect management: cost of the seeds, which would be spent anyway (or not, if one harvests seeds each year)
"extra time" for turning compost: negligible (avoid altogether by just covering vegetable scraps with hay/grass mulch)
"extra time" spent spreading mulch and compost: negligible

fresh flavor, better nutrition, with no harmful pesticides or herbicides: PRICELESS!

I have been gardening off and on for more than 30 years and have never once felt the need to add chemical fertilizers or use pesticides/herbicides of any kind. Soil is a living entity that should be fed. The mulch-soil interface is very fertile, moist, and complexly busy. Insect damage is minimal when everything is alive and balanced. Last year my "conventionally gardening" neighbors were out there all the time tilling between rows and tearing their hair out over dryness. They also sprayed chemicals for insects. The rows between their plants looked naked and unhealthy; the soil looked dry and gray. Mulch is the key to healthy organic gardening and it's virtually free.

[Mopar151]

25. Wedge issue, anybody?

Many good, responsible gardeners and farmers use modest amounts of lime and fertilizers. Don't make 'em evil... Given that they're digging up sod to plant vegetables, a coupla good loads' a' shit (like well-composted horse) will get the soil beds off to a good start.
A farm boy like me would know that it's the smell of good gardening, but the hoi polloi will flee in terror, screaming "EEEuuuwww". And if that shit is fresh and strong, go easy and lime it well.

[Aloha Spirit]

26. I think MACA is talking about synthetic pesticides and petroleum based fertilizers.

Hmm I think you're right that we shouldn't demonize farmers using chemicals, but there's a lot of awareness of how big businesses drive agriculture to unhealthy extremes.
Fertilizer run-off making drinking water unsafe, for example.
I, for one, feel like it would be amazing to have the White House turn the screws on agribusiness, to the extent that their current business model cost shifts a lot of disease and pollution and suffering.

[Mopar151]

28. With ya! n/t

[Cha]

30. We're calling our the Demons who ARE pushing

toxic chemicals on Organic Gardeners.

[depakid]

29. The fact that they've coopted the term "conventional" is fucking sicj

and no- in fact, "conventionally" grown is not more sustainable, more wholesome- and NOT as tasty.

[handmade34]

31. here goes

we "...recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S. in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing..." to the rape our our land, our earth's pollution and unease, our population's loss of fresh, healthy, local food, the oppression of farm workers, etc...

[Aloha Spirit]

34. nicely done, nicely done.

[greenbird]

32. Sorry, MACA

It takes MORE time, money and energy to grow food in dead soil - both on a small scale and on a large scale.

[NC_Nurse]

35. Screw them.

[Vinca]

36. More economical? Not if you find a source for free manure,

compost your vegetable waste and raked leaves and keep a close eye on the plants, picking bad bugs off as they appear. I imagine I'll still be at war with asparagus beetles this spring, but I prefer my spears without deadly chemicals.