Posted on 01/29/2009 1:58:59 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE, WI (AP) -- An Illinois family is sowing support for a White House farmer with a Web site allowing people to nominate and vote for their favorite growers.
The nominees range from 10 teens in Alameda, Calif., who grow food for more than 500 formerly homeless people to former pro basketball player Will Allen, an urban farmer in Milwaukee. The election ends Saturday, when organizer Terra Brockman plans to forward the names of the top three vote getters to the White House.
More than 100 farmers from 33 states and Washington, D.C., had been nominated by Thursday afternoon. More than 27,000 votes had been cast.
Brockman's family launched the Web site in mid-November after reading a New York Times Magazine article in which journalist Michael Pollan called for the appointment of a White House farmer to complement the White House chef. Pollan suggested replacing five acres of the White House's South Lawn with an organic fruit and vegetable garden.
Nominations and votes trickled in at first, but then word spread among farming and foodie groups. In the past few weeks, "it's kind of gone crazy," said Brockman, 50, of Congerville, Ill.
The push has been embraced by people who favor small, family run, community-oriented, environmentally friendly farms. Most of the nominees are organic farmers, and many run community gardens or nonprofit farms.
The White House did not have an immediate comment on the effort. But many early presidents grew food there, including John Adams, who planted a vegetable garden shortly after moving in in 1800.
A top vote getter in the Brockmans' contest has been Carrie Little, manager of Mother Earth Farm in Puyallup, Wash. Run by the Emergency Food Network, the farm supplies local food banks and hot meal programs.
Little, 48, of Tacoma, Wash., favors companion planting in which two plants, such as sunflowers and beans, are sown together because they foster each other's growth.
"One of the things that I love to do is work with things that work so well together," she said. "And companion planting is kind of symbolic of what we all need to be doing anyway."
Little surveyed food bank clients to determine what to grow at Mother Earth Farm and said her first move as White House farmer would be to ask what vegetables President Barack Obama and his family prefer.
"You certainly don't want to grow things that people won't eat or enjoy," she said.
Another nominee, David Perkins, said he sees the job as an opportunity to educate people about kohlrabi and other relatively unknown vegetables.
"What's been part of the problem with agriculture is sort of the narrowing down of diversity and the lack of it," said Perkins, 51, who runs a 35-acre farm in Vermont, WI, with his wife, Barbara.
They serve about 2,000 families who buy shares of their harvest in a community supported agriculture program. Perkins and other nominees said they see the White House farm as a way to show the public how small, environmentally friendly farms can feed people and create jobs worldwide.
"The key thing is that local people are producers," he said. "Hopefully, the seeds and the inputs you need for farming have a local base."
That's why Allen doesn't want the job. He grew up outside Washington, D.C., and said he feels strongly that the White House farmer should come from there, particularly when so many in the community need work.
Allen employs 35 people at six sites in the Milwaukee area and Chicago that produce vegetables and yellow perch, generating about $200,000 in sales per acre.
"Small scale farming operations become job creating monsters," said Allen, 59.
Still, he was excited about the idea of a White House farmer and said he would be happy to help train someone in green, urban farming techniques.
"What a great opportunity it would be to showcase and get people inspired to do this type of farming," Allen said.
Another urban farmer and nominee, Tim Wilson, 26, runs City Farm in Chicago. The nonprofit teaches low-income adults and youth to grow vegetables at three sites, including one bordering the Cabrini-Green public housing development. The produce is sold to the public and restaurants.
Wilson envisions the White House farmer using compost materials from inner city Washington, much as City Farm uses food waste from Chicago restaurants. Workers would learn business and agriculture skills by raising produce for the White House, food pantries and for sale.
"A major part of small scale agriculture is that people need to be making a living off of it for it to be realistic," Wilson said.
Pollan, 53, of Berkeley, Calif., said he would like to see the White House choose an organic farmer familiar with the challenges a hot, humid Washington summer could present. He might start by checking out the produce and farmers at the Dupont Circle FRESHFARM Market.
"I would definitely look for a White House farmer who knows their way around a fungal disease," he said.
The farmer also needs to be in tune with the Obamas and able to speak publicly about growing whole and local foods, Pollan said. Overall, he was heartened to see all the nominations.
"I'm very hopeful this will actually happen," Pollan said. "And very encouraged that people around the country are giving it some thought."
White House Farmer: http://whitehousefarmer.com/
Believe me, this isn't going to 'create jobs.' Most people would quit after one DAY of the physical labor that growing food entails.
I swear, in my next life, I am teaching people basic survival skills. Gardening, cooking from scratch, baking bread, sewing, small animal husbandry, etc. So many are utterly HELPLESS...and just where Mother Government wants them! :(
Gardening & Foodie Ping!
Vote here, if you’d like. Farmers are listed by state on the left of the page:
Most people have no idea of the LABOR that goes into growing their food! Evidently, growing it is supposed to be as easy as going to the Farmer’s Market and picking through until you find what you want! BWAHAHA
Can I be on your teaching team?! LOL Just this am as I was driving to work, two dj’s were “discussing” cows. I swear to you, one of the dj’s admitted that he did not know that milk came from female cows, nor did he know that dairy cows and beef cattle were seperate critters. Shaking head.
Had a customer come in a couple weeks ago and wanted to know where she could get her chickens processed—because “back home” she could get them slaughtered and cleaned for $5. I just looked at her and told her there weren’t any slaughter houses around here, most people killed/cleaned their own. She left. I’m left thinking—you raised these chickens to “save money”, you’ve fed them for months, and now you’re going to pay somebody to off them? Why not just buy them at the store?
Gonna raise some water melons and blackeye peas???
Reckon he’d eat them?
Obama just wants to be able to watch some white folks do the dirty work from his perch in the big house.
Probably - as long as the black eyes don’t have pork in them.
No pork?! They really taste like dirt then! LOL
It hasn’t been too bad, actually. It stopped snowing on us for a while, then got really, really cold. I have the day off, so I’ve been out in the sunshine with the dogs today as much as possible.
We totally missed the bad storm that went through the mid-section of America this past week. Thank God! :)
This upcoming week it’s to be above freezing for the first time since January 4th. That will be a welcome relief. :)
Remember those horrid cartoons of Condi Rice as President Bush’s lackey? Those STILL burn me up!
Of course now that ‘Mr. Cool’ is President, we’ll have NONE of that. Yeesh!
Where was *back home*?
Garden Ping...........
Y’all gotta read Diana’s comments in Post #1
************************
Oy vey.
How’d you guess?! Daddy’s people are Welsh and Cherokee from the mountains of NC. They moved to and through Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, back to Ohio, and I ended up on the coast o NC!
BEP taste like hot dirt in the summer. Beets taste like cool moist dirt in the spring when you first start plowing. I happen to like dirt. :)
Oh. Her “back home”! Up north somewhere. Definitely not a local!
You can’t teach what people don’t want to learn.
Most of the people I know who have any inclination towards self sufficiency came to it later in life and only after facing a prolonged power outage. Sitting in the dark and cold does wonders for clarity of thought.
There’s a wealth of information available on the net to anyone who has the slightest desire to learn to do those things you listed. Here are a couple of web addresses to information you and others might find useful.
http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/CD3WD/INDEX.HTM
http://survive.urbanbushpeople.org/
There’s some good things and some crap, but I’ll leave it up to anyone interested in downloading and reading the files to winnow the wheat from the chaff.
Enjoy!
I guess the cartoon of watermelons growing in the front yard of the White House wasn’t so far off...
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