Michelle Obama cuts lettuce with students as they harvest vegetables from her garden at the White House in Washington. | REUTERS Grapes of wrath

Michelle Obama entertained some fifth-grade students from Washington’s Bancroft Elementary School at a late lunch Tuesday in the first lady’s garden. It was a harvest celebration, with ingredients from the kitchen garden the children helped get started in March, coming back in April to plant the seeds.

Kids, gardens, seeds and organic vegetables would normally make for a pretty safe and innocuous White House event, even given today’s hothouse atmosphere in the nation’s capital. But the symbolic importance of an organic garden on the South Lawn, visible from the iron fence on E Street, has blossomed in ways no one could have expected. It has not only spurred many to have their own home garden — it has also clearly put a scare into conventional agriculture, which has fought back.


Obama’s stated purpose — to highlight the importance of a healthful diet for children and how much easier it is to get children to eat from their least favorite food group, vegetables, when produce is just out of the ground — was quickly transposed upon a much larger playing field.

No sooner had the garden been announced than a letter addressed to Mrs. Barack Obama arrived at the East Wing from an organization that represents companies selling chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The Mid America CropLife Association, an agribusiness media group, urged the first lady to give conventional agriculture equal time. Referring to chemicals the group euphemistically called “crop protection products,” the letter said not only are such nonorganic techniques necessary, but their safety is also “supported by sound scientific research and innovation.”

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To be sure that Obama got the message that she should be using synthetic pesticides in the garden, the association began an online letter-writing campaign.

The White House never responded.

But the blogosphere has had a field day with the letter. And it was nothing compared with the fun Jon Stewart had on “The Daily Show.”

Stewart’s mischievous staff persuaded a spokesman for the American Council on Science and Health, a group that accepts corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s and PepsiCo and generally sides with industries’ positions on health and environmental hazards, to be interviewed about the White House garden. The correspondent: comedian Samantha Bee.

In the recent segment, titled “ Little Crop of Horrors,” the narrator said that “this seemingly harmless, 20-by-50-foot token gesture has created a firestorm.”

Bee interviewed Jeffrey Stier, associate director of the council, who referred to the Obamas as “organic limousine liberals.”

“I think the Obama garden should come with a warning label,” he continued. “It’s irresponsible to tell people that you should have to eat organic and locally grown food. Not everyone can afford that. That’s a serious public health concern.”

His reasoning: “People are going to eat fewer fruits and vegetables. Cancer rates will go up. Obesity rates will go up. I think if we decide to eat only locally grown food, we’re going to have a lot of starvation.”

Starvation and obesity simultaneously.

Referring to Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard — a program founded by the famous organic chef that brings gardens to inner-city schools, where children learn to maintain a garden and to cook and eat from it — Bee sardonically added fuel to the fire: “Programs like the Edible Schoolyard are already sowing seeds of starvation, obesity.”

The American Council on Science and Health has its supporters. But they appear to be outnumbered by people who think a garden might help them save money in bad economic times, who are worried about what the chemicals in food are doing to their children.

People have been planting vegetable gardens in numbers not seen in decades. A huge spike in home vegetable gardens had already begun in 2007, and the number increased even more in 2008. But after the White House garden was announced, the numbers jumped again, according to Gardener’s Supply Co., a company in Burlington, Vt., that has an extensive online business.

The company saw a 30 percent increase in search engine traffic, with people going to its website and searching for “how to start a vegetable garden,” “planning a garden,” “raised-bed gardening” and “organic vegetable gardening.”

The company’s Kitchen Garden Planner saw a 25 percent increase in unique site visits that same weekend.

Its gardening hot line recorded more than triple its usual volume of 120 calls the week of the announcement. The following week, there was another spike.

There is considerable anecdotal evidence that accompanies the statistics.

The president of W. Atlee Burpee Seed Co. said that since the garden was announced, he has been fighting off interviewers.

“Before, I could never get an interview, even by begging, but now I’ve been interviewed over 100 times,” said George Ball, who said he stopped counting when he got to 100.

One of the best parts of gardening is the harvest; better still is eating it. On Tuesday, the children helped the first lady harvest camera-ready greens for a salad with honey dressing and sugar-sweet peas that were served with crispy baked chicken and brown rice, followed by cupcakes topped with garden berries. But then Obama summed up the political importance of the garden and its relationship to health care reform and the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which determines what goes into the meals served to children at school.

“Today is really the culmination of a lot of really hard work,” Obama told the schoolkids. “This is our reward.”

She also reiterated the importance of healthful food in reducing chronic illnesses like heart disease and diabetes, which cost the country $120 billion a year.

In her efforts to promote healthier eating, FLOTUS said: “I want you guys to continue to be my little ambassadors.”

Marian Burros is a POLITICO contributor.

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