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Seeds of Change Announces Dates of 2009 Farm Tours
The Seeds of Change Farm and Gardens will once again welcome visitors to experience the bounty and diversity of our home farm at the height of harvest. Come walk among the abundance; witness seed production and variety trials; and smell, touch, and taste the incredible expression of biodiversity demonstrated on our farm. See your favorite varieties come to life!
This year’s tours will be hosted by Farm Manager Eero Ruuttila and staff. Scheduled dates are Saturday, August 15, Saturday, September 5, and Saturday, September 12 from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM at our farm in El Guique. Directions can be found on our website at www.seedsofchange.com
Contact Lindsay Dozoretz, our Farm Education and Sustainability Coordinator, for more information or to reserve your place! Lindsay Dozoretz, 505.852.1508
Seeds of Change Launches Healthy Fundraising Program
Raise needed funds while increasing awareness and connection to healthy food sources.
Would you like to have a garden at your school, but don’t have the funds to begin such a project? Are you looking for a fundraising method that supports a healthy food chain? Would you like to finance your school project while promoting gardening in your community? Seeds of Change has re-affirmed our commitment to making our schools healthier by launching our Healthy Fundraising Program 2009.
Healthy Fundraising is a great way for school groups, sports teams, or community organizations to raise money for their project or initiative by selling organic seeds. The program encourages gardening and healthy eating, supports organic seed production and the conservation of biodiversity, and provides a tool for experiential education. Participating schools receive a free School Garden Starter Kit that includes seeds and garden markers to start or expand on a current school garden project. This is a great partner program in particular for schools with edible schoolyards, or that participate in farm-to-school programs, or that simply wish to bring food and healthy eating into their curriculum.
Healthy Fundraising – a reminder that healthy food and a healthy community starts with healthy schools. See www.seedsofchange.com for more information and for our fundraising brochure.
Organic Champion Kathleen Merrigan Nominated for No.2 Spot at USDA
On Feb 23rd, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated organic champion Kathleen Merrigan for the position of Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, the number two slot at the USDA behind Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Merrigan has been called “the mother of organic” for her instrumental role in crafting the National Organic Program that established the rules for national organic standards in 1990. At that time she was head of the Agricultural Marketing Service. Currently director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment MS and PhD program at Tufts University, Merrigan has also served as a consultant for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and has worked at the Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture. She is a current board member of The Organic Center, and was named one of the “Sustainable Dozen” – a group of ideal nominees for Agriculture Secretary put forth by the agricultural advocacy group Food Democracy Now! Merrigan has been a long-time advocate of sustainable and organic agriculture, campaigning to move farm policy towards conservation practices and sustainable land use. As a professor at Tufts, she has been involved in programs to expand community gardens as well as to integrate food and gardening education into school curricula. As of this writing, a date has not yet been set for Merrigan’s confirmation hearing.
An Organic Garden on the White House Lawn
While Obama was still campaigning for the democratic primary, participants in the WHO Farm campaign drove a retro-fitted school bus around the country outfitted with a greenhouse and tomato plants on the rooftop. Why? To encourage the Obama administration to take a public stance on food and farming by converting 18 acres of lawn in front of the White House into an organic garden. This idea, to plant an organic garden on the White House lawn, has been championed by citizens across America, from Alice Waters to Michael Pollan to the 75,000 petition signatories to a proposal called ‘Eat the View.’ Eat the View, coordinated by Kitchen Gardeners International, began as a posting to OnDayOne.org, a Web site where people could make suggestions to the next president, and has developed into a movement, urging our president to showcase organic gardening on his own doorstep. Michael Pollan supported this suggestion in his New York Times article calling for a ‘Farmer-in-Chief’, and Alice Waters offered forth her services as an advisor to Obama’s kitchen cabinet.
Eat the View claims that the campaign to grow food on the White House lawn is almost as old as the nation itself, dating back to the first vegetable garden planted at the White House by John Adams in 1800, and that this is a ripe time in history to revive the idea of a Victory Garden—this time an organic one. Since Obama has taken office, the Eat the View agenda has been awarded the Grand Prize as OnDayOne.org’s winning idea for a better world. Last Friday, it became apparent that Obama agrees, and the idea leapt out from the computer screen and onto real White House earth.
On Friday March 20, 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama broke ground on the White House lawn for an 11,000 square foot organic garden. Helped along by twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielding shovels, digging forks, rakes and wheelbarrows, Michelle and other White House staff prepared the soil for the planting of over 55 varieties of organic vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries. The harvest from the garden will feed the first family, and be used for catering White House dinners. Michelle Obama has also declared the garden a means to educate children and communities about healthy eating.
While there is yet to be a report of Obama seeding the first White House carrot, he has commissioned the White House chef to cook with organic foods, and has placed on his official Rural Political Agenda a clause to ‘encourage local and organic agriculture.’
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