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| First Lady Michelle Obama with White House Chef Sam Kass, who will lead a tour of the Obama family’s vegetable garden for Patty Cantrell and her fellow good food activists while they attend a conference in Washington. |
Well, I’m off to our nation’s political center, Washington D.C., to represent the Michigan Land Use Institute and all of you who support our work.
Here’s a quick review of my action-packed itinerary for this trip, which comes thanks to my
Food and Society Policy Fellowship. This group of 20 writers, filmmakers, activist farmers and more is on the job-influencing local, state, and national policy by doing what they can to tell the Good Food story.
First up is the National Food Policy Conference, where I have the honor of speaking on a panel about the Future of the Food Supply.
Keynote speakers will include Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
Then we have meetings with fellow advocates at the Congressional Hunger Center and, on Thursday morning, with Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan.
That afternoon we’re off to the White House for a tour of the garden that the Obama family planted to encourage all of America to get closer to their food and each other. My fellow fellow Roger Doiron, of Kitchen Gardeners International, led a national campaign to encourage the next president to plant a garden at the White House. He’s worked out a tour for us with White House Chef Sam Kass. Check out this new video about the garden here!
Roger is bringing all 100,000+ signatures from the campaign with him on recycled paper to toss into the presidential compost pile.
Even if you are not on that initial list, you can let the Obama’s know you like the idea by signing in with your thanks at one of two sites that Roger has set up for you:
For the Facebook crowd: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/43
For the non-Facebook crowd:
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2009/08/white_house_here_we_come.html
My thanks go to all of you who have supported MLUI and me through all we do. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Patty Cantrell founded the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Entrepreneurial Agriculture program. Reach her at pattycATmlui.org.
