Pesticide Producers not Happy With Michele Obama

I don't usually reprint e-mails I get from other progressive organizations, simply because I get too many of them. But the story that Credo Action had to tell me is so bizarre, I had to post it here. I hope you will sign the petition they are sending around.

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that — wait for it — Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House.

We are not making this up.

In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder." MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals — or what they call "crop protection products" — in her garden.

Michelle Obama has done America a great service by publicizing the importance of nutritious food for kids (she's growing the garden in partnership with a local elementary school class) as well as locally grown produce as an important, environmentally sustainable food source.

MACA's letter is part of a larger propaganda effort to convince people that chemicals are a necessary part of produce growth — when we know that's not true.

Click here to tell the MACA board that we support Michelle Obama's organic garden, and we'll thank them to keep their propaganda out of it.