We don’t blame the Mid America CropLife Association (MACA)— a pesticide an agribusiness trade group—for promoting its interests, but we still think it’s funny that they’ve asked the first family to not grow organic vegetables in the White House vegetable garden. MACA’s Executive Director Bonnie McCarvel sent a long letter to Michelle Obama reminding her of the importance of technology in modern farming, then publicized the letter via an email where she noted, “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.”

You can read the letter in its entirety here.

So here’s our question: if you have a home garden, do you use pesticides? If so, why, and if not why not? And are there “natural” (by which we also mean “cheaper”) pest control alternatives for a home garden? Surely there’s room for organic personal gardening approaches as well as Big Ag commercial solutions.

“Organic White House Garden Puts Some Conventional Panties in a Twist” [La Vida Locavore via NotInMyFood.org]
(Photo: Sbocaj)

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