Brava First Lady Obama!

[Fine Point]

Michelle Obama's organic garden angers US farming companies

Michelle Obama's decision to make her new White House vegetable garden entirely organic has angered America's powerful agribusiness lobby who are urging the First Lady to consider the use of appropriate "crop protection products". 

Last Updated: 8:30AM BST 23 Apr 2009

Mrs Obama started work on the kitchen garden with a gang of schoolchildren last month. Media coverage of the first White House food plot since Eleanor Roosevelt "dug for victory" in the Second World War garnered media coverage across the world.

But to the consernation of Big Ag, Mrs Obama has said the project will not use chemical products to tackle pests or give her plants a boost, the Times reports.

Shortly after the digging began, Mrs Obama received a letter from the Mid-America CropLife Association (MACA), which represents the companies producing the pesticides and fertilisers underpinning "conventional" American agriculture, the paper said.

Addressed to "Mrs Barack Obama", the letter congratulated the First Lady on "recognising the importance of agriculture in America". Farming is America's largest industry, generating 20 per cent of GDP and directly or indirectly employing 22 million people.

The letter avoiding the term "organic", highlights the role of technological advances - technologies that can see a single acre produce almost 20 tonnes of strawberries of 110,000 heads of lettuce in a season - in modern agriculture.

more @ telegraph.co.uk

[Fine Point]

In this bit of related news it appears this global depression may be assisting the cause of green living! 

Saudi Basic Industries Reports 50% Drop in First-Quarter Sales

By Glen Carey

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Basic Industries Corp., the world’s largest chemical maker by market value, reported a 50 percent decline in first-quarter sales as demand for plastics and fertilizers slumped.

Sales for the three months ending March 31 dropped to 19.82 billion riyals ($5.29 billion), from 39.98 billion riyals in the year-earlier period, according to data published on the Web site of the Saudi bourse today.

Sabic reported a surprise first-quarter loss of 974 million riyals after booking 1.18 billion riyals of goodwill writedowns, the Riyadh-based company said in an April 21 statement. The loss was the company’s first since the last quarter of 2001.

The first simultaneous recession for six decades in the U.S., Japan and Germany forced Sabic to slash polyethylene and polypropylene prices, and cut its workforce as demand weakened for plastics used in packaging and car bumpers. Sabic, also Saudi Arabia’s largest steelmaker, reduced its domestic prices last year as construction orders slowed across the Persian Gulf.

To contact the reporter on this story: Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net.

bloomberg.com

[fairydust]

I love Michelle Obama!