Thinking Organically

Sometimes you follow a train of thought and find that it moves you. In reverse. As seasoned reporters we like to reach the end of the line and tell you everything we found, but sometimes we end up moving backward, gaining momentum the other way. That can be a good thing, because discovery doesn't have a fixed point like a hash mark on a ruler - you can find a morsel of news at the beginning, middle or end of a story. Sometimes you can't even find where the story begins.

Today I interviewed a woman who has built a thriving organic products business. I wanted to "warm up" on the subject so I didn't sound like a cabbage head when I talked with her. To get ready for the call, I started reading USA Today's story about how the First Family is bringing a new sense of flair to the White House. A simple phrase jumped out, that Michelle Obama is touting the benefits of organic food. Hold it! That's my subject. Let's go deeper.

I followed a train of thought to the White House blog, which carried a story about Michelle starting the White House Kitchen organic garden project with help from schoolchildren back in March. Yes, I remember seeing press coverage on that. Wonder how it's going? That led me on a Google search of how the garden grows, and according to the White House blog, in June it was doing well enough to host a harvest party. Lots of produce was making its way into the White House kitchen and to area centers via donations. Terrific!

Then I followed a thread to a story at the end of  July (moving forward in time here)  that this wonderful project, which Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame has encouraged for a long time, has hit the proverbial muddy water. I found myself veering off onto Lesley Stahl's 60 Minutes interview with Waters, with a video link on the LA Times site, and I hung out in this delicious world for some time, thinking what a champion Alice Waters is to encourage consumption of foods grown locally and organically and to launch the Edible Schoolyard project.

But all too soon, I left Alice's Restaurant and found a story that reports the soil in the White House garden is full of sewage sludge, and this makes the garden's future a bit murky. That led me back to the White House blog, where I couldn't locate any story in response to the report about the garden's health.

Back and forth, back and forth this muddy story goes. You try to do a good thing at the White House like start a garden to demonstrate responsible eating, good stewardship of the land, nourishment of a nation, and it wilts. Or does it? Now I've found another story that challenges the quality of the story about the soil. Which is in better shape, the story or the soil? I don't know.

This is a shame. We outta be able to grow lettuce and turnips at the White House without a dustup. But here's something interesting: In the 60 Minutes interview, Waters made a statement that has stuck with me. She didn't get into the world of organics and sustainability as a mission when she started out, she says, she was just looking for products with flavor. Naturally, she found that products grown locally, without pesticides, and without long truck rides tasted remarkably better.

I say let's send Alice to Washington to sort out the garden. Even if it turns out the garden doesn't qualify to keep the label "organic," there's an important lesson here about supporting locally grown crops and teaching schoolchildren that underneath that frilly green top is a carrot underground worth going for.

Let's not lose the ground we've gained.