Michelle Obama shared her thoughts on the garden:

We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet.

Michelle Obama

This video shows twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes, pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground on a produce and herb garden on the White House grounds.

Michael Pollen, author of Omnivores Dilemma and advocate for agricultural reform had this to say about the garden.

A garden like this is one of those small gestures that is powerfully symbolic…it teaches important habits of mind — helping people to reconnect with their food, eat more healthily on a budget and recognize that we’re less dependent on the industrial food chain, and cheap fossil fuel, than we assume.

Sources:

Barrett K, Hartman B. March 20, 2009. Foodies Celebrate White House Veggie Garden: Obama’s Shovel-Ready Project Nurtures the Sustainable Food Movement Amid Some Criticism. Abc News.

Stanglin D. March 20, 2009. First lady breaks ground on White House veggie garden. USA Today.