Why does the USDA want you to register your local vegetable garden with a federal database?
The USDA has renewed its campaign for the People’s Garden Initiative, which now includes registering vegetable gardens across the country. According to the USDA, the move is to foster a “more diverse and resilient local food system to empower communities to address issues like nutrition access and climate change.” But hose who have been keeping an eye on the USDA for a long time, on the other hand, are well aware that they aren’t concerned with your health or nutrition.
To register your garden with the USDA, you must satisfy a variety of easily attainable criteria.
School gardens, community gardens, urban farms, and small-scale agriculture projects in rural, suburban and urban areas can be recognized as a “People’s Garden” if they register on the USDA website and meet criteria including benefitting the community, working collaboratively, incorporating conservation practices and educating the public.
The USDA has set these criteria, which basically outline every community garden in the United States. Now, the organization that pays out millions of dollars each year to firms whose products, such as high-fructose corn syrup, are responsible for a worldwide obesity epidemic will have a registry of them.
“We welcome gardens nationwide to join us in the People’s Garden effort and all it represents,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, “Local gardens across the country share USDA’s goals of building more diversified and resilient local food systems, empowering communities to come together around expanding access to healthy food, addressing climate change and advancing equity.”
Secretary Vilsack added: “We encourage existing gardens and new gardens to join the movement. Growing local food benefits local communities in so many ways, and we offer technical resources to help. Also, it’s a great way to connect with your local USDA team members.”
Again, it is important to point out that the mission statement of the USDA, once again, has nothing to do with Americans’ health. In fact, their track record over time indicates that it has done the exact opposite.
Case in point: A study published in December 2020 by a scientific panel of 20 researchers and doctors called for lowering the limit for added sugars in the diet to 6% of daily calories from 10%. The group amassed a large amount of data and submitted this request to the USDA, citing rising rates of obesity and the link between obesity and health issues like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
To be clear, you need absolutely 0% of your diet to be comprised of sugar but this panel knew that the USDA—who hands out billions of dollars in subsidies to companies who make sugar-addicted Americans crave their product—would never support a recommendation against consuming any sugar. So, they offered a small compromise instead.
This scientific committee requested a 4% reduction in the USDA’s recommended sugar intake, providing 835 pages of evidence that illustrate the troubling effects it has on children and adults. However, their proposal was refused.
“The new evidence is not substantial enough to support changes to quantitative recommendations for either added sugars or alcohol,” Brandon Lipps, deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services at the USDA told the Wall Street Journal at the time.
Excessive sugar intake has long been linked to health risks like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity – which in turn increases the severity of symptoms should someone contract COVID-19. However, despite this clear evidence, the USDA (who are supposed to have our best interests at heart) refused to make any changes to their recommendations.
Now, this same organization that now wants you to register your vegetable garden so it can place you in a database and put your healthy food source on a map, also claimed they just wanted to do this for your health. You get a cool sign for your front yard too.
While there may be some good intentions on the part of a few USDA officials, the organization’s track record and history show that the majority of them do not care about your health. Not only are they uninterested in your health, but most of their farm and food budget goes toward promoting items that endanger your health.
Given this organization’s spotty track record, it’s understandable to be skeptical of their proposed national garden database. With the world teetering on the brink of nuclear war and economic collapse, remember that in times of crisis, food is more valuable than gold.