Thank you to Daniel Bowman Simon for this guest post. Daniel is the founder of TheWhoFarm – a non-partisan initiative to inspire the 44th President to plant an organic farm on the grounds of the White House. Michael Pollan may have made the idea popular in his article, Farmer in Chief, last week, but The Who Farm is one of two organizations that has been pushing for a White House Organic Farm throughout the last exciting months of the election.

When Rosh Hashana rolled around last year, it was beyond my imagination that I’d spend Rosh Hashana this year in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But The White House Organic Farm Project, aka TheWhoFarm, brought me there.

A local resident named Wade Patterson had heard TheWhoFarm was coming to town. He emailed me a very spirited note, respectfully requesting that we join the Carnuel Road Parade in downtown Albuquerque, organized by Harwood Arts Center, where Wade works. We’d never been in a parade, the Harwood Arts Center is involved in some quite compelling urban renewal projects that involve community gardens, and the request had obviously come from Wade’s heart – so there was really no way, or no reason, to decline the request.

When Wade and I spoke on the phone in advance of our arrival, he mentioned that he’d like to have us over for dinner, but that he’d have to ask his wife first. And then he emailed again to invite me to a Rosh Hashana dinner. He explained that his wife was Jewish, but that he was not Jewish, and that there would be other non-Jews there. A sort of ecumenical New Year’s. Without even knowing I was Jewish, he’d invited me to a his Rosh Hashana table! In New Mexico! How often does that happen?

To be honest, I had no plans to do anything to honor the New Year. Pomegrantes were in season in Southern California, a prior stop on TheWhoFarm’s tour, and so I ate one and probably had some subconscious thoughts about Rosh Hashanah. Perhaps I would have found myself an apple and some honey. (After all, apples have more or less defined my existence of late. And as vegan as I’ve tried to be, honey has been my Achilles.) Instead, I was going to dinner to be with other people celebrating the renewal that a new year brings.

The dinner had everything a Rosh Hashana meal ought to. Round raisin challah, homemade of course. Sweet potato and carrot tzimmis. Kugel. Shecheyanu blessings. And lots of kids running around the dining room.

These traditions got me thinking about TheWhoFarm’s connection to Rosh Hashana. In one word: Renewal.

TheWhoFarm is on tour, promoting our petition to our next President, whoever that may be, to plant an organic farm on the lawn of The White House.

Why the President? And why at The White House? We need our next leader to be a healthy eater, and lead by example. And there is probably no better address for America’s leader to showcase healthy eating than at his own home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the petition’s recipe, we specifically request that public school kids help farm the land. We need a renewed interest in and understanding of where our food originates. The foundations of that understanding come by working the land. We need a President who sees,with his own eyes, on a regular basis, the beauty of the knowledge and skills derived on the land.

Of course, seeds themselves bring a great historical context that needs renewal now. Thomas Jefferson was a formitable farmer, the man responsible for introducing eggplant and brussel sprouts to America. Seeds sowed by President Jefferson have been carefully saved and passed down. We intend to honor the office of the Presency by planting some of the Jefferson seeds at The White House. And then there are seeds of the American people. We are calling on the President to invite community gardeners and farmers from across the nation to deliver their seeds to Washington, DC.

On our tour, TheWhoFarm has met some people who tell us that The White House is too sacred a place to deface with a farm. But in fact, not so long ago, The White House inspired the nation towards food self-sufficiency. During World War I, our government set up the National War Garden Commission. “The sole aim of the National War Garden Commission was to arouse the patriots of America to the importance of putting all idle land to work, to teach them how to do it, and to educate them to conserve by canning and drying all food they could not use while fresh.” A simple Google book search will lead you a nice official booklet published by the Commission.

During World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden at the White House, which inspired nearly 20 million Americans to grow their own food at or close to home. Many schools planted Victory Gardens, including some in New York City.

We invite you to sign our petition here. If you want to help even more, you can download a print petition form here and send it to friends. We wish you a happy new year, and hope that at some point this year, we will all witness seeds of change being sown at 1600 Pennyslvania Avenue.