With each passing day, it seems the United States of America, “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is becoming more and more like the Communist Russia I learned about in elementary school where people weren’t allowed to grow their own food unless the State “allowed” it.
In this latest crackdown on citizens simply trying to provide for themselves using the most basic of skills – gardening – the USDA’s Rural Development Agency is forbidding Rosie, an industrious 4-year old girl in South Dakota from using a small, unused area outside her subsidized housing unit to grow green vegetables.
Rosie’s mother, Mary (names changed to protect the child’s identity), is single and severely disabled. She and her daughter live on a fixed income disability payment of $628/month. The garden vegetables growing just outside her backdoor lovingly tended by Rosie provide a fresh and healthy addition to their diet that they could not otherwise easily afford.
Rosie started the garden in May 2013, but now the property management company has ordered the garden be removed this week!
The reason?
The property management company claims that gardening goes against the rules set by the USDA’s Rural Development Agency which forbids residents to have structures of any kind within landscaped areas. It seems to me that the practice of growing vegetables by the most needy in our society would take precedence over landscaping, wouldn’t you agree?
I wonder if the USDA plans to establish “rules” about breathing air in subsidized areas too?
The Federal bureaucracy seems to think that it owns those individuals who receive any sort of government assistance and that their behavior is completely within its jurisdiction to control no matter how ridiculous or blatantly un-American the power-tripping “rules” they decide to put in place may be.
Think this is an isolated case? Â It’s not. Â I write regularly on this blog about these outrageous situations where ordinary citizens are bullied by out of control bureaucrats, the most recent being a Mother in Maine who was harassed and threatened by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for feeding her healthy, robust 3 month old son homemade goat milk formula instead of horribly unhealthy commercial formula from the store laced with rancid vegetable oils and GMOs!
What You Can Do Now to Help Rosie
It is truly unfathomable that our country has degenerated to the point where a person can no longer garden without permission from bureaucratic thugs who get paid with our hard earned tax dollars to think up these rules – Â not laws –Â rules that have never been voted on by the elected representatives of the citizens expected to abide by those rules.
If you recall, this is exactly the sort of authoritarian insanity that started the American Revolutionary War (tea party anyone?).
Tell the USDA where it can put its “rules” against gardening by those living in rural, subsidized areas.
Sample Email to USDA
You can copy/paste the email template below to send directly from your email provider. Template provided courtesy of Kitchen Gardeners International, the source of this story.
To:Â [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject:Â Allow USDA-subsidized housing residents to grow vegetable gardens
Message body:
Dear Director Meeks,
I urge you to make a loud and clear statement to all the property management companies your agency contracts that USDA-subsidized residents have the right to keep their own vegetable gardens provided that these gardens are actively maintained. Vegetable gardens grow healthy and affordable foods as well as a sense of community. Rather than preventing low-income and disabled residents from providing for themselves, we should be doing everything we can to encourage them. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely yours,
(Your name, your town, your state)
Important Updates to This Story
8/27/2013:Â FINAL UPDATEÂ and details on Rosie’s Victory Garden!
8/26/2013:  A detailed update to this story is provided here.
8/25/2013: Â Roger Doiron, Director of Kitchen Gardeners International, has provided more details on this emerging story. The USDA has claimed in email correspondence to Mr. Doiron that it has no written rules preventing Mary and Rosie from having a garden (despite the property management company’s insistence to the contrary). On the other hand, the USDA hasn’t come to Mary and Rosie’s defense either and by allowing the property management company it has a contract with to call the shots and bully Mary and Rosie it is essentially enforcing such a rule no matter what is claimed via email.
Bureaucratic rules are notoriously confusing to understand let alone interpret, but if the USDA stands behind its assertion that there are no “rules” – written OR unwritten – against gardening in subsidized housing, it should stop the property management company under the auspices of the USDA from forcing Mary and Rosie to remove their garden.
The USDA pays most of the rent for Mary and thousands of citizens like her around the United States. Â It should do the right thing and insist that property owners and managers of subsidized housing permit residents to grow their own food in well cared for gardens rather than look the other way when residents are bullied for their efforts at self sufficiency. Â After all, the stated mission of the USDA Rural Development Agency is to “improve the quality of life in rural America”. Gardening surely would be supportive of this important goal.
Source
Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI).  Rosie and Mary’s real names and exact location in South Dakota have not been revealed in order to protect the identity of a minor child.  Please contact KGI Director Roger Doiron, [email protected] if you wish to further verify the validity of this story.
Exactly like Cambodia 1977 under the Kmer Rouge
The way to handle this, is ignore the USDA and get a gun. If anyone tries to damage the garden, shoot them. We are at war. It’s you and your garden vs. some random gorilla thugs.
No, nothing like Cambodia under the Kmer Rouge and what you are suggesting is actually in violation of several laws, state and federal. You suggesting such things is incredibly irresponsible and not well thought out. Other measures to change these rules have not even been attempted and yet your first instinct is to call for violence. You are not a well individual.
When the government tells you that you can’t grow food on your own land, it’s no longer America. We all have the right to use lethal force to defend ourselves, our family, and our property. This goes from the thug trying to break into your house, to the creep trying to rape your daughter, or the government trying to “shut down” your garden. Just because they work for the government, doesn’t mean that they are free from thought, free from morals and free from crimes.
Everything that happened in Nazi Germany was legal. It was legal to confiscate firearms, to control people, to round up Jews, and to put them to death. We’re headed that same way. When someone comes to confiscate your firearms, you kill them. When someone tries to shut down your garden, you kill them.
We are not free because of bureaucratic pencil pushers. We are free because of some of the bravest and smartest men in history. They were not sissies. They were shooting Brits over a 5% tax. They would not stand for this. These crimes against Americans will continue, unless we all take a stand, and use lethal force. Government “workers” need to start losing their lives.
She’s not “growing food on her own land”, she’s growing it on someone else’s land. The “someone else” said she had to stop. The government refused to force the property owner to let her grow food on their land.
The action you advocate–the government forcing the property owner to let a preferred class of people use their property, essentially robbing them of it–is much more in tune with the Nazis than what is actually happening.
Anyway, if you don’t like the rules for living in gov’t-paid housing, don’t live in gov’t-paid housing. There’s your freedom.
Can I email even if I live in Canada?
What is the USDA’s Rural Development Agency definition of landscape, landscaping and structures within landscape? Aren’t pathways/walkways, retaining walls and trestles used in landscaping? Who exactly owns the “property”? I bet it is a private company, not the government, actually owns the property and is leasing the “units” to the state (not federal government). Is it located in a common use area?
My answer to this sort of intrusion would be insurrectionist and probably fail in the long run but give pause to these functionaries who are simply “following orders” like Albert Speer. I hesitate to write the words that would echo an answer from the NRA or either the Tea Party, bot of which I generally eschew.
A better solution that is more in keeping with living in a democratically run nation would be to start recruiting and then electing better people. Clearly the continued election of millionaires and multi-millionaires and even in some cases, billionaires, is no longer serving the citizens well. We have many very qualified people from within our own ranks in the various fields and occupations who could do quite well and enact more sensible rules that fit the needs of our society as it is today.
It doesn’t sound like anyone elected has anything to do with this. there are a million bureaucrats that get to make rules that no one voted for. That is more of the issue here.
The USDA actually DOES encourage this. They even issue grants to help people build community gardens with a preference on low-income, food-insecure areas (Source: “People’s Garden Program”) The US Dept of AGRICULTURE is not against gardens, people!
But as pointed out before me, the USDA had basically nothing to do with this anyway. Petition the local private management company if anything (hiding the names and location is probably a good idea but does make the story less credible and also means the USDA can’t follow up internally) but I suspect there’s more to this story of a 4-year old girl digging up landscaping without permission in a rent-controlled apartment building. If I was the USDA and got this letter, I’d say “WTH are they talking about?” and move on.
The USDA is a friend of Big Ag and most certainly a foe of private gardens. This situation does not surprise me in the least.
Just curious, this article says “forbids residents to have structures of any kind within landscaped areas.” Doesn’t this mean that the problem is a structure in the garden rather than the garden itself? If so, can she remove, maybe a tomato support, and continue to garden?
Don’t work around the rules, object and refuse the rules. Wake up and start doing your duty as a nation. When your government is no longer working for you, but against you, it is your duty to turn it over and get a new one. It’s your freedom you’re “selling” for “security”. Weigh your decision carefully…
Perhaps what they are objecting to is the boards surrounding the raised bed and between the rows. I would say first everyone take a deep breath and get out of attack mode for just a moment and find out the nature of the objection with a calm, honest talk with the super. You probably don’twant those boards in there anyway unless you are *absolutely sure* they were not treated with arsenic. The just build up those beds with as much soil and compost as you can and plant herbs on the sides to keep their integrity. It’s called French Intensive gardening. Good luck.
I added an extra paragraph for good measure…
“I have visited your lovely state many times and I am shocked at this ridiculous and pointlessly bureaucratic attitude that puts an unvetted “rule” above a person’s meager efforts to support themselves and their health through a small garden. This attitude is how we have arrived at such a perilous time in our country. It is shameful and instead of hiding behind “rules”, you and others in the agency should be advocating for people like this. Where is your humanity and is this what you wanted to be when you grew up? It’s time to wake up and help the people, not isolate them forever as being dependent on the state.”
Just my opinion.
I love this. You are exactly right. It’s time for our country to wake up, if it isn’t too late already.
Well said. “Where is your humanity…?” Yes.
Rules need to be reconsidered when they block those who are willing to work for a solution. Especially a young child who didn’t choose to be in her situation. Rules or not, what kind of people does our society want to encourage? This kind of thinking needs to change. Here’s a video about another person who is making a positive difference in his community, not just for him, but for anyone who walks by and needs fresh food.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la.html
This could be an amazing opportunity for more people to get involved with something good and stay out of trouble. It’s worked beautifully in other communities…until it was shut down…even after the poor community raised millions of dollars to try to keep it. This is the disease formula for society. It’s more important to sit around and produce nothing and look pretty, than to put in some effort and produce sustainance.