In an interview with Washington Post staff writer Lois Romano, US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack talked about the new People's Garden, Michelle Obama's White House garden, and the role of organic farming in US agriculture today. Here's a passage from the interview:

LOIS ROMANO: Can organic farming, homegrown farming replace industrial farming?

TOM VILSACK: You know, interesting thing about the Census that was done recently of U.S. Agriculture, it showed 108,000 new initiatives and new entrepreneurial opportunities--starting in--in the country. These are small farmers, probably selling a couple thousand dollars' worth of product.

It is a growth opportunity for agriculture. It's a--it's a way in which we can re-populate rural communities. It's a way in which USDA can be engaged by promoting community-supported agriculture, by promoting farmers' markets and a new take to rural development, which is important, and we'd like to see those small operations migrate into a mid-sized operation. So we're going to look for ways to link them up with local consumers and institutional buyers.

So you're going to see a lot more support for that kind of activity.

I think, frankly, we're going to need all of our agriculture, all kinds of agriculture, and the reason for this is that, again, remember it's not just the 300 million Americans that we need to be concerned about. It's the 6 billion people who live on this earth, and the reality is that number is going to continue to grow.

ROMANO: Can you bridge the conflict, though, between the environmentalists and the industrial producers?

VILSACK: Well, you know, I think you have to recognize that there are very passionate feelings on all sides of this, but I think what USDA has to do is it has to be supportive of all types of agriculture. Asking me to choose between organic and production agriculture is sort of like asking me which of my two boys I love the most. I love them both.

 For more background information on Vilsack and his organic cred, check out Treehugger.com's recent profile.

-Mark