Fresh Produce for the Prez

The president, his family and White House staff will soon be able to pop over to an open-air market to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables during their lunch break -- assuming they get one. A nonprofit got the green light from the city last week to open a farmer's market near the White House starting this Thursday.

Fresh Farm Market will be open to the public Thursdays along Vermont Avenue Northwest between H and I Streets from Sept. 17 through Oct. 29. Eighteen local farmers will sell fruits, vegetables, pasture-raised meats and eggs, cheese and baked goods.

In August, Obama said he was working on getting a farmer's market into the neighboorhood.

"It gives D.C. more access to good, fresh food, but it also is this enormous potential revenue-maker for local farmers in the area,’’ he said at a health care forum, according to a New York Times blog. “Those kinds of connections can be made all throughout the country, and — and has to be part of how we think about health."

The Washington Post reports that when Thomas Jefferson was in office at the beginning of the 19th century, there was a fresh produce market in nearby Lafayette Square. Has it really taken over two centuries for our leaders to come back around to the idea of fresh produce?

Organizers from Fresh Farm Markets tell the Washington Post they contacted the president about their plan shortly after Inauguration Day to get his support and that he came through -- making Obama the first truly green president in addition to the first black one.

Photo courtesy of Westcoast Weezie via Flickr.