The First Lady highlighted the community farm as an example of what should be happening across the country.
Michelle Obama smelled herbs grown by one of the farmers at the /*New Roots Community Farm*/ in San Diego. She made the stop after her first solo visit abroad as First Lady, having made an unexpected stop in Haiti to see the area devastated by January's earthquake.
Obama then flew to Mexico City to spend time with the wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
In San Diego, Obama toured the farm as part of her /*Let's Move campaign*/, announced two months ago, to try to end childhood obesity in one generation. She talked about the partnership between Let's Move and the /*California Endowment initiative*/ to build healthy communities.
The farm is one of 14 targeted communities. Obama says kids need to become more active and families have to have access to affordable healthy foods. She wants to deal with the problem of what she calls "food deserts," communities with no close access to grocery stores or fresh produce.
"Millions of children are living in food deserts, and our goal is to completely eliminate those by bringing grocery stores and farmers markets into underserved areas so that our families have access to the kind of healthy food, the affordable food, that they're going to need," said Obama.
The First Lady's visit was applauded by more than 200 people who attended Thursday's event. It was by invitation only, which made some people a little unhappy about that.
There was one woman holding a sign that read "Let the growers in." She lives across the street from the farm and is one of the first people who started growing fruits and vegetables there. She said and she was not allowed in.
One government official said that it was a very small space for Thursday's event so they had to do it by invitation only and they only had so much room for so many people. People that were invited were from the community.
