Congress is going to pass a bill to more regulate food production in the U.S. But these congressmen and women are so far removed from knowing what actually happens during food production that their opinions on the subject are more than likely counterintuitive. And when you add in that they get mega campaign contributions from the industrial agricultural interests, the odds that congress is going to do anything to promote any kind of sustainable agriculture is about nil.

Sure, about any ground can produce a minimum of corn, because the industrial agricultural complex thinks they have figured out the way to do it. But, I think the situation is more akin to the situation in the movie "Bedazzled," and old Dudley Moore movie modernizing and re-telling the story of Dr. Faust selling his soul to the devil.

In that movie, Moore made a deal with the devil that he thought would lead to him getting his wishes fulfilled. But, the devil ended up being more of a lawyer than a devil, and kept finding all these loopholes in Moore's wishes, and turning the situation around on him so that what happened was just about the opposite of what he had hoped for. That's exactly what I fear those that are buying into the Monsanto/Dekalb version of agriculture are doing - they are being bamboozled.

The true measure of how sustainable ground is comes when you are dependent on a crop from the ground but the normal inputs aren't readily available. Now, just about all of the agricultural land, on a percentage basis, in the U.S., is dependent on some kind of industrial input to be able to make any kind of what is considered respectable crop. For about all of the corn and soybean crop, it means all kinds of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, not to mention the significant genetic modifications that are done to the corn and soybeans to make them more tolerant to the chemicals being used to produce them. The problem with most of these lands is that if these inputs, which are very expensive, are not applied, the crops will be significantly less - and in the language of money, not profitable.

The questions are how long can the inputs be provided at a cost that still allows for farmer profits, and how will these chemicals in the environment manifest their impacts. A widespread cancer or non-cancer illness that is relatively easy to trace to a particular agricultural use could result in lawsuits that stifle a lot of farmers. I actually think most of the farmers know, but face the choice between bankruptcy and doing the right thing. That's a false choice that the public should reject.

Safe food is a legit question. But a superficial whitewash of the subject will do nothing to improve our food supply. And that, or worse, is what I'm afraid we are getting.