As I am sitting here, I find myself pondering the health care reform bill before the House and Senate,and can do nothing but shake my head in disgust. We had an historical opportunity to re-think how we address health care in this nation,and the possible reforms that could have significantly and positively affected our citizens have been removed from the discussion. Lower priced drugs, true insurance premium reform, food safety, and allowing access to our health care system to all are completely off of the table. When this is over, most of us will all be still one major injury/illness away from destitution and the pill-popping, forget about the maintenance, and pay the piper later culture will have been trenched for the foreseeable future, and with it, the kingdoms of Pfizer, Blue Cross, and Monsanto become more unassailable. You may be asking yourself, what a simple farmer on a farming blog could possibly have to say about this debate that is relevant, and I would answer that farming has everything to do with health and health care.

Somehow in the past fifty years there has been a shift in our attitude towards personal responsibility and our responsibility towards each other. George Orwell famously described a world of Big Brother, but what he didn't foresee was our complacency in handing over each and every element of our lives to the Other. For example, many of us complain about the public school system and its inability to teach our children the basics. These accusations are extremely accurate, and in the world academic arena,we are falling behind in math and science—but of course we lead in football and basketball. While I hint at some priority issues, I do not want to muddy the water too much from my point. The public school system is failing at educating our children, but it is also failing at disciplining our children, feeding our children, policing our children, providing sex education for our children and yes,protecting our children. What's my point? My point is: what is my personal responsibility, if I expect all of that from public school system? When did we get a free pass from the personal responsibility of raising children or for that matter any personal responsibility?Most of those expectations placed on the public school system are in reality parenting obligations that we have shifted to the State.

I understand the economic issues at hand, and I am very sensitive and empathetic to the subtle and nuanced arguments that lie beneath the surface of the above example.I only want to point out that many, if not all of our problems with the education system are a result of resigning personal responsibilities, one at a time, to the State. Sadly, this is not where this ends. We look to the government to solve our every day problems. We approach the problem of our health and food safety as a matter best left for the government to resolve. While it's true that the government can be part of the solution, the solution really needs to come from the people.

Before I go any further, I now want to take a closer look at the problem of health and its relationship to food and food safety. I suspect that few people would be surprised that if in a few years of driving their new car without changing the oil, that they would begin to experience possible serious mechanical issues. Further, we would not be surprised if we were to abusively drive the car that we would find our car barely surviving past the manufacturer's warranty. We might wish for a fuel additive(after-the-fact) to magically restore our car to its former new state, but most would realize the delusional nature of such thoughts.Yet, as a society, we subscribe to this thought process for our health.

“I would like to work out, but I don't have the time.” ”I know that I should not eat fast food daily and that the convenience food that I am eating is causing me to be susceptible to type II diabetes.” “ I would quit smoking, but it's not my fault because nicotine is addictive. However, I won't worry because my health insurance will take care of me.” Does that sound familiar as a national attitude? The hard truth is that we are what we eat, period. We need exercise, period. We need to exercise our brains, period. There is no getting around these laws of nature. A large portion of this is personal responsibility. The government can not help those who should be helping themselves.

In fact the government may be working against us on this issue due to special interests. On May 19, 2009, the American Academy of Environmental Science (AAEM) called on all physicians to encourage and prescribe to their patients a diet of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) free diets. There are numerous tests that seem to indicate the health risks of these items in our diet. For brevity, I will briefly list a few studies and results:

• GM soy fed to rats resulted in most baby rats dying compared to 10% infant mortality rate in control groups¹

• GMO food provokes immune response in animal studies, including Monsanto's own studies²

• In studies, chickens fed Liberty Link corn had twice the mortality rate of their control counterparts³

• My personal favorite is the Bt gene, which produces a toxin that kills insects and which comes from bacteria, is a standard GMO solution to insect pests in crops like corn. GMO corn has been engineered to produce its own Bt. The problem is that this gene can jump to other bacteria like our stomach fauna and it can turn our own bodies into poison factories. A lone human study seems to support this very dangerous possibility⁴

It seems that our government in its infinite wisdom (read support from special interest groups) has decided that we do not need to test these foods, and any tests done elsewhere are to be censured by industry. That's right, if Monsanto says that it is safe to eat GMO food, than it must be. The current head of the FDA is Michael Taylor, the former VP of Public Policy for Monsanto from 1998 – 2001! The GMO foxes are indeed in charge of the hen house. Impartiality and subjectivity are out of the question. Current food safety laws have their cross hairs set on organic spinach rather than the 500 lb gorilla in the room. Remember the old saying, Q: “What does a 500 lb gorilla do?” A: “Anything it  wants to do.” It's clear that the answer will not come from our government. What can we do; wait for the  calvary?

The Preamble to the Constitution does not state, “We the Government”, and the founders did not wait for King George to pass a law to change things. They took personal responsibility for their collective future. I am not calling for a bloody revolution, but a revolution of sorts is in order. We need to recognize the power of “We the People”. Our collective buying habits can send a message to the transnational corporations that affect our daily lives and our health. Monsanto can successfully lobby congress to prevent companies from labeling their products as containing GMO ingredients, but we can educate ourselves, and demand only GMO free products. Simply stop buying GMO products. If only 10%of us did that, our food system would change overnight. How do you know which products to safely buy and which ones to avoid? Consult www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com.We truly hold an immense collective power if we only could be compelled to exercise our immense economic influence, but, instead,we seem to be waiting for Big Brother to do our work for us. Maybe someone will throw our tea overboard into the harbor while we are busy driving our Hummers to Mc Donalds.

I can hear the price objection already.Quality food costs too much, right? “I just can't afford good food.” I think my response would be obvious at this point. It's a matter of priorities, and like it or not, we all pay one way or another. To be sure, highly subsidized GMO foods and processed foods are cheaper, but who do you think is paying for the subsidies?. You can either pay now or later.

Americans think nothing of spending money on pleasure items that we claim are necessities like: big screen televisions, cigarettes, fast food, and excessive-sized automobiles. Yet, we spend the smallest portion of our incomes on food in our history. We continue to rely on the government to heavily subsidize our cheap, high calorie and low nutrition food so that we can dispense with our personal responsibility of health and fitness. We cannot ethically avoid this responsibility any more than we can avoid the responsibility of raising our own children. By allowing special interests to perpetually keep us in a state of disease, we condemn ourselves to the rat wheel of paying for the consequences of our health decisions. We will experience cancer, heart disease and diabetes, which are indeed affecting record numbers of people in our country. We will pay for these one way or another just as the abusive car owner above will pay for repairs. To be sure, he or she saved short-term money and effort by not changing the oil, but at what long-term cost?

In the mean time, pharmaceutical, health insurance and biotechnology companies will prosper at our expense. If we buy our own insurance, health care costs will skyrocket. If we force the government to pay for it, we will pay for it in the form of taxes? To be sure, there are areas where government can provide the solution. There are people in our society who cannot make the choices described here due to an incredible and real economic disadvantage. This is where government can assist by encouraging the elimination of food deserts through zoning and startup loans and by supporting infrastructure that permits access to health care to everyone. However, none of these should exclude us from the personal responsibility of daily choices that directly affect our health and ultimately the future of our nation.

What does farming have to do with this?Farming is where our food comes from. It is the beginning of the cycle. If we demand healthy food, we will get it. Companies will demand that farmers produce environmentally sustainable and healthy food if consumers demand it. Healthy food is the foundation for a healthy body. Our bodies are literally comprised of what we put in it. Would you build your house out of termite-infested wood because it was cheaper? Why do we respect our bodies so much less?

While we stand on the cusp of change, our leaders may miss the opportunities offered them, but we need not miss those before us. We will vote with your wallets. We will send a message to the corporations that we will not tolerate the poisoning of our children. We will no longer accept the lies and half-truths about our food, and most importantly we will not shy away from our responsibility in this change. We are not against Monsanto and Dupont; we are demanding that you join us as we forge a healthy future. We only ask that you change, but if you do not, be fore warned, that you cannot survive the collective economic pressure of  We the People. You will either adapt or fade from significance.