Three months ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission. Later this week, the group’s first report is scheduled to be released.
Farmers were directly mentioned in the president’s February order, “agencies shall work with farmers to ensure that United States food is the healthiest, most abundant, and most affordable in the world.”
Members of the commission include Human Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and many more.
Among its tasks, the commission is to “assess the threat that potential over-utilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children with respect to chronic inflammation or other established mechanisms of disease, using rigorous and transparent data, including international comparisons.”
So what should agriculture be watching for?
In brief, industry analysts are watching two fronts for activity from MAHA initiatives:
- Commodity grain and oilseeds
- Pesticide use
“Secretary Kennedy so far has been very focused on processed foods, that’s one part of it,” says Richard Gupton, senior vice president of policy at the Agricultural Retailers Association. “Pesticides have really been a focus of Secretary Kennedy for well before he was in this current role. He was actually was part of the first litigations related to glyphosate.”
There have been reports that the MAHA report will specifically call out pesticides including glyphosate and atrazine.
Gupton highlights the statistics showing how from the mid 1900s to now, American agriculture has increased its output three-fold.
Gupton continues, “We represent ag retailers that are working with farmers, making sure they have the all the modern ag tools right to produce a crop, not only in a sustainable way, but an economical way. Products like glyphosate that have been registered and safely used since 1974, have really revolutionized modern production agriculture.”
Crop Life America is hosting a website for grassroots outreach to law makers and the Trump administration, farmervoicesmatter.org.
“People are making decisions about what tools farmers are going to get access to, and farmers need to be heard,” says Alex Dunn, president of CEO of Crop Life America.
“The pesticides are subject to extensive review by the U.S. EPA, under a very strict law that actually is the envy of many other countries,” Dunn says. “I actually served at the EPA in the last Trump administration. I oversaw the pesticide program for two years, and I got to see the scientists in action. And let me tell you, they don’t let anything go if they think there’s any concern. They are required under the law to assess for any environmental risk, to look at risk to the farm workers, to human health and especially to children. There’s a special requirement in the law that the EPA has to look at risk to children and put a 10 times additional factor of safety for childrens’ exposures. So we have a wonderful system.”
Which agencies have regulatory authority over what?
While this first report coming this week will unveil the overall direction and focus for the commission’s work, its policy and regulatory recommendations will be revealed Aug. 12 when the “Make our Children Healthy Again Strategy” will be submitted to the president.
Health and Human Services houses the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the trace pesticide testing on food products. However those tolerances are set by EPA.
“The commission’s recommendations could be within Health and Human Services, could be what FDA does, could be related to recommendations at EPA and to FIFRA and how products are registered within that agency,” Gupton says. “All of those things could potentially make it more difficult for farmers to have access to these necessary pesticide tools and cause an increase in the cost of food for American families.”
Rollins told Farm Journal’s Chip Flory on May 16, interagency talks were ongoing for the report’s content. She said her focus was to make sure the perspective of U.S. farmers is included. Recently, she helped organized Kennedy’s visit to a Texas farm.
Regarding Zeldin’s and Rollins’ seat on the commission, Gupton says its key for them to voice the jurisdiction of their agency.
“If they do their jobs and speak up and represent their agencies, and EPA stands behind their science, that’s all we’re asking them to do. And for Secretary Rollins that she’s there promoting and supporting America’s farmers,” Gupton says.
He continues, “If they want to talk about the review process and whether that needs to be updated, then that’s another conversation. They shouldn’t attack the products that have been effective and used by modern agriculture for decades to the benefit of the United States, our farmers and the globe.”
