Nearly a week after the public release of the Make America Healthy Again Commission’s Report, many members of the agricultural community say the document was more moderate than anticipated – most likely owing to engagement and concerns voiced by various agricultural groups, USDA and Congress.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws that need to be addressed in the 68-page document Making Our Children Healthy Again, according to the Ag Retailers Association (ARA).
“I think that [ag’s efforts] helped moderate the report, but there’s lots of concerns and contradictory statements in there related to pesticides, and that’s a major concern for our members and the industry,” says Richard Gupton, senior vice president for public policy and counsel at the ARA.
Conflicting, Unreliable Science Cited
Among ARA’s concerns, Gupton says, the report references studies EPA had previously deemed as being based on unreliable science, conflicting stances that create unnecessary anxiety about food safety among U.S. consumers.
“It undermines the public confidence in our regulatory system when they mention studies that have been rejected by EPA,” Gupton told AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday. “The EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs is the gold standard for evaluating pesticide safety. So a concern, from our perspective, is [the commission is] including things in there that that aren’t held up by our own federal agency, and it causes concern with the general public on the safety of their food supply.”
Hear more of Gupton’s perspective regarding flaws in the commission’s report on AgriTalk.
Gupton’s concerns were similarly voiced by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Mississippi. She had expressed concerns before the MAHA report was unveiled and then again the day of its release, last Thursday.
“There is enough in the report to cause plenty of worry about how key crop protection tools will be regulated in the future,” Hyde-Smith said in a statement. “I remain concerned about this report may be used to set the stage for a new regimen of standards based on fringe theories that could upend the sound farming practices that have made American farmers the most productive in history.”
Gupton says ARA also takes issue with language in the report that seems to recommend taking the U.S. regulatory system beyond science-based, risk-based standards and adopting a different kind of a system, more in line with European regulatory systems.
“The commission tries to imply other regulatory systems might be better than the U.S. system, but the European Union’s own actions contradict this notion, as glyphosate is currently approved in the EU through 2033,” Gupton says.
Another concern Gupton voiced was the lack of transparency in the development of the MAHA report. No farmers or farm groups had a seat at the table in the formal development process. ARA wants that misstep corrected now, as the commission begins to develop policy recommendations based on the report. Those are due to President Trump in approximately 80 days.
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