Farm Groups Push Back As MAHA Report Challenges U.S. Crop Protection Standards
May 30, 2025 Agriculture is used to being challenged by special interest groups regarding the use of many of its crop protection tools. Now, however, the U.S. government has seemingly entered the mix.
In late May, Health and Human Services (HHS) Director Robert Kennedy Jr. released his widely anticipated “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) Report. In it, HHS raised the possibility that the federal government should take another look at scientifically approved crop protection products.
“Hidden in the report is a call for consideration of ‘actions that further regulate or restrict crop protection tools beyond risk-based and scientific processes set forth by Congress,’” said Daren Coppock, CEO of the Agricultural Retailers Association. “In other words, the MAHA Report calls for the U.S. to abandon its gold standard regulatory system and instead embrace a hazard-based precautionary system that includes non-scientific factors, such as that in the European Union.”
Naturally, dozens of agricultural organizations swiftly put out critiques of the MAHA Report’s recommendations.
“The misinformation surrounding crop protection tools is incredibly upsetting because if there’s one thing all farmers have in common, it’s that we care about raising safe, healthy, and affordable food that nourishes families around the world,” said Jolene Riessen, Iowa Farmer and Chair of the Iowa Corn Growers Association. “Agriculture is a science, and we have spent years testing and researching pesticides, like glyphosate, to reaffirm that they are a safe and vital tool farmers rely on to feed and fuel the world.”
“Farmers are already facing a host of challenges — uncertainty about their access to critical crop protection products shouldn’t be added to the list,” said Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, Executive Director of the Modern Ag Alliance. “Crop protection tools are not only safe, they are essential to food security, affordability, and the survival of family farms all across this country. Losing access to these critical inputs would be a devastating setback to American agriculture.”
Loading ...Furthermore, American Soybean Association Director Alan Meadows believes the MAHA Report will aid in the efforts of opponents for crop protection products such as glyphosate and atrazine.
“Activist organizations and trial lawyers are already engaged in baseless lawfare on pesticides,” said Meadows. “By bizarrely, without reason singling out two specific pesticides, the administration has offered activists a gift on a silver platter. Those groups will be poised to use the report to advance litigation aimed at taking away these tools American farmers use safely and effectively to produce our food. It is sad — and downright unjust — that, because of this one unfounded report, those decisions likely will be made by a judge and the court of public opinion instead of the regulatory system created for these very decisions and based on years and reams of credible science and research.”
Ultimately, ag organizations are calling upon the President Donald Trump Administration to defend agriculture against the MAHA Report recommendations.
“We urge the Trump administration to ensure that the MAHA Commission’s future work is guided by sound science and peer-reviewed research,” said Pat Clements, President of the National Association of Wheat Growers. “American consumers deserve facts — not fear — when it comes to how their food is grown and produced.”
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