'Compared to al Qaeda': Farmers don't believe promises from inside Trump admin

Farmers with Modern Ag Alliance, a coalition that has been pushing for the adoption of pesticide labeling policies that would make it more difficult to build cancer-related lawsuits against pesticides, fear the impact of an upcoming “Make America Healthy Again” report they believe will target pesticides.

The farmers said on a press call Wednesday an attack on pesticide chemicals, specifically mentioning glyphosate in the widely used Roundup herbicide, would be “a terrible development for American agriculture” and lead to higher food costs for the American consumer.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified Tuesday to U.S. senators and said there is not a “single word” in his agency’s upcoming report that “should worry the American farmer.”

Scott Henry, a farmer from central Iowa, was not persuaded by the secretary’s remarks. He noted Kennedy’s past as an environmental law attorney who said, several years ago, he believed hog farmers were worse than Osama bin Laden.

“I think it’s hard to have been compared to al Qaeda in the past and then be told that I’m a partner now,” Henry said.

Henry said if the report, which is anticipated to be released Thursday, contains anti-glyphosate guidance, and policymakers follow suit, it will cause commodity yields to drop, prices to increase and food inflation to “more than double.”

A report on the impact of a farm bill that doesn’t allow the use of glyphosate found that consumer food inflation would increase 2.4 times.

“The biggest thing that I want to make clear today is that if the MAHA commission’s report drives future policy decisions, food prices will go up, and instead of making America healthy again, we’ll be making America hungry again,” Henry said.

Modern Ag Alliance reports input prices for farmers could more than double without access to glyphosate. Henry said these costs would be passed up the supply chain and to consumers.

“The American farmer still has the best interest of the consumer in mind,” Henry said. “We want them to buy food, we want it to be cheap, we want it to be safe, because don’t forget, we feed our children these same products. So for somebody to tell us that we don’t care about them is a true slap in the face.”

An executive order from President Donald Trump in February created the Make America Healthy Again commission and tasked it with developing a “Make our Children Healthy Again Assessment” to evaluate the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food ingredients and other factors that contribute to childhood chronic disease in the country.

Kennedy has spoken publicly in the past about glyphosate and alleged the common weed-killing chemical causes cancer and other health concerns.

Roundup’s manufacturer, Bayer, holds that the product is safe to use, as does the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which reviews and certifies pesticides in the country.

The company, however, has spent billions defending lawsuits in which plaintiffs allege the product gave them cancer. This led the company to partner with ag groups through Modern Ag Alliance and push for state legislation across the country, including in Iowa this year and last, to block lawsuits built on failure to warn claims.

The bill did not advance through the House in Iowa, but has been signed into law in both North Dakota and Georgia.

Modern Ag Alliance promoted the legislation, largely through ad campaigns. Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, the executive director of the alliance, said the attention to the MAHA report is much like the push for state policy on the issue.

“No different than how we have been trying to work proactively in many of the state legislative chambers on providing clarity and consistency so that farmers have these tools available today, and in the future, we see similar themes here and why we’re working towards it at the federal level,” Burns-Thompson said.

Henry said the report itself might not have a direct effect, but could lead to “shifts in policy” that would send farming back to the practices of his grandfather.

“Today, hundreds of people can eat because of one individual farmer’s efforts, and it’s all due to tools like glyphosate and Roundup that allow us to do more with less and make safe, clean, affordable food available,” Henry said.