MAHA Strategy Report Mostly Friendly to Ag, Pesticides

By Ryan Hanrahan

Politico’s Marcia Brown, Grace Yarrow, Carmen Paun, and Annie Snider reported that “the Trump administration’s highly anticipated policy strategy to improve children’s health outcomes targets ultra-processed food, vaccine use and exposure to chemicals but doesn’t go as far as some industry groups feared in proposing new regulations.”

“The Make America Healthy Again Commission report, released Tuesday, largely mirrors the draft plan officials shared with industry representatives last month,” Brown, Yarrow, Paun, and Snider reported. “It stops short of restrictions on pesticide use, focusing instead on changes like reforming FDA regulatory pathways, investigating food ingredients, modernizing American vaccines and improving the childhood vaccine schedule. In some areas, it advances long-held industry priorities that public health advocates say could increase the very health risks that have fueled the MAHA movement, such as accelerating reviews of new chemicals.”

“The final strategy represents a significant win for the farm industry, which successfully lobbied the White House and President Donald Trump to temper Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s goal to crack down on common agriculture production practices,” Brown, Yarrow, Paun, and Snider reported. “The document bookends an error-ridden May report that laid out what the Trump administration sees as the root causes of children’s growing rates of chronic disease.”

“While it doesn’t propose new pesticide regulations, Kennedy’s strategy calls for the federal government to research consumers’ chemical exposure levels and promote precision technology with the goal of reducing use of herbicides,” Brown, Yarrow, Paun, and Snider reported. “But it also leans into several priorities for the chemical and pesticide industries, from accelerating EPA reviews of new pesticides so they can be brought to market more quickly to increasing the use of non-animal testing to evaluate chemicals’ risks. Already, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is transferring many of the agency’s independent scientists to the office tasked with swiftly reviewing new products.”

Other Ag Recommendations in the Report

Agri-Pulse’s Steve Davies reported that “the report suggests offering some regulatory relief to livestock farms and the produce industry. For livestock operations, the report says the government should ‘ensure flexibility for farms to manage manure and process water without triggering industrial-grade permitting requirements and avoiding the forced mandates of costly technologies or practices that do not consider geography, weather, species, and operation size.’”

“For produce operations, the government should ‘more clearly define post-harvest rinse and wash water as non-hazardous ‘ to protect packers and handlers from ‘unnecessary wastewater treatment burdens,’” Davies reported. “Among other recommendations from the report:

• Eliminate mandatory reduced-fat requirements in federal nutrition programs to allow consumer choice.
• Remove barriers preventing small dairy operations from processing and selling their own milk products locally.
• Eliminate zoning restrictions that prevent mobile grocery units from serving food deserts.
• Fast-track permits for grocery stores in underserved areas.
• Work with grocers on sustainable incentive programs that provide fresh, frozen, canned, or dried fruits and vegetables.”

Ag Groups Largely Express Cautious Optimism About Report

Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported that “months after being outraged, agricultural groups on Tuesday largely praised the findings of the latest Make America Healthy Again Commission report, as the commission backed away from criticizing pesticides.”

“CropLife America said the new report emphasizes ‘the critical role of pesticides in ensuring a safe, affordable, and abundant food supply for American families,’” Clayton reported. “…The National Corn Growers Association said the report ‘reflected NCGA’s recommendation of reinforcing the Environmental Protection Agency’s robust, globally respected pesticide review process.’”

“‘The policy recommendations related to crop production, released today by the MAHA Commission, appear to be a reasonable and science-based approach for achieving its objectives,’ said Kenneth Hartman Jr., an Illinois farmer and president of NCGA,” according to Clayton’s reporting. “The American Soybean Association (ASA) expressed cautious optimism on the report and also credited the commission with its engagement with farm groups.”

“The National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG), (however), expressed concerns over the commission’s ‘framing of enriched and refined grains as ‘ultra-processed,’ cautioning against broad generalizations that misrepresent their value in a healthy diet,’” Clayton reported. “Meat and dairy groups generally welcomed the report for pointing to the benefits of meat protein and whole milk products.”

What Does the Report Say About Food?

Reuters’ Ahmed Aboulenein, Renee Hickman, and Leah Douglas reported that “the U.S. government will address what it sees as an epidemic of chronic illness among American children, calling for changes such as offering full-fat milk in cafeterias and limiting marketing of food and drugs, the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Commission said in its second report on Tuesday.”

“The report also proposes exploring new guidelines to limit direct advertising of unhealthy foods to children, aiming to address misleading marketing practices,” Aboulenein, Hickman, and Douglas reported. “It recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Agriculture work with restaurants to increase education and awareness of age-appropriate healthy food options for children.”

Also “among the policy proposals in the report are the establishment of a National Institutes of Health Chronic Disease Task Force, a government definition for ‘ultra-processed food,’ and restrictions on synthetic food dyes, which the May report said were potentially linked to autism, without evidence,” Aboulenein, Hickman, and Douglas reported.

MAHA Strategy Report Mostly Friendly to Ag, Pesticides was originally published by Farmdoc.