Ag Groups Anxious This Week’s MAHA Report May ‘Baselessly Attack’ Farmers

A report to be released by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission this week has agricultural groups appealing for careful consideration by the Trump administration.

The report’s expected release is Thursday, May 22, according to Agri-Pulse’s Rebekah Alvey. The MAHA report “will set out to identify possible drivers of diseases, including diet and environmental factors. From there, the commission will suggest a government-wide strategy to tackle chronic disease,” Alvey said.

Ahead of the report, national commodity groups and the American Farm Bureau Federation have issued cautionary statements, calling on the Trump administration to carefully review the report and consider its consequences before public release. 

American Farm Bureau Federation

Zippy Duvall, AFBF president and Georgia farmer, said in a statement that AFBF is “counting on President Trump and his advisors to carefully examine the upcoming report to ensure its accuracy and scientific grounding before giving a final stamp of approval.”

“America’s farmers and ranchers are committed to doing the right thing, including producing a safe, affordable, and nutritious food supply,” Duvall said. “Agriculture has been on a journey of continuous improvement since our country’s founding. We welcome recommendations based on facts and hope the president will insist that’s the case with the upcoming report from the MAHA Commission,” he said.

“Farmers feed their families the same food they produce for America’s families, and we rely on credible science to guide our practices. We welcome efforts to improve health outcomes in America, but recommendations to limit farming practices based on unproven theories could have severe unintended consequences,” Duvall continued. 

“America’s food independence is important, and the White House should not recommend changes that lead to greater reliance on other countries to supply our food. There is also a risk of reducing access to affordable and nutritious foods, including fruits and vegetables,” he said.

“History teaches us that it takes a very long time to rebuild public confidence once it is lost — even if the loss is caused by incorrect or incomplete information. This is certainly true when it comes to the food system,” he added.

National Commodity Groups

According to a joint statement, the American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, and International Fresh Produce Association, along with the farmers they represent, are collectively “imploring the administration to carefully consider the content and consequences of the forthcoming MAHA Commission report before it is finalized.” The groups’ statement took an even greater cautionary tone than that of AFBF.

“Despite the effort of many of our organizations to work with the MAHA Commission to provide factual information about American food production, we have heard disturbing accounts that the commission report may suggest U.S. farmers are harming Americans through their production practices and ‘creating foods that [are] destroying our microbiome and bodies — leading directly to our chronic disease crisis.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. Nutrition matters, health matters, and the confidence of consumers in the food supply matters tremendously. Such a conclusion would run counter to the scientific evidence and decades of findings from the Environmental Protection Agency,” the groups said.

“Should the MAHA Commission report baselessly attack and, worse yet, make claims that are simply untrue against the hardworking men and women who feed our nation, it will make further cooperation on this initiative very difficult and potentially put American food production at risk,” the groups warned.

“We urge President Trump to ensure that the MAHA Commission report is based on sound science and evidence-based claims rather than opinions and preferences of social influencers and single-issue activists with little to no experience in actual farming or food production,” the groups concluded in the statement.

Editor’s note: Some of the previous statements have been edited and/or condensed by Successful Farming for style and clarity.