What Will MAHA Mean for Farmers and Ranchers?

Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican and doctor by training, has long advocated the “food is medicine” concept, the idea that diet plays a role in preventing and curing disease. Now he has emerged as one of the leading congressional champions of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement launched by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Along with Senate GOP colleagues Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Rick Scott of Florida, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Marshall has formed a MAHA caucus. Among the senators’ goals: 

• Work with RFK Jr. to be the legislative force that ensures the key pillars of MAHA are executed.
• Build partnerships with local, state and federal stakeholders to implement initiatives.
• Mobilize support for legislative priorities.
• Develop educational campaigns to raise awareness about nutrition as preventive care and increase access to nutritious food.

Marshall says the effort is important because 60% of Americans have a chronic disease, 20% of children are on a prescription drug and perhaps 40% of adolescents are morbidly obese or prediabetic.

“Recognizing the chronic health problems we have is up front for Bobby and myself,” he told Agri-Pulse during an exclusive interview. “Both of us think that food is medicine and there’s a great opportunity for preventing these diseases by making healthy choices, eating more nutrient-dense foods and decreasing the toxins our bodies are exposed to.”

Marshall described Kennedy and his team as “friends, colleagues” with “total trust” between each other. 

“They call and text me on a regular basis. I’m involved in the direction of their executive orders. Many of them are physicians, so that’s an easy relationship to build upon,” he added.

“Look, Bobby Kennedy and I don’t agree on some major, major political issues out there, but we both agree that we want to make America healthy again.” Marshall said he wants to “bring agriculture’s voice to the table” along with Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins and others.

What does that mean for farmers and ranchers who have steadily increased productivity while using fewer chemicals and fertilizers? Marshall says his group hopes to take current conservation and precision agriculture practices of the American farmer and amplify them in various ways. 

“American agriculture is already doing the things that MAHA moms are calling for,” he said. But at the same time, “there is still a lot of work to do.”

“At the end of the day, I think we’re after nutrient-rich food, and soil health equates with healthy nutrients, too. And yes, we want them with less toxins in them. We want them with less pesticides, with less fertilizer, those types of things as well. That’s kind of the big theme here.”

RFK Jr. often calls organic food, which is grown with different types of pesticides and fertilizers than conventional crops and typically require a three-year transition, healthier and more desirable. 

Asked if MAHA wants to move all producers to 100% organic production, Marshall suggested the goal is more to reduce the use of conventional inputs.

“I think that organic is a way overused term, and it means so many different things to different people. We’re already doing a lot of organic practices. We need to just amplify them,” he added, while describing practices like crop rotation, cover crops, and using livestock manure as fertilizer. 

“Through precision agriculture, we’re able to use less fertilizers and less pesticides. We’re already doing that, and we can do more of it as well as embrace some natural opportunities.” 

One of the best ways to encourage such changes is to create market opportunities that generate more revenue, Marshall said. He’s tried to educate the MAHA advocates that farmers respond to markets. For example, if more Americans wanted grass-fed beef, ranchers would deliver. 

However, he pointed out that some types of production may be more expensive for consumers, and that conflicts with President Donald Trump’s goal to bring grocery prices down. If some MAHA proposals are inflationary, Marshall said, they probably won’t work or may require additional incentives in a farm bill.

For example, Marshall said the fertilizers we use today work well. And if you want to substitute some of these with something more natural, it may increase costs for farmers, he said.

Marshall also suggested farmers need to more frequently “tell the story” about some of the regenerative practices that were embraced decades ago, like no-till farming. For example, the most recent agricultural census data indicates American farmers added more than 756,000 acres to no-tillage production since the 2017 census. In 2022 more than 105.2 million acres were in no-till production, compared to more than 104.45 million acres in 2017.

Seed Oils: ‘Not Close to Saying They’re Bad’

What about cooking staples that RFK Jr. has criticized such as “seed oils,” which are grown on over 10 million soybean, corn, sunflower, canola and cotton acres in Marshall’s home state? Kennedy promotes beef tallow rather than vegetable oil in frying. On Monday, he visited a Steak n Shake restaurant with Fox News personality Sean Hannity to highlight the chain’s switch to tallow.

“Bobby Kennedy’s two first goals coming into his position are radical transparency and gold standard research,” Marshall explained. “There’s lots of data that the NIH and CDC have chosen not to share through biased reasons. If the data is there, let Americans see it.”

However, he added, “I’m not close to saying that seed oils are bad, I think we truly don’t know whether they’re good or bad, and we need to hone into that and have somebody study it.”

Overall, Marshall said, “we need to dispel the myths.” He says the caucus will lead the fight to get whole milk back into schools, introduce several other MAHA-related bills and also work to pause and revise the dietary guidelines.

“I’m really careful not to be overly prescriptive, whether it’s on how to farm or what a good, nutritious diet looks like,” he added. “I think we need to set guardrails and give people good information.”

For a full list of MAHA-related bills that Marshall would like to advance, click here.

This article was originally published by Agri-Pulse. Agri-Pulse is a trusted source in Washington, D.C., with the largest editorial team focused on food and farm policy coverage.