Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-held belief that the use of pesticides in farming is making American children sick was again pushed to the wayside this week, even as the health secretary helped kick off what the administration is calling The Great American Farmers Market.
Kennedy didn’t argue when Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said there was no way American agriculture could sustain heightened restrictions on pesticide use Monday.
“There is no chance that our current system of agriculture can survive without those crop protection tools, including the fertilizers that you mentioned,” Rollins said in response to a reporter’s question about whether the MAHA report would recommend removing such crop treatments from the market.
“I feel very confident that his and our commitment to make sure that farmers are at the table remains paramount and that the report will reflect that,” she said of Kennedy, who was standing next to her as she signed Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program waivers. (The first report generated by the MAHA commission cited a paper on pesticides that was criticized as “junk science” among other issues.)
“I have nothing to add,” Kennedy said.
Across the street from the USDA, at the inaugural Great American Farmers Market on the National Mall, farmers from around the country were participating in a MAHA-themed day.
Several told NOTUS they were drawn to RFK Jr. specifically for his positions on regenerative farming and reducing the number of chemicals used on crops.
None of the farmers NOTUS spoke with at the event seemed surprised to hear of Rollins’ comments about pesticide use. But they were still giving Kennedy the benefit of the doubt.
They were confident that the Trump administration still has their best interests at heart, even if the new Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services leadership hasn’t quite shown it yet.
“We think there’s lots of positive things coming, but we haven’t seen a whole lot,” said Dan Stoltzfus, who owns a cheese company in Pennsylvania. Stoltzfus pointed to the farmers market as an example of the Trump administration’s commitment to farmers.
“The last administration would have never done this,” said Stoltzfus.
But he allowed that it might “take a year or two to really see results.”
Dave Fischer of Fischer Farms said it was “very appropriate” for his farm to participate in the MAHA-themed farmers market — he wholeheartedly subscribes to Kennedy’s views on crop protection, which he described as “chemicals are bad.” Fischer said he believes that the practice of spraying pesticides only a few weeks before crops are harvested should be “banned overnight.”
But Fischer added that he wasn’t naive to the challenges Kennedy and Rollins face.
“You have to look at it on a step-by-step basis,” said Fischer. “If you wiped out herbicides today, there’d be a lot of hungry people.”
For his own part, Fischer said, his farm is hosting a “farmer field day” to help educate farmers on techniques to reduce fertilizer, herbicide, and chemical use.
“I would love to see more from USDA on research dollars on reducing herbicides, as well as fertilizers and so forth,” Fischer said.
Kennedy has on several occasions reversed campaign statements that he would push to ban agricultural chemicals. In May, he told a panel of senators that he was aware of the farm business concerns preventing such a ban.
Still, several of the farmers in attendance said they’d applied to the market because they’re excited about Kennedy’s push for people to know where their food comes from.
“It seems to us like the most forgotten segment of the entire country is the farmers,” said Dana Beck of Beck Ranch, which advertises their meat as “mRNA free.”
“This feels like the first administration that cares,” Beck said.
Other farmers didn’t feel it was USDA’s role to set limitations on chemical use.
“This is America. You’re able to choose what you want to do,” said Texas-based regenerative farmer Edward Barrett.
There appeared to be more concern about the impact of the changes to USDA Monday than about the future of the MAHA movement in agriculture. The cuts to USDA personnel and funding — nearly 16,000 staff and $7 billion in proposed budget reductions — have been felt across USDA’s programs.
Brad Swancy, who runs a small milling company in Georgia, said that while his business hasn’t yet been affected by USDA cuts — its three-year Value Added Producer Grant is still ongoing — he “wondered how bad it was going to be” when he first heard about the changes.
Current and former USDA employees protested Rollins’ and Kennedy’s appearance at the farmers market later Monday afternoon. Several dozen attended, some holding signs with phrases like “We feed the nation, you feed corruption” and “Drain the swamp? You just gutted the farm!!”
The Trump administration proposed cutting the budget of USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which funds research at universities, by 38%. The Senate Committee on Appropriations rejected that request.
“We’ve lost a lot of staff that work on quality control and program integrity,” said one USDA Food and Nutrition Service employee at the event who requested anonymity. “We’ve been scrambling to try to keep things covered.”