Eco-ag farmers initially had high hopes for the Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement. But it looks like the Big Ag lobbyists are ensuring that any plans to truly make the American food system healthier will wither on the vine.
A letter from the American Farm Bureau Administration to US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on August 1, 2025 provides a play-by-play of the ag lobby’s tactics to make MAHA just another push for big ag. They want less regulation of pesticides, government funding for new technologies, and an official definition of “regenerative” that basically means current conventional agricultural practices—leaving room, of course, for new pesticides and biotechnology.
As usual, the Big Ag lobbies claim that they are acting in the best interests of farmers. At the Indiana Ag Policy Summit on July 30, 2025, Bayer representative Frank Wong “urged farmers to contact their state and federal representatives to defend the continued use of glyphosate” and post on social media “explaining how the product helps them increase yields and promotes sustainability.” That way, it will look like it’s a grassroots farmer effort, not corporate lobbying.
Similarly, the National Pork Producers Council sent a letter to the MAHA Commission on August 6. The pork industry’s concern with MAHA is that it might classify some of their processed pork products as ultra-processed foods. They also want to protect food additives in processed meat, including BHT.
Lobbying efforts such as these are probably the reason why the second MAHA report, titled “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy” and supposed to be released on August 12, is overdue. A draft of the report dated August 6 that was leaked to the New York Times shows that the lobbyists have been very successful. This draft mentioned ultra-processed foods only once, and the New York Times did not mention anything about pesticides.
“If it is adopted, the report on the health of America’s children will be good news for the food and agriculture industries, which feared much more restrictive proposals than the ones currently outlined in the draft,” DRGNews reported on August 18.
Of course, what’s “good news” to the ag lobbyists is not necessarily good news for eco-ag, or America’s health. The agricultural lobby’s success in convincing the MAHA Commission to essentially reverse their original position on ultra-processed foods and pesticides illustrates the futility of trying to change American agriculture from the top down. The only way to truly make America healthy again will be from the bottom up—starting with farmers who care about the soil and farm so well without chemicals that their neighbors will want to try it, too.
