An Eco-Ag Look at President Trump’s Regenerative Agriculture Executive Order
On June 25, 2026, President Donald Trump signed the “Advancing Regenerative Agriculture and Strengthening Farm Resilience” executive order.
“American farmers and ranchers have always prioritized care of their land and are increasingly interested in adopting innovative conservation farming practices like regenerative agriculture,” the order states. “These practices strengthen soil health, lower input costs, improve chemical efficiency to reduce overall use, improve farm profitability, maintain yields, increase market value, expand access to new markets, and strengthen rural economies.”
That all sounds great, but what does President Trump actually mean by regenerative? The White House’s definition of regenerative starts with “advances in precision agriculture technologies,” which generally make chemical applications more efficient but don’t provide a path toward eliminating chemicals altogether.
What eco-ag farmers should be concerned about is Section 2 of the order, titled “Ensuring Access to Modern Products and Practices and Accurate Labeling.” This section directs the EPA Administrator to “prioritize registration actions related to substances that can be used as alternatives to older active ingredients; provided, that the Administrator shall undertake all registration actions, including human health and ecological risk assessments, as expeditiously as possible as required by statute.”
This is about getting new herbicides on the market as quickly as possible to replace Roundup. That’s what “alternatives to older active ingredients” means. Glyphosate isn’t just a public relations nightmare for chemical companies—it’s becoming increasingly ineffective as weeds develop herbicide resistance. Weed scientists have been saying for years that herbicide-dependent no-till agriculture won’t be possible much longer unless chemical companies are able to develop broad-spectrum herbicides with new modes of action.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in Bayer’s favor by saying that the EPA is the final authority on pesticide warning labels, chemical companies aren’t liable if people get sick from their products once they get approved by the EPA. Pair that with the order’s direction for the EPA to conduct its risk assessments “as expeditiously as possible,” and the way is clear for new chemicals to sail through the approval process without fully testing their chronic toxicity.
Not to worry. The order also directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “issue a grand prize challenge from the National Institutes of Health for researchers to identify creative solutions for evaluating the exposure, diagnosis, and treatments of cumulative chemical exposures on individual health.” If the new herbicides that slip past the EPA with minimal scrutiny turn out to be even more toxic than glyphosate, at least someone will be researching it.
Despite its use of words like “regenerative” and “soil health,” this order is actually working counter to the goals of eco-agriculture by expediting the approval of new, minimally tested herbicides and other chemicals. It’s hard to see how that is going to “ensure that United States food is the healthiest, most abundant, and most affordable in the world.” But it will sure benefit the chemical companies.
