Leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement aren’t happy with parts of this year’s version of the farm bill — or the lawmakers who had vowed to hear their concerns.
The latest version of the agriculture policy bill — supported by Republicans purporting to be MAHA sympathizers — falls short of the movement’s demands. Much of the focus is on pesticide safety reviews and potentially risks funding for a pilot program to back farming practices to improve soil health and limit pesticide use.
“That’s absolutely unethical and insane,” Zen Honeycutt, founder of Moms Across America, told The Washington Sun.
Honeycutt said she and her group have visited legislators in D.C. nearly every month for more than a year, advocating for restrictions on glyphosate, the most common pesticide used by farmers.
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Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA activist who goes by the moniker “glyphosate girl,” hopes that if the Senate passes its version, lawmakers will hash out its differences with the House bill in a conference and scrap the pesticide measures.
Ryerson said she has been deeply disappointed by Republicans who had earlier appeared to sympathize with MAHA priorities, including those who formed MAHA caucuses in the House and the Senate at the outset of this Congress.
That includes Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), chair of the Senate MAHA Caucus, who voted for the Senate bill in the Agriculture Committee, as did another caucus member, Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama).
All the committee’s Republicans voted to block an amendment from Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) that would clarify that individuals can sue pesticide companies over health impacts, fueling fears among leading MAHA activists that their allies had been captured by big agricultural interests.
“Senator Marshall was supposed to be that person” to advocate for us, Ryerson said. “He is not.”
Marshall finds himself in a surprisingly competitive reelection race this year, when enthusiasm among rural voters for Republicans has dulled amid high input costs from the war in Iran and escalating trade wars with some of the country’s biggest buyers of American agriculture.
The MAHA movement, closely associated with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., advocates for a range of issues, including cleaning up food and air and addressing the root causes of chronic health conditions. Stronger regulations on the pesticides farmers use on their crops is one of its most unifying issues, and it enjoys broad support from a majority of Americans.
Members of the MAHA caucuses have all voted for versions of the farm bill when given the opportunity, and some have voted specifically to protect pesticide makers from health-related lawsuits.
In April, pressure from MAHA activists successfully prompted the House to scrap from that chamber’s version of the farm bill a provision that would have added liability protections for pesticide manufacturers. Seven Republicans on the 14-member House MAHA Caucus voted against that amendment. The Senate version left out that provision.
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) believes her colleagues in the House experienced the MAHA movement’s power firsthand during that April vote, and it should not be underestimated. She said she believes Democrats didn’t expect 73 Republicans to vote for the amendment.
“They seem to be a little slower to catch on in the Senate, but they haven’t had that same kind of amendment vote or experience we have,” Pingree said. But I think it’s a very durable issue, and we’re going to continue to see pressure on it.”
Alexandra Muñoz, an independent toxicologist who shares MAHA concerns about pesticides, said the bills still have “a lot of concerning provisions.” The measures would extend the deadline for a safety review of certain chemicals from 2026 to 2031. Other provisions would exclude certain chemicals from health and safety reviews altogether.
“Delaying or sidestepping these reviews will benefit the pesticide industry,” said Muñoz, who has testified against state laws protecting pesticide makers from lawsuits.
The Environmental Protection Agency is under an immense backlog of unfinished, legally mandated reviews for hundreds of older pesticides. Public health and environmental groups note that the agency has failed to finalize reviews for many widely used, high-volume conventional chemicals due to complex assessments involving endangered species and potential endocrine disruption.
The EPA is mandated to review pesticides every 15 years, with this current review cycle beginning in 2007. The agency already received a four-year extension in 2022.
Glyphosate is also at the center of the MAHA’s frustration with the EPA. The EPA says the chemical has low toxicity levels when used correctly, but studies on its long-term health impacts are mixed. Farmers have voiced concerns about their need for glyphosate, and a proposed ban in Illinois is expected to cost farmers around half a billion dollars in additional spending.
The Senate bill also shifts conservation funding to various programs prioritized by both sides of the Agriculture Committee, potentially moving funding away from a regenerative farming pilot program at the USDA that was expanded by an executive order President Donald Trump signed in June.
The USDA announced on Tuesday it would increase funding for this program from $700 million to $1 billion in 2027, saying it would advance the MAHA movement “by building a healthier, more resilient food system.”
Democrats are pushing to maintain current funding levels for all existing conservation programs, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program, as well as increased funding for programs set to receive a decrease in the farm bill.
“We’re seeing support from a broad coalition of farmers and consumers for these popular, voluntary conservation programs,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said in a statement.
Tuberville told The Sun he had not heard any concerns from MAHA groups, and that he believed the farm bill was “all set.” Marshall did not respond to questions from The Sun.
Some agriculture-focused Republicans are more outwardly skeptical of MAHA’s intentions, with some arguing MAHA groups and influencers don’t understand the needs of farmers and want to slow the farm bill from passing.
“They don’t even know what a pesticide is,” said Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia. “All they’re doing is trying to throw a crescent wrench in the middle of the engine while the engine’s running.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a farmer and longtime outspoken voice on agriculture issues, said he has not heard of desired changes from the MAHA groups.
The Senate has given no indication of when it might take up on the floor what would be the first full five-year farm bill since 2018. Farmers who have faced inflation over the past six years are desperate for updated commodity prices. The Senate Agriculture Committee passed the bill on a party-line vote, but it needs 60 votes to pass out of the Senate floor.
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