RFK Jr. Is Exactly Who We Said He Was

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance and HELP Committees last week as President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). After more than 6 hours of questioning, Kennedy made his beliefs about food and agriculture crystal clear. He doubled down on his beliefs that the way farmers grow food is poisoning Americans, emphasized the need to phase out use of chemicals in agriculture and made contradictory statements around his plans to work with farmers as he implements a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda at HHS.

Farmer and agriculture industry groups, with the exception of Farm Action, were remarkably silent in the lead up to Kennedy’s appearance before Congress. While we at the Breakthrough Institute warned Senators about the risk of allowing Kennedy to implement his vision for the future of farming—one that limits farmers’ access to inputs key to maintaining yields and escalates baseless fears around biotechnology—agriculture interest groups took a wait and see approach. Any hope these groups had that Kennedy’s closed door meetings with Senators from top agricultural states in the lead up to his hearings would sway his leanings on industrialized agriculture or otherwise convince him of the importance of pesticides, fertilizers, and gene editing technologies should now be dashed.

Throughout his two nomination hearings, Kennedy attempted to walk back his previous public statements on vaccines, but on agriculture issues he thoroughly doubled down, making no attempt to tamp down his unscientific claims. The fact of the matter is that RFK Jr. is exactly who we have said he is. His unscientific positions of health, food, and farming are reckless. If he does end up leading HHS, the consequences for the future of U.S. agriculture are real and worrying.

In response to questions in both hearings about how he would support farmers, Kennedy lamented that we “cannot export American food to Europe,” that the “Europeans won’t take our food,” and that we need to “offer farmers an off ramp to chemically intensive agriculture… so they can grow crops that they can sell in Europe.” Europe is the 5th largest export destination for U.S. agricultural products. The insinuation that current U.S. farming practices, such as the use of pesticides, are standing in the way of U.S. crops being exported to Europe is false. Both organic and non-organic agricultural commodities are sold to Europe today. Existing trade agreements allow USDA certified organic products access to the EU’s market, but conventional, non-organic U.S. commodities are exported to the EU as well. For example, the EU is one of the largest export destinations for U.S. soybeans, second only to China as of 2023. Almost all U.S. soy exports to the EU are conventionally grown.

In response to a question from Finance Committee member Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) on how he feels about farmers and ranchers, Kennedy claimed “we only have 60 harvests left,” blaming deteriorating soil health. His claim that most millennials and all gen z-ers will, in their lifetime, experience the end of agricultural production is a myth, first raised in 2014, that has been thoroughly busted. A majority of soils, even those managed with intensive agricultural practices, have many hundreds, if not thousands of years of harvests left.

Reiterating this apocalyptic and unscientific claim alone should spark concern coming from the potential head of one the world’s largest scientific research organizations. His attempt to leverage this unfounded claim to justify dramatic changes to modern farming practices should raise even greater alarm bells for U.S. agriculture.

Kennedy went on to say farmers are using seeds and chemicals that are making them and Americans sick and that “we should incentivize transitions to regenerative and no-till agriculture and to less chemically intensive agriculture.” In the HELP hearing, he reiterated “there is illness all over the farm community” that is “undoubtedly related to the intensity of chemical pesticides,” emphasizing the need to limit pesticide use.

It is not at all clear that no-till or other regenerative practices would help U.S. farmers reduce the use of pesticides, or in any way improve access to the European market. Many farmers practicing no-till still use herbicides. In fact, practicing no-till on corn and soy operations often rely more heavily on the use of herbicides, like glyphosate. Ironically, Kennedy has been a stark opponent of glyphosate often asserting its use in farming causes a litany of cancers and other diseases. (To note, both the EU and the U.S. continue to approve the use of glyphosate finding no scientific evidence of harmful effects on human health or the environment.)

Incentivizing a sweeping transition to organic practices—not explicitly mentioned by Kennedy during the hearings but an idea he has repeatedly pushed in past appearances—could enable more U.S. crop exports to the EU, however, it would be to the detriment to overall yields and output. This tradeoff is one worth grappling with. Organic agriculture, on average, is about a fifth less productive than conventional agricultural production. Practices commonly called “regenerative” like cover cropping often have yield penalties.

Kennedy’s proposed transition, and its expected yield penalties, is not necessarily one that U.S. farmers want, despite Kennedy’s implications that this is the case. Kennedy fails to reckon with the economic realities facing food production today, the costs to farmers to transition operations to organic, and how a Republican administration already wary of public spending could feasibly stomach subsidizing such a transition.

Prioritizing production practices with the sole goal of exporting more organic products to Europe at the expense of decreasing total U.S. food production and lowering agricultural exports overall does not align whatsoever with the Trump White House’s America First agenda. Estimates indicate global agricultural productivity growth needs to double to sustainably meet global food demand by 2050. As pressure mounts to reverse slowing productivity growth rates worldwide, investing in a transition that compromises yields will not enable U.S. agriculture to lead globally. Instead, farmers should be doubling down on ways to grow and export more, while minimizing the need for cropland expansion.

Decreasing U.S. agricultural productivity specifically risks ceding our role as the world’s leading food exporter to competitors like Brazil, China, and Russia who are seeking to grow export markets not just in Europe, but especially in countries with rising populations, GDPs, and food demand.

During both hearings, Kennedy reiterated that the chemical industry, fertilizer giants, and herbicide companies agree with his ideas. Yet, agricultural input manufacturers have not raised a finger to back up Kennedy’s proposals. In fact they have actively pushed back against misinformation surrounding farm inputs and emphasized that the use of pesticides remains critical for sustaining yields and food security.

Kennedy’s interest in erasing decades of progress in U.S. farming is abundantly clear. However, Kennedy did not offer up concrete proposals for whether or how he would leverage HHS agencies and programs to address any of the “problems” he raised. No Republicans, or Democrats for that matter, pressed him to do so.

Republicans seem to be burying their heads in the sand, not just on ethics concerns or Kennedy’s waffling views on vaccines, but also on the role HHS, and more specifically FDA, plays in regulating agriculture and the food system. At HHS, Kennedy could restrict pesticide use by more strictly enforcing residue limits, imposing inordinate testing requirements, and pressuring EPA to deny new pesticide registrations or revoke existing approvals for products like glyphosate. He could influence approvals of new biotech animals via FDA regulations and meaningfully obstruct the whole of government response needed to reign in avian flu.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1 or “bird flu”) sweeping through U.S. poultry populations has sent the price of eggs skyrocketing. The disease has now spread to 16 states across hundreds of dairy herds, with public health experts calling for pandemic preparedness in case it eventually spreads to the general public.

Kennedy has referred to the disease as a “lab-grown plague” and cast doubt on human vaccines, which are still under development, being safe or effective. Suspending research on H5N1, disrupting vaccine programs, or halting pandemic readiness activities would have significant consequences for poultry and dairy producers, as well as the health of the general public.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Kennedy he expected him to stay away from agriculture altogether, to “leave agricultural practice regulations to the proper agencies,” being USDA and EPA. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) asked Kennedy to commit to working with USDA before implementing any policy that might affect or impact the food supply. Kennedy’s agreement to the latter was met with nods and murmurs of agreement.

Despite initial sighs of relief, this promise of cooperation should spark concern for farmers and consumers alike. Republicans clearly hope other administration leadership, like Brooke Rollins at USDA, will box in Kennedy’s influence on agriculture. But cross-agency coordination goes both ways. Ignoring the risk that, if confirmed, Kennedy’s pervasive MAHA views will seep into USDA or EPA could backfire. Confirming his nomination could be the starting gun to administration-wide efforts to reform U.S. agriculture in ways that considerably jeopardize national food security and American leadership in export markets.