Why Trump’s EO on regenerative agriculture raised red flags across farm country

American agriculture produces the safest, most abundant and most affordable food in the world.

It’s hard to go to any type of ag-related meeting and not hear someone say that line.

That’s a talking point which has been used in agriculture committees and farming circles for decades. It underscores the trust that has historically bonded those who produce our nation’s food with those who consume it. Similar verbiage is included in President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14414 on regenerative agriculture.

However, several ag industry CEOs, who spoke to Agri-Pulse on the condition of being granted anonymity, say they are increasingly concerned that such long-standing trust could be harmed by what they view as the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s attempts to villainize current farming practices. Plus, they warn that U.S. agriculture could be headed for even more lawsuits challenging production practices that have long been recognized as safe.

The words in the EO, talking about additional research and improving soil health, “are not horrible,” one CEO told Agri-Pulse, “But it's the implication that current practices – which are based off of science – the current tools that are safer, and frankly, have allowed us to have a smaller environmental footprint, that they are bad. That's concerning.”

Those concerns surfaced again recently in the Oval Office when Trump, a group of cabinet secretaries, staffers, American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall, and a handful of other farmers gathered for the signing of the regenerative agriculture executive order. At least three other farmers in the room expressed support for the order, but Duvall pushed back in what his staff described as “a spirited discussion, but a good policy discussion.” 

The Georgia farmer noted that his organization supports regenerative agriculture but wanted to make sure that decisions are based on actual science that enables farmers to enhance productivity and not correlations that can be misconstrued.

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Mike Tomko, AFBF’s communications director, said Duvall’s concerns were over “the insinuation that our food supply is not safe” because of pesticides and that Duvall “warned against undermining confidence in the food system and confidence in EPA’s rigorous oversight that farmers rely on every day.”

According to sources in the room, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Senior Adviser Calley Means argued that the EO was needed to maintain support from a MAHA community that has increasingly been worried about whether Trump was still on their side.

In a June 27 Instagram post, Means said the EO makes “transitioning to regenerative agriculture a centerpiece of the administration’s Ag strategy. 

“This EO also calls on the EPA to focus on reviewing pre-harvest desiccation, a process where pesticides and herbicides are sprayed on a crop shortly before harvest - and which contributes significantly to human exposure."

In another part of the post, he noted: “Over 90% of Americans see pesticide exposure as a serious health issue – and the U.S. system is uniquely dependent on these products. While ensuring farmers who have played by the rules of our current system have stability in the short term, there has been significant dialogue about the urgent need to build a bridge to the future.”

“For around 45 minutes, the debate waged on. Calley Means fended off corporate advocacy for agrichemicals, while RFK Jr. explained that this was probably the most important EO that the President would sign in support of the health and future of the American People,” wrote Jonathan Lundgren, a South Dakota farmer, entomologist and director of the Ecdysis Foundation. Ecdysis Foundation describes itself as “a nonprofit organization based in Estelline, South Dakota, dedicated to advancing regenerative agriculture through grower-focused, independent research.” On LinkedIn, Lundgren said he "crowdfunded a farm and a research foundation, propelled by a vision to transform food systems."

Lundgren noted the Supreme Court decision complicated the debate because Trump seemed unfamiliar with the ruling and “[Agriculture Secretary Brooke] Rollins and Farm Bureau tried to make the case that the court decision was a win for farmers.” But Lundgren had already weighed in.

“Mr. President, this morning the Supreme Court decided that farmers whose families are poisoned by pesticides have no recourse to sue the pesticide companies. This is a huge punch in the gut to making America healthy again,” he wrote.

What started as an adversarial and heated discussion – especially between Duvall and Means – ended with Trump signing the order. The back-and-forth concluded on a positive note, Lundgren said.

The meeting "ended differently," he said, with Duvall trying to make peace with the regenerative farmers.

"Everybody was doing their jobs, you know. It was heated between Calley Means and Duvall. ... Zippy approached the farmers afterwards and tried to make amends," Lundgren said.

As they all left the White House, “Duvall described our little band of farmers as trailblazers and emphasized that he is not against regenerative agriculture," Lundgren said. "But he also pointed out that 'farmers don’t need the government telling them what they can and can’t put on their fields.'” 

Lundgren countered: “The trouble comes when what they spray on their fields makes my family sick.”

“We left the conversation with me saying 'If we are trailblazers, and this is the future, then we need you, Mr. Duvall. We need your help,'" Lundgren wrote on his blog.

The bigger picture

The passionate discussion in the Oval Office generated headlines, but ag leaders contacted by Agri-Pulse said that, in addition to their concerns about undermining confidence in the food supply, the debate underscores a bigger conversation over how scientific studies and “cumulative exposure,” which are cited in section 2 of the EO, might be used:

• (c) The Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of HHS, and the (EPA) Administrator shall expedite development of a research and evaluation framework for cumulative exposure across chemical classes that are regulated by statute in the food supply. This research shall focus on using and developing New Approach Methodologies (NAMS) to promote scientific understanding of human health and environmental risks of chemical contaminants in the food supply and addressing these risks for greater food security and safety. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to direct the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of HHS, or the Administrator to take any regulatory action beyond current statutory requirements.
• (d) The Secretary of HHS, in consultation with the USDA Office of Pest Management Policy and EPA Office of Pesticide Programs, shall 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. The Secretary of HHS shall, through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, also prioritize research to identify new, innovative, and cost-effective technologies that reduce reliance on conventional chemical crop protection tools in order to reduce risks to human health.

The ag leaders’ concerns stretch back to previous comments Kennedy made when he was a trial lawyer and later, a presidential candidate, about creating his own “science.” Here’s a snippet from an interview he did with the Detroit News Editorial Board when running for president in 2024. Kennedy was asked about how he could easily solve the chronic disease problem that we have in the United States. 

“So, what I will do is, it's impossible to use the legislative process to ban glyphosate or to ban high fructose corn syrup. They're too politically powerful, so here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to create enough science identifying these exposures and the impacts of them [so] that then the lawyers will come in and sue. I was part of the Monsanto team that took out glyphosate and we did it because we got 15 studies and that allows us to go to take that case to a jury.

“There's a threshold in federal court called the Daubert threshold. You need a certain amount of studies before you can bring the case," he continued. "And I'm going to create those studies at NIH for all these exposures and then the lawyers will do the rest and we'll eliminate the exposures very, very quickly.”

FIFRA directs cumulative exposure

However, not everyone in the ag community is concerned that the EO is simply political cover for Kennedy’s previously stated desires to eliminate certain crop protection chemicals and food ingredients.

CropLife President and CEO Alexandra Dunn said there is nothing that “concerns us openly” about section 2(c) in the EO. “The language doesn't surprise us, because it's consistent with what we saw in the first MAHA report, and also in the MAHA strategy.

“There has been consistent reference by the administration to do work in the cumulative exposure area across chemical classes. One thing that we have emphasized is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act section 408, already directs how cumulative exposure is to be done for pesticides and that is a very well-established framework that is understood and proven to work very well. EPA looks at aggregate exposure to individual pesticides and cumulative exposure from pesticides that share a common mechanism of toxicity, and they do that when the agency is establishing residue tolerances. EPA then applies a 10-time safety factor for infants and children, and a default ten-fold safety factor, unless there is reliable scientific data that would suggest an alternative safety factor."

Dunn said “in one sense there is comfort in crop protection chemicals of cumulative impact, cumulative risk assessment, cumulative exposure assessment. New approach methodologies (NAMS), which include alternatives to animal testing, is something CropLife America also supports moving towards."

She said the last sentence in 2(c) is very important because it says that nothing shall be construed to direct the three regulators – the two secretaries and the EPA administrator – to take any regulatory action beyond current regular statutory requirements, and “we believe that's a reference to the FFDCA requirement that is currently in place in FIFRA.” FFDCA stands for the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Asked if she shares the concern that the administration’s approach undermines the perception that food is safe and ignores the fact that pesticides are already rigorously tested, Dunn said she understands why some might think “suggesting there should be research implies that something is not currently right. But because we work around so many scientists, I don't necessarily think that's always the default assumption.”

She pointed out that advancing an understanding of cumulative exposures across chemical classes regulated in the food supply could include assessments of products like sanitizers used in food processing or preservatives. “I don't think that it suggests that our food is unsafe. I think that it suggests that we want to do more research, and CropLife is always supportive of scientific research."

For now, Dunn said CropLife looks at the EO on regenerative agriculture with an optimistic view that it was issued to be helpful to agriculture.

“If it starts going in a direction that is not constructive and helpful to agriculture writ large, you will hear from a lot of groups that this executive order is not meeting its intent.”

For farmers like Lundgren, the administration’s push for regenerative agriculture is already influencing conventional farmers in his part of South Dakota who were dismissive in the past.

“I've heard it called a 'Trump effect,' or something like that, but it's bringing together people that aren't historically on the same side.”

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