How will Trump treat pesticide regulation?

As the Donald J. Trump administration begins to define its stance on pesticide regulation, it’s trying to balance concerns from farmers who rely on pesticides and critics who want to restrict their use. Not yet clear is which side will command more influence.

In recent decades, conventional farmers have aligned with conservative politicians who pushed for less regulation of chemical pesticides. But during his confirmation hearing to become head of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who previously worked as a lawyer suing companies that manufacture the herbicide glyphosate, singled out pesticides as a cause of numerous diseases in rural areas. He said he wanted to provide farmers an “off-ramp” from chemically intensive farming practices.

Shortly after Kennedy’s confirmation, the Trump administration established a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, which promised to scrutinize the impact of food and agricultural chemicals on the nation’s health.

Despite Kennedy’s past harsh criticism of pesticides, the commission's initial report, released on May 22, provides a balanced take on pesticide use, according to Emily Bass, who analyzes food and agriculture policy at the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank that researches technological solutions to major issues. While the report highlights that common pesticides like atrazine and glyphosate are linked to several health problems, it also notes that restricting the use of those pesticides would have a huge effect on farmers’ ability to grow food.

The report has received much scrutiny from the media and advocacy groups. An investigation by the news organization NOTUS, for instance, found that some parts of the report cite scientific studies that don’t exist.

Bass says her main issue with the report’s section on pesticides is that it leaves out important research. For example, it cites a 2019 meta-analysis that identified a link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin lymphoma but leaves out a 2017 epidemiological study that didn't find any connection.

This report is only the first sally in Kennedy’s push to restrict pesticide use, Bass says, and subsequent reports or policies could exert more pressure. “Farmer and agriculture industry groups uniformly remain skeptical about what the next steps under this administration will look like,” she says. “The administration has not closed the door entirely to taking further action.”

Opponents of intensive pesticide use are celebrating some parts of the report. Emily Marquez, a scientist with the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network, says she’s pleased to see the report call out the influence of corporate-funded research on pesticide regulation.

But she’s also concerned about the Trump administration's approach to agriculture policy. She worries that cuts to scientific research will make it difficult for farmers to get information about effective techniques for controlling weeds without herbicides and that layoffs at federal agencies will slow down regulations to restrict pesticide use.

“How could we expect an agency to make rules that are more protective of public health if you're stripping down those agencies at the same time?” she asks.

Deepesh Bista, an agriculture technology analyst with the intelligence firm Lux Research, agrees that cuts to federal agencies will hurt farmers. If Kennedy and his allies want to reduce the use of synthetic chemicals on farms, Bista argues, the federal government should accelerate approvals for biopesticides that could serve as less toxic replacements. He says the report lacks proposals for how to get alternative products to farmers faster.

“These pesticides were the key thing that helped us feed this many people,” Bista says. “There has to be a way out, an alternative.”

Farming groups and pesticide critics are jostling to make their perspective the center of the Trump administration’s agricultural policies, but Bass argues that they are missing an opportunity to find common ground. After all, conventional farmers always want to minimize pesticide use to reduce their costs.

New technologies like precision sprayers or old techniques like cover cropping can help control weeds without pesticides. But farmers are cautious about adopting new practices, and Bass says helping them use pesticides more efficiently is a more complex endeavor than simply threatening to ban certain chemicals.

“There is an interest amongst all advocates, and I would say farmers as well, in doing more with less,” she says. “That's the name of the game in farming.”