Gutting Food Programs Won’t Make Us Healthy

In early September, the Trump Administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission released a highly anticipated roadmap for improving the health of the nation’s children. Many within the MAHA movement hoped this would be a turning point: a chance to advance meaningful action on pesticides, healthy food, and organic and regenerative agriculture. They were badly mistaken.

In the months before the report, more than 500 MAHA grassroots leaders and organizations urged the administration to strengthen protections from toxic chemical exposure, invest in organic agriculture, and end liability shields for agrochemical companies. Instead, the commission ignored these calls for reform, at a time when our children’s health and nation’s food system demand real change, while President Donald Trump’s secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins, announced deep cuts to key U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs that supported small and medium-sized farms.

If the Trump Administration truly wants to make children and our food healthier, it must stop dismantling proven programs and commit to real policy action.

Despite clear demands from MAHA supporters, the commission called for fast-tracking pesticide approvals and launching public relations campaigns to claim that toxic pesticides are “safe” under the Environmental Protection Agency’s “robust review” processes. That is not reform—it’s the same industry-driven agenda we’ve had for decades, with agribusiness lobbyists calling the shots on food and farming policy.

The contradictions don’t stop there. The report has solid recommendations on whole foods, organics, small farmers, healthy soils, and conservation. Yet, in the last six months, the USDA has gutted programs that could advance these goals, laying off thousands of conservation staff. The agency also canceled more than $1 billion in conservation projects, including some that were already well underway, even as the report claims to prioritize “shovel ready” projects.