How could Robert F. Kennedy Jr. impact American agriculture?

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.— On Nov. 14, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, leading to questions about how Kennedy's views could impact the agriculture industry.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy, who served as attorney general in his brother's administration, was a U.S. senator and was assassinated while running for president. He's an environmental attorney for the nonprofit RiverKeeper, fighting against companies including Monsanto, Columbia Gas Company, DuPont, the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Pipeline.

Kennedy was a member of the Democratic party before announcing that he was running for president as an independent on Oct. 9, 2023. He later went on to endorse Donald Trump on Aug. 23, 2024.

Before Trump officially announced that he was choosing Kennedy to run the Department of Health and Human Services, in an interview with NPR , Kennedy said that Trump gave him three instructions.

“He wants the corruption and the conflicts out of the regulatory agencies. He wants to return the agencies to the gold standard empirically based, evidence-based science and medicine that they were once famous for,” Kennedy said in the interview. “And he wants to end the chronic disease epidemic with measurable impacts on a diminishment of chronic disease within two years.”
 
Several of Kennedy’s views on herbicides and seed oils could bring some changes to the agriculture industry, even though he would not be serving in the Environmental Protection Agency or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Kennedy did not respond to requests for an interview with Agweek. However, he has spoken publicly on many occasions about the changes he wants to see in agriculture.

“I have a lot of plans for ending the corporate control over our food supply and, you know, over our farmland and the destruction of our soils,” Kennedy said in a video on his YouTube channel . “I’m going to reverse 80 years of farm policy in this country, which have directed us toward industrial agriculture, industrial meat production, factory farming, chemical-based agriculture, carbon-based fertilizers, all of these things that are destroying the soils in our country.”
 

Elizabeth Frantz / Reuters

Kennedy says these practices are poisoning our food.

“The food that they produce is not even food anymore, it’s commodities,” he said. “Most of it is going to processed food companies that are using a thousand ingredients that are all banned in Europe.”

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is one of two active farmers in the Senate. He said the American people have been asking for change.

U.S. Senate Photographic Studio-/U.S. Senate Photographic Studio-

“Last November, the American people sent a clear message to Washington that they’re ready for change. I see Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as someone who can help deliver on that mandate by shaking up a department that needs to be shaken up a bit,” Grassley said in a statement to Agweek.

He is looking forward to speaking with Kennedy more about his plans for the department.

“I don’t make a decision on a nominee until after they’ve had a hearing in the Senate,” Grassley said. “In the meantime, I look forward to speaking with Kennedy this week to discuss his background, his plans for the department, including his approach to agriculture and rural health care, and the importance of listening to whistleblowers and respecting Congress’ constitutional responsibility of oversight.”

Contributed

Kennedy was one of the attorneys on the Johnson v. Monsanto Co. case, which argued that the weed killer Roundup — with an active ingredient of glyphosate — was a likely cause of Dewayne Johnson developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Johnson was awarded $289 million dollars in damages.
 
Damian Mason is an agricultural speaker, farmer and producer of the Business of Agriculture show, a podcast and video platform that talks about the money and business side of agriculture. Mason has a few concerns for Kennedy potentially holding the position with the Department of Health and Human Services, given Kennedy's background as an environmental activist, especially after his case against Monsanto.

Mason thinks Kennedy will continue to push against glyphosate.

“I think the one big thing that is going to happen probably immediately is RFK Jr. could very much oversee or instigate or create the movement against glyphosate,” Mason said.

Kennedy continues to claim that glyphosate causes a variety of health concerns.

“There are many, many diseases that are linked to glyphosate exposure, including non-alcoholic fatty liver cancers are very, very closely linked, a lot of kidney diseases and then severe damage to the microbiome, because it is designed to kill plants and there are structures in your gut biome that are critical structures in your gut biome, which have plant-like metabolisms that are destroyed by glyphosate,” Kennedy said on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast .

Kennedy also claims that celiac disease and gluten allergies can be connected to wheat being sprayed with glyphosate, which is not documented in science.

According to the Center for Disease Control’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry , if large amounts of glyphosate are swallowed, it can cause nausea and vomiting, as well as cause irritation if left on your skin or eyes. Glyphosate has also been associated with respiratory effects, such as irritation in the nose or asthma.

The EPA classifies glyphosate as “not likely” to be carcinogenic, based on evidence from animals and humans. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as “probably” carcinogenic to humans. This means there was sufficient evidence of cancer in animals, but limited evidence of cancer in humans due to glyphosate.

Mason said losing the use of glyphosate would have an impact on the ag industry.

“What the unintended impact is going to be is that we’ll probably start using harsher chemicals,” he said.

Mason agrees that the agricultural industry has overused glyphosate and synthetic fertility products.

“So, if we cut back on some of that stuff or if there’s more scrutiny on us to do that, is it going to be a good thing for the environment? Yeah,” Mason said.

There is a chance that production could decrease, Mason said, but he also says that glyphosate has been losing some of its effectiveness and efficacy.

“We’ve already got weed resistant issues with glyphosate, herbicide resistance, I should say. So, will it be the end of the world? No,” Mason said.

Kennedy is passionate about making foods in the American diet healthier. One of the ways he claims to do that is by getting rid of seed oils. Seed oils are vegetable oils that are extracted from the seeds of plants, including canola oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil and palm oil among others. These oils are used for a variety of cooking methods.

“Seed oils are one of the most unhealthy ingredients that we have in food and the reason they are in the foods is because they are heavily subsidized,” Kennedy said in a video on his YouTube channel . “They are very, very cheap, but they are associated with all kinds of very, very serious illnesses including body-wide inflammation, which affects all of our health. It’s one of the worst things you can eat.”

Kennedy is pushing for tallow to be used in place of seed oils.

“When I was a kid, McDonalds was made with tallow fat. That was good for you,” Kennedy said. “Your body needs that. It makes you healthy.”

Tallow has a unique fat profile. Beef tallow is made up primarily of saturated fat. According to Mayo Clinic , in tallow, some of the saturated fat is a specific type known as steric acid, which appears to not raise cholesterol in the same way as other saturated fats. Tallow also contains monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, healthier fats. Beef tallow also contains fat-soluble vitamins that support the immune system, bone health, skin health and cellular function.

Mason has concerns about how using beef tallow in place of seed oils would be sustainable. He is not concerned about how it would impact the crop market, but rather how the country would produce enough tallow.

“I’m all about beef and I’m all about lard and I’m all about real butter and that’s all fine. We don’t have enough cows in this country (to replace) the seed oil, as he calls it, with beef tallow,” Mason said. “We’d have to like to quadruple our beef herd, which clearly, we’re at a near record low beef inventory in this country. So that’s not very practical.”

Kennedy has been outspoken about the size of American farms.

“It’s destroying the economic health of farmers by forcing them to get big or get out,” Kennedy said in a YouTube video . “Big corporate farms do just fine, while the small and medium family operators are squeezed to the point of collapse.”

Large, corporate farms are damaging our soil and water, Kennedy claims.

“By tilting the playing field in favor of more chemicals, more herbicides, more insecticides, more concentrated monocrops and feedlots,” he said.

Kennedy says corporate interests have hijacked the USDA’s dietary guidelines, making processed food more common.

“We are going to rewrite the regulations to give the smaller operators a break,” Kennedy said. “We are going to encourage sustainable, regenerative farming, that can build soil and replenish aquifers.”

There are concerns that Kennedy would try to regulate farm size.

“If he has a voice, is he going to limit farm size? If you’re over 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans, are you too big? If you have more than 1,000 pigs, are you too big? So, when I hear these vast terminologies about we’re going to set it up for small farms, a lot of the United States Department of Agriculture policy right now, it already favors small operations,” Mason said.

Mason is in favor of regenerative agriculture, something he says we have already seen in the industry. However, if there was a large shift in organic production, Mason says there would be a loss of production.

“Depending on which crop you’re talking about, you might be getting 30% or even 80% less of produce or less product per acre because of organic production,” Mason said. “It would solve a lot of our oversupply issues. It would also create some winners and losers, and the losers would be those people that can’t afford organic food, and that’s a significant portion of our population.”

Mason says he agrees with about half of what Kennedy says. He says whether farmers are in favor or against what Kennedy stands for, there is still a lot that might not happen.

“Realize that there’s been a lot of big proposals over the years, and I’ve seen big proposals get whittled down to being not so big of a change,” Mason said. “So, I don’t think it’s time to break the glass and pull the emergency alarm just yet. It’s cause for some concern and also it’s been cause for some conversation.”