BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – An Oct. 21 webinar hosted by the Illinois Soybean Association explored how the official Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission report, issued in September, will affect agricultural producers. The update also delved into which states and corporations had already begun to implement MAHA policy, while acknowledging the difficulties that lie ahead with federal implementation of MAHA tenets affecting agriculture.

Callie Edeberg of The Vogel Group, an international government affairs and consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. serving companies, associations and asset managers, explained that President Donald Trump established the MAHA Commission in February. The commission’s early report, issued in May, was critical of the use of popular pesticides by farmers, linking certain products to health issues in humans without scientific evidence to back its claims. The final MAHA report, published in September, withdrew the claims and seemed to encourage more education and research into the topic.

“In the September report, we saw a significant change in the narrative and the tone of that narrative around pesticides. This second report is more focused on education of the public about how these products come to market. It was focused on additional research; it was focused on technology and providing regulatory reform to the process,” Edeberg said. “A secondary narrative was around deregulation. Especially when it came to water quality, meat processing and organic. So, very, very different reports…I think that’s really indicative of how active the (agricultural) community was in that intervening time period between report one and report two.”

Edeberg focused a portion of her web presentation on updating participants on how individual states and corporate America are responding to the MAHA recommendations. Reactions to the final report ranged from “insulting” to agriculture and food systems, to appreciating the commission’s willingness to strike some of its most objectionable recommendations from the original report after accepting more input. As with reaction to the MAHA report, compliance with its tenets is seeming to fall along political party lines, according to Edeberg.

“This is going to be a really tough balancing act for this administration, for the Republicans and for the House and Senate to figure out how they continue to keep their base of support in mind and focus on that MAHA coalition that got them into office,” she said. “It will be interesting to see how they move forward with some of these key (MAHA) initiatives.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Health and Human Services Administration, has jurisdiction only over the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in enforcing MAHA recommendations. With no jurisdiction over environmental or pesticide regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or USDA standards, Kennedy will need to work with other cabinet members and the president to enforce or fight off challenges to any MAHA-driven regulatory agenda.

‘RFK has taken what we call a ‘strong man’ approach, where he calls companies or entities to his office for a very public meeting and then declares after that meeting that they’ve come to an agreement on some really tough decisions. Back in March, he called in the CEOs of some really big food companies – PepsiCo, General Mills, Kraft, Heinz and Kellogg – and demanded that they remove artificial dyes from their food. We’ve seen a lot of these CEOs come out and agree to it, though we haven’t actually seen them do it yet,” said Edeberg, adding that MAHA maintains a website that lists companies that have pledged to follow the commission’s recommendations.

“We’re anticipating some new rules and regs in some of the states, but right now we are in a government shutdown and nothing is getting done. We’re seeing a lot of (government agency) staff departures, either willingly or through a reduction in workforce, that are going to create a lot of challenges for these agencies to prepare any type of regulatory agenda moving forward,” she said.

Edeberg disclosed that Washington insiders are reporting a “lot of disagreement” internally among EPA, FDA and USDA staff over some MAHA principles. “That is not something that can be confirmed but is part of the chatter behind the scenes. As we see some of these federal obstacles pile up, we see that states are now taking the lead in implementing the MAHA agenda, where the federal government is either unwilling or unable to do that,” she said.

For example, Oklahoma recently attempted to implement a school lunch program that would ban certain oils, artificial dyes, certain processed foods and pesticides from public school food purchases. The recommendations and requirements were eventually pulled down. In Texas, state leaders have started investigations into companies that utilize terms such as “healthy” when referring to food products.

“These different state actions are creating a patchwork of regulation and creating tough times for companies to act and move forward in putting their product in different states,” Edeberg said. “It’s interesting to point out that we are seeing a lot of this from red states and not as much from blue states. We’re seeing that MAHA influence in states that are predominately Republican.”