PEORIA, Ill. — Alexandra “Alex” Dunn, president and CEO of Arlington, Virginia-based Croplife America, came to Peoria with one message for pesticide retailers and farmers: we’ve got your backs. 

Speaking to dozens of agricultural input dealers at the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association’s (IFCA) 2026 convention and trade show, Dunn recounted the efforts of Croplife America in enlisting a coalition of “farm moms” to refute anti-pesticide language contained in reports issued by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. She also cautioned those in attendance that far from waning, the MAHA movement will likely pick up strength heading into the November midterms. 

“When you connect all the strings, the MAHA movement is all over the top of the White House; everybody in the White House is connected to it,” said Dunn, whose Croplife America functions as a trade organization for the U.S. crop protection sector. “The MAHA movement just got whole milk back in schools. (MAHA is) not all bad, but when it comes to pesticides, they don’t have a lot of good things to say.”

The initial Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) MAHA report, issued in May 2025, mentioned pesticides 79 times while insinuating food growers were over-applying farm chemicals, according to Dunn. “It essentially said pesticides are not good for people, not good for food,” she said. “From May to August of last summer farmers started speaking out, and so did (Croplife America). We went to the White House with (dairy co-op) Land O’ Lakes, Corteva (Agriscience) and others. We told the administration that the path they were on with farmers in this situation was not working, and this narrative had to stop.”

At the same time, Croplife America started a campaign to enlist “farm moms” to refute the MAHA movement. “The whole MAHA movement is around moms, kids, vaccines and food that might have pesticides used on them. The MAHA moms are an army, but we said ‘you know what, we have an army too’ — an army of farmer moms who are raising healthy children and healthy food on their farms,” said Dunn. 

The result was that a revised set of MAHA recommendations, issued in September 2025, backed off of pesticide use by farmers. As opposed to the initial report, input was allowed by the MAHA Commission from agriculture interests, independent scientists, researchers and the chemical industry before the issuance of the second report, thanks in part to pressure from Croplife’s farm moms movement. Since the release of the follow-up report, there has been very little talk in Washington about taking pesticides away from farmers.

“Having the farm groups stand up and state how important these (pesticide) products are was a game changer,” Dunn said. “However, as of January 2026 MAHA is still here. We survived two reports last year, (but) we are not okay.” 

A recent MAHA accomplishment was to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools, but also included in that bill (S.3412) is language around food labeling that will require disclosures of artificial colorings and other processed food ingredients that could be detrimental to food producers. Some of the “food ingredients” mentioned in the Presidential Fitness Test Act of 2025 are not actually food ingredients, but were thrown in by MAHA influencers only to “smoke out” those who support chemical use by farmers, according to Dunn. 

“We have to be very, very vigilant because there is a lot happening with MAHA. There are movies, politics, money, messaging and nonstop social media telling people that something is not right with their food and what their kids are being given. We have to be the counterbalance providing facts, information and context.”