Food and farming industry pushes back against RFK, Jr.’s MAHA-targeting of agricultural chemicals

Annie Gasparro, Jacob Bunge | Wall Street Journal | June 26, 2025

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The MAHA movement argues that a heavily consolidated and industrialized U.S. food industry is the central factor in Americans’ high rates of chronic illness. Kennedy and his allies are ratcheting up federal scrutiny on ultra-processed foods, artificial dyes, food additives and pesticides.

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Chuck Magro, chief executive of pesticide and crop seed giant Corteva Agriscience, said at WSJ’s Global Food Forum in Chicago…that agricultural chemicals are rigorously studied before farmers can spray them on fields. “Some of these products have had 100 reviews, from a safety perspective,” he said.

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Corteva has some naturally-derived alternatives in the works, but Magro said the chemicals currently used remain critical to American food production. “Farmers need those tools. This notion that they can farm without these products, it’s just not accurate,” he said.

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“My concern is that they’re not interested in the science,” [Kevin Hall, a former scientist at the National Institutes of Health] said. “They’re interested in a preconceived narrative, and any science that complicates that narrative is viewed as problematic.”