Newsweek | RFK Jr.’s MAHA Strategy Blasted by Farm Group That Endorsed Him

Huffman added: “That’s what happened between April and this August strategy. This leaked draft really walks back that ambition after the White House met with food and Ag [agriculture] executives. And it sidesteps these critical structural issues. The bottom line is that farmers and families deserve a final version of this report that matches the scale of the problems that we face.”

In mid-August, a leaked draft showed that the long-term strategy of Kennedy Jr. and Trump administration veers from policy recommendations and instead urges more research on nutrition, agricultural chemicals, and “potential benefits of select high-quality supplements,” among other topics, according to STAT News, a health and medicine-focused media company.

The first MAHA report discussed potential links between pesticides and childhood diseases. The newest draft report instead describes the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide reviews as “robust” while also supporting technological research to minimize pesticide use rather than recommend new restrictions on pesticides.

Huffman said the latest draft, which could still be altered before completion, was “not a surprise but disappointing.”

“I understand how this works and how it’s worked for decades in Democrat and Republican administrations,” she said. “Corporate lobbyists have a lot of influence. I think a lot of people got their hopes up reading that April assessment, that it really did shut out that industry influence.”

Huffman and Farm Action note positive aspects that transferred from the April draft to the latest one, including easing barriers for CSAs (Consumer Supported Agriculture) and direct-to-consumer sales; improving farm-to-school grants; supporting small meat processors and mobile units; and expanding voluntary soil health programs—some of the steps Farm Action initially recommended to the MAHA Commission.

“But these scattered measures are thin on detail and overshadowed by the reluctance to take on reforms at the scale of the problem,” the organization said in its August 18 statement.

Huffman also said the administration’s support of small meat processors and mobile processing units was a good sign and welcomed by the farming community.

“They’re not large structural [changes], they’re not addressing these bigger problems of consolidation in the food system and the way farm subsidies are driving unhealthy practices,” she said. “These are positive steps; there’s not a lot of detail behind them for me to really say how far that would go and what those will really look like.

“But I think that unless they change the bigger system that farmers are operating in, these are not going to have a huge impact. It’s just a little bit around the edges….That said, these could be good things and we’ll see. We’re waiting for the final report to come out but those were places we wanted to be fair. Those are places that there’s a chance that that they might do something good.”