The Power of Farmer Voices: New MAHA Commission Report is Much Improved for Agriculture

By Lesly Weber McNitt

One of the many lessons I have learned during my two-plus decades in Washington is that shaping policy recommendations takes hard work and persistence because most policy change is incremental. So, when you see a window of opportunity to make an impact you take it and give it everything you’ve got.

You may recall that in June I provided an update on NCGA’s concerns that some of the work being conducted by the Make America Healthy Again Commission would compromise farmer access to key crop production tools. This month, the commission released its long-awaited final recommendations reflecting a major shift in tone and substance related to pesticide use and crop production.

The commission had released its first report in May, looking at a host of causal factors related to childhood health, including vaccines and food consumption. Corn grower leaders and other farmers were concerned that they were left out of the process for developing the report, and with the substance of the report itself. The report cast doubt on the safe use of two key pesticides, glyphosate and atrazine, which have decades of regulatory reviews and research establishing their safety. Why is this a concern to you? Because if farmers were to lose access to these pesticides, it could lead to a 70% reduction in corn yield.