RFK Jr., as Sec’y. of Health and Human Services, will run the FDA. That isn't sitting well in agricultural circles.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t quite gotten the warm reception that you’d expect from a segment of the electorate that went heavily for Trump in the election, i.e. rural voters. CNN exit polling showed Trump winning the country’s rural vote by a 64-34 margin.
That probably comes as no surprise here in South Dakota, which Trump won by about the same margin.
Predictable as the results may have been, though, it looks as if a surprise of sorts has been sprung on the rural sector, after all. Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr. to run HHS, yet to be confirmed by the Senate, seems to have caught the ag community in this country off guard.
Why? Because Kennedy’s elevation to the cabinet would put him in charge of the Food and Drug Administration (one of its inspectors is shown above), which regulates nearly 80% of the nation’s food supply, encompassing everything we eat except for meat and dairy products.
This is worrisome to farmers, and with good reason.
Despite the USDA’s claim that food additives are safe, “based on the best scientific knowledge,” Kennedy has said that "pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs and toxic waste permeate every cell in our bodies … this assault on our children's cells and hormones is unrelenting. They are swimming around in a toxic soup … we are mass poisoning all of our children and all of our adults."
Accusing farmers of being part of a process that is “mass poisoning” our population is not necessarily the best way to win friends and influence people in the rural communities that so strongly support Kennedy’s putative boss Donald Trump.
Farmers who are familiar with RFK Jr.’s fringe thoughts on food production in this country are quite concerned.
Farmer/lawyer Amanda Zaluckyj, writing in Ag Daily, says RFK Jr.’s nomination is “like a literal middle finger to agriculture.” She goes on to write that his appointment “could create substantial regulatory disruptions for American agriculture, particularly concerning pesticide use, GMOs, and labeling — key areas where Kennedy has voiced strong opposition to the scientific consensus.”
Farmer and former head of the Missouri Farm Bureau Blake Hurst, writes in Agri-Pulse that “RFK Jr. would be bad for America’s health.” Hurst adds that the Trump appointee’s commitment to banning food additives, many of which add to the shelf life of foods and reduce waste, means “we’ll have to add weevils and mold to childhood diseases as we examine the costs of this alliance between RFK Jr. and former President Trump.”
I haven’t seen any commentary from the local farming community that addresses the nomination. The Tri-State Livestock News out of Sturgis, SD, published a piece that gives a pretty decent recap of opinion, pro and con, on the nomination, but doesn’t address RFK Jr.’s potential impact on South Dakota producers.
To me, RFK Jr.’s rejection of science in some of his pronouncements makes his approach to regulating the food supply suspect.
Meantime, we’ll soon see what happens when the Trump administration gets pushback from some of the country’s biggest and most powerful lobbying groups, namely those representing the food industry. A report this week in The Lion says that food lobbyists are already gathering to discuss ways in which to thwart RFK Jr.’s agenda. I have no doubt that the National Corn Growers Association (aka “Big Corn”) will have something to say about all this.
Food producers should have at least one sensitive ear on the subject as Kennedy’s nomination goes to the Senate for confirmation. Majority leader John Thune is from South Dakota, where his background makes him knowledgeable about ag issues and the interests of farmers.
There is also a larger issue that will materialize from all this.
Much has been said about the coming Trump administration having “no guardrails,” but the reality is that the guardrails are out there in the form of special interests that won’t necessarily roll over as Trump goes into governing mode.
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.
Photo: FDA inspector, public domain, wikimedia commons
