President Donald Trump’s executive order of Feb. 18 invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950 to ensure US glyphosate production and availability is neither necessary nor helpful. HHS Secretary and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) founder Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s endorsement of the order has created a firestorm in that health-interested base.

On Feb. 22, Kennedy conducted triage explanations to his base with this statement: 

“Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals.” He went on to post that “if these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today. The consequences would be disastrous.”

Kennedy then described the many weed control alternatives that are being developed. All of us farmers in the nonchemical community already use many of these innovative alternatives: lasers, AI-driven wipes, steam nozzles, cover crop crimping, and soil balancing. The grain farmers I patronize for our chicken and pig feeds do not use glyphosate or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). We pay a slight premium, but these farmers have great yields and are certainly not going out of business like many more conventional operations.

This showdown has been a long time developing. On Apr. 14, 2025, The Wall Street Journal’s Patrick Thomas reported that “Bayer said it could stop producing the world’s most popular weed killer unless it gets court protection against lawsuits blaming the herbicide for causing cancer.” Bayer and........

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