Pesticide proposal shows MAHA hypocrisy in farm bill

A farm bill provision prioritizes Big Chemical and threatens the gains the fresh produce industry has and can make as the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement gains steam.

For over 38 years, I’ve lived and breathed the organic produce world. I’ve shaken hands with growers, retailers, CEOs, and visionaries who bet on soil health, biodiversity, and food that doesn’t come with a side of synthetic chemicals.

The MAHA movement was built to tackle the root causes of our chronic disease epidemic—poor diet, environmental toxins, chemical exposures in our food supply, and corporate influence that prioritizes profits over prevention.

It’s about making real changes so families aren’t battling preventable illness. Yet here we are with 2026 farm bill provisions that shield pesticide makers from lawsuits, preempt stronger state warnings, and lock in broad access to chemicals like glyphosate.

This isn’t advancing health—it’s handing Big Chemical protection at the expense of the very agenda that promised to drain corporate capture and put people first. Chronic disease isn’t abstract—it’s bankrupting families and futures.

Let’s call the hypocrisy what it is

We can’t preach “food as medicine” while doubling down on chemical dependency. Look at the trends: U.S. pesticide use on 21 major crops exploded from about 196 million pounds of active ingredients in 1960 to a peak of 632 million pounds in 1981.¹

It trended down slightly afterward—to around 516 million pounds by 2008—largely because newer pesticides are far more potent and powerful, working at much lower application rates per acre, combined with GM seed tech.² But total U.S. agricultural pesticide use still hovers around 1 billion pounds annually in more recent estimates.³

Zoom in: Glyphosate use remains massive today — 250+ million pounds per year in the U.S. alone.⁴ Bayer (which bought Monsanto) has generated billions in revenue over decades from Roundup and glyphosate-based products,⁵ while already paying out roughly $11 billion in cancer settlements with billions more proposed or reserved for tens of thousands of pending cases.⁶

Now the 2026 farm bill goes further — it tries to stop people from taking legal action over warnings on the very product labels that need them, by preempting any state or court from requiring or penalizing stronger health warnings beyond EPA approval.

We’ve traded old broad-spectrum killers for new ones that persist in soil, water, and our bodies — with resistant weeds forcing even heavier and more frequent sprays. Farmers I know—conventional and organic—see the real costs: soil degradation, input dependency, and health questions that won’t go away because policy says “trust the EPA.”

As someone who scaled organic without relying on those crutches, I can tell you there’s another way. Organics grew because consumers demanded accountability and safer practices. We’ve proven you can feed people profitably while building soil instead of stripping it.

Farm policy should modernize safety nets, yes—but it must also incentivize transitions to lower-chemical systems, support independent processors, and stop preempting local accountability. Short-sighted protectionism for pesticide giants risks the rural economies and public trust that leaders claim to champion.

We need leadership that owns this fight head-on. Demand amendments stripping the liability shields. Push for real research on alternatives that actually work at scale. Elevate voices from the organic trenches who have delivered results.

America deserves food policy that matches the rhetoric of making us healthy again—not more of the same corporate logic that got us here.

Sources / Footnotes

1.  USDA ERS, Pesticide Use in U.S. Agriculture: 21 Selected Crops, 1960-2008 (2014).

2.  Ibid.

3.  EPA Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage reports.

4.  Benbrook, Trends in Glyphosate Use, Environmental Sciences Europe (2016).

5.  Bayer glyphosate revenue reports.

6.  Bayer Roundup settlement updates (as of 2026).