Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently hosted a “Make America Healthy Again” roundtable where they discussed various aspects of the effort with agricultural stakeholders. The roundtable follows the release of the first MAHA report by Kennedy’s agency that didn’t go over well with many in the ag sector. A second report is set for release on August 12.
The MAHA roundtable was hosted by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., where he and other speakers focused on increasing use of precision agriculture technology and expanding public-private partnerships to boost usage of conservation practices. Soil health was at the center of the discussions, with Kennedy calling out modern soil health practices as “unsustainable.”
The Health Secretary said U.S. top soil is currently being depleted more quickly than it can replace itself and noted that it could be eliminated entirely within 50 years. Kennedy’s claims are not unfounded. According to the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the U.S. loses about $44 billion each year from soil erosion.
Soil erosion is the detachment and movement of soil from one place to another by water or wind. Typical consequences of erosion include reduced soil quality for plant growth; build-up of eroded sediment in riverbeds, harbors, and behind dams that must be removed to maintain safe passage and prevent dam over-topping; and transportation of salts and nutrients that reduce water quality, such as algae blooms that harm aquatic life.
“The subtle aspect to soil erosion is that it removes water-holding capacity that plants need to grow and restricts the types of plants that can grow on the site,” said Mark Weltz, rangeland hydrologist with the ARS Great Basin Rangelands Research Unit in Reno, NV. “Further, most plant nutrients are stored in the surface soil. Once lost, it may take centuries to recover. In certain situations, once soil erosion has occurred to sufficient depth the productivity of the site is forever lost.”
In 2022, researchers estimated that 57.6 billion metric tons of soil had been lost in the American Midwest since farming began 160 years ago. Evidence of this can clearly be seen in Iowa, where the average topsoil depth decreased from 14-18 inches at the start of the 20th century to 6-8 inches by the start of the 21st.
While human activities, such as tilling and intensive monocropping, contribute to soil loss, the biggest culprit by far is weather. Increasingly erratic weather patterns, including a vicious cycle of hotter temperatures, higher rates of evaporation, and thus more destructive downpours, have literally washed some of the best soils away from the fields. A particularly bad series of spring storms in 2013 resulted in more than 12 million tons of soil being swept away from Iowa’s farmland. The most heavily affected farms lost as much as 40 tons of topsoil per acre.
Solutions proposed by speakers at the MAHA roundtable included adopting no-till farming. Already, 74% of North Central and Midwest crop farmers use either no-till or reduced-till practices. Speakers also touted other so-called “regenerative” practices like cover crops.
Kennedy said that U.S. agriculture needs to transition to these and other more sustainable farming practices, “But we need to transition without mandates, without coercion.” Kennedy touted giving farmers “off ramps” so they can “transition to biodynamic agriculture, to regenerative agriculture, and do it in a way that is going to maintain the vibrancy of their farms and robust economies in rural communities across our country.”
Notably, speakers at the latest event also mentioned the importance of pesticides and fertilizers in modern agriculture production systems. This runs counter to the first MAHA report that was critical of crop protection tools, blaming the presence of glyphosate, chlorpyrifos and atrazine in food, water and dust for contributing to childhood chronic disease.
The corn industry, including the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) and nearly 20 state corn groups, are pressing President Trump to ensure the next MAHA report doesn’t question the safety of widely used pesticides. “While we appreciate that members of your administration have met with agricultural groups and leaders in recent weeks, our farmers remain deeply troubled,” the signatories noted. “The initial assessment and a long list of unfounded statements that key architects of the MAHA report have repeated, are prime fodder for trial attorneys seeking to profit and protectionist trading partners who are determined to erect barriers to American agricultural products.” The full letter is HERE.
