Glyphosate being sprayed on a field
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It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
It was the era of making America healthy again. It was the era of turning a blind eye to glyphosate.
Glyphosate is the elephant lingering throughout the Trump cabinet.
On June 25, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump Administration in a 7-2 decision, stating that Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto’s Roundup, is shielded from state level lawsuits because federal regulation does not require them to warn of alleged cancer risks from such products.
“Millions of voters who identify as MAHA are extremely disappointed,” activist Kelly Ryerson, also known as Glyphosate Girl on social media, tells me. “The timing was so sad because we were so excited for the Executive Order to come out, and then [the Supreme Court decision happened. That took a lot of wind out of the sails.”
Instead, within hours of the decision coming down, President Donald Trump signed the Executive Order that Ryerson speaks of, including a ’Regenerative Feedstock Rule’ proposed by the USDA that claims to incentivize farmers to implement regenerative practices by connecting them with new markets. The Department of Health & Human Services did not release a statement following the decision nor did it respond directly to a request for comment.
“It’s not new money–it’s moving money within programs to mud practices that were already being funded,” Scott Faber, SVP of Government Affairs for the Environmental Working Group, tells me.
According to the World Health Organization, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is a probable carcinogen. Thousands of ‘failure-to-warn’ lawsuits against Bayer from plaintiffs who claim to have gotten cancer after using Roundup are now expected to be blocked. Glyphosate, which is produced in the US only by Bayer, is sprayed on 300 million acres of American farmland every year.
Many initiatives spearheaded by MAHA leader, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, like banning artificial food dyes, adding more nutritious meals in hospital settings and promoting whole foods in lieu of ultra-processed foods are unquestionably beneficial and a step in the right direction for public health and have been accomplishments in the first 18 months of the second Trump Administration. Many leaders in regenerative agriculture have felt some sense of hope given that regardless of politics, Secretary Kennedy has, at least, put attention on regenerative agriculture.
Regenerative practices on a farm are not truly regenerative if glyphosate is also being sprayed on that same farm.
“The Administration is trying to have it both ways,” Faber says. “The May 2025 MAHA assessment described an environmental health game in which our children were being poisoned by a toxic mixture of pesticides. But in practice, the second Trump administration had either granted or sought legal immunity for pesticide companies and approved new pesticides made with the toxic forever chemical as an ingredient.”
Faber is referring to what happened just days after the Supreme Court decision, revealing the damaging fallout enabled by the decision. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, led by Secretary Lee Zeldin, approved more pesticide use of two forever chemicals that can be used on crops in the US.
“The EPA said that Executive Order gave them support to do these forever chemicals, which was never the intent,” Ryerson says. “The intention was to get nutrient-dense food to people. Every way we’re turning, we’re in a wall with Industry that seems to be running the Administration,” she continues. “It feels very much like a war.”
I reached out to the EPA for comment. In part, it tells me, “Every one of these pesticides cleared one of the most rigorous, transparent, science-based reviews in the world. Under FIFRA, EPA registers a product only after career scientists conclude it will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on human health or the environment–a review that weighs toxicity, environmental fate, bioaccumulation, and breakdown products such as TFA at the levels people are actually exposed to.”
The EPA’s entire statement is at the bottom of this article.
While there are many beneficial practices that are considered “regenerative practices” like cover cropping, rotational grazing and wildlife integration, the holistic approach to being considered regenerative isn’t logical if probable carcinogens are being used on the same farms. Glyphosate is shown to damage the health of the soil and the health of the farmers using it, surrounding communities, and the humans who eventually consume that food.
The very government workers who set the national tone and should be regulating the term are now creating more confusion about regenerative agriculture. The term ‘ice cream’ has more regulation than the term ‘regenerative.’
The EPA’s statement to me also says, “Glyphosate remains one of the most relied-upon and widely used tools in American agriculture, sustaining productivity, affordability, and resilience. It is also one of the herbicides that makes conservation tillage and no-till farming practical–a direct link to the soil-health goals of regenerative agriculture.”
While the EPA is correct in stating that glyphosate is one of the most relied-upon tools in American agriculture, a true regenerative system does not spray glyphosate in lieu of tilling. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. While reducing tillage is encouraged, minimal tillage is acceptable on a true regenerative system if it is being used in lieu of synthetic chemicals. Root vegetables like potatoes and carrots require some degree of tilling to harvest at scale and is less damaging to soil health than glyphosate.
This narrative is detrimental to the overall regenerative movement and continues to cause a harmful domino effect. Businesses large and small, and non-third party certifications like Regenified, are using this same terminology as the EPA to make it seem as if they are implementing helpful “regenerative” practices for marketing purposes while still permitting the use of glyphosate. Nothing is regenerative if glyphosate is in the picture. The federal government is now enabling companies to greenwash the term by promoting this false narrative.
“If the Administration were really committed to supporting regenerative farming, the Trump team would be sending the Farm Bill writers back to the drawing board with an instruction to increase funding for regenerative practices, and to build the infrastructure that helps farmers enroll in those programs,” Faber says.
What is glaringly missing from the slew of press releases touting MAHA’s accomplishments is fervently promoting organic agriculture. Organic produce in the US is heavily regulated by the USDA Organic certification. This certification prohibits the use of glyphosate and other synthetic pesticides, although organic pesticides are permitted. Nearly all announcements about advancing the MAHA agenda from the Trump Administration fail to acknowledge or promote practical solutions to promoting organic agriculture.
“The tale is what happened between May and September of 2025 and the unprecedented lobbying campaign by pesticide groups to scrub the MAHA strategy of any reference to pesticides and the harm they may have,” Faber says.
The HHS, EPA and USDA all claim to put farmers first. Although the MAHA Strategy states that it will reduce costs for small farms transitioning to organic practices, it fails to state anything about reducing the amount of glyphosate in industrial-scale farms, which the vast majority of our food comes from, and of which farmers are feeling forced to use to make a living, and getting cancer at higher rates. Children who live near farms are also developing certain cancers at young ages at higher rates.
Today’s US Department of Agriculture, which grants USDA Organic Certification, is linked to the MAHA movement; USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins herself is a self-described ‘MAHA Mom.’
The USDA did not directly comment on the Supreme Court decision protecting Bayer. In a statement shared to me, the USDA says, “Farmers are the backbone of our nation and are at the front line in our fight to make America healthy again. President Trump has been steadfast in this goal, and the entire administration has been in lockstep in working to deliver healthy, nutritious, and affordable food for Americans. Secretary Rollins is a MAHA mom of 4 children, and completely understands the health issues facing all Americans, as such she will continue to be a fierce advocate for policies that deliver on this objective.”
Ryerson does not believe Rollins is a true MAHA Mom. “She’s never met with any of us. She doesn’t respond to our phone calls,” Ryerson says. “I think that the USDA is where most of that pressure is coming from in terms of keeping the chemical agriculture system alive. I hold Brooke Rollins totally responsible for that. It’s deeply disappointing that she has the opportunity to truly transform this crisis in farming and human health, and she’s taking minimal action about it, meanwhile calling herself a MAHA Mom.”
As a registered Independent, Ryerson was a part of the MAHA movement before it was called MAHA, working with Kennedy to eliminate pesticides from our food supply years before he entered politics, then assisted with his presidential campaign. “We’ve been waiting for any administration to take on these issues,” she says. “We got excited with Obama, but then Industry moved in and he couldn’t do things. It has been one disappointment after another so finally having a seat at the table around food and toxin issues was huge.”
Not everyone who considers themselves a part of the MAHA movement is happy about the Administration’s stance on glyphosate. Some of these people, like Ryerson, hold the Administrations feet to the fire when decisions like this come down. The MAHA folks who stand with Ryerson are not the same MAHA folks in the federal government.
“We can’t possibly be healthy with the number of carcinogens and endocrine disruptors that are surrounding us all the time,” Ryerson says.
The White House MAHA Strategy describes initiatives to fight growing infertility. But fails to mention any impact of glyphosate on fertility, which has been shown to be significant.
According to a 2025 study from Wayne University School of Medicine, “The effects of glyphosate can have significant consequences on women’s reproductive health, potentially increasing the risk of infertility and reproductive disorders such as endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome.”
The MAHA Strategy acknowledges as one of the first clauses in the literature that synthetic chemicals pose a threat to children: “Children are exposed to an increasing number of synthetic chemicals, some of which have been linked to developmental issues and chronic disease,” it details, but it seems to nitpick which actions it chooses to take to fight this growing issue.
Another study published in 2021 in the journal, Frontiers in Endocrinology, shows that there is evidence of glyphosate having “detrimental consequences on reproduction,” further describing that glyphosate can be passed by a pregnant woman to her fetus through the placenta and umbilical cord, stating “glyphosate appears to cause multigenerational effects, which might be transmitted transgenerationally to future generations.”
The MAHA–Make America Healthy Again–movement, named after President Trump’s campaign slogan, is inherently political, setting itself up for failure, if success were ever the goal. There is nothing inherently political about food justice and transforming our food system.
“If there are a few issues Americans are united on, one of them is that people should have access to justice when companies make them sick,” Faber says. “So far, our food is less safe, not safer, because of the actions taken by this Administration.”
There are some initiatives that have the potential to turn around the Supreme Court decision. In September of 2027, the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, or PRIA, is set to expire. “It’s the law that allows the EPA to collect fees from pesticide makers that pay for pesticide reviews. Congress should not renew PRIA without ensuring that people who have been harmed by pesticides have access to justice,” Faber says. “Congress should also demand, as a condition of renewing PRIA, that pesticides have clear warnings, that people are notified when pesticides may be sprayed, and that our kids are safe at school and are not being showered in a toxic cloud of a pesticide drift.”
Ryerson is also working to include a provision in the Farm Bill. “There are some things we would like to see inserted into the language so that it overturns [the Supreme Court decision],” Ryerson says. “People are at their wit’s end with the government’s willingness to continue poisoning us as they watch their families die of cancer and be infertile. The ability to actually make meaningful movement in legislation is there.”
Glyphosate will not be taken out of our agricultural systems overnight. The lack of acknowledgement on the use of glyphosate is the antithesis of regenerative agriculture and a leap backwards to the movement that acts as the most practical solution to fixing our food system. If the Administration and its MAHA policies continue to fail by ignoring the industrial scale of glyphosate use in the US, then any of its regenerative agriculture programs are empty. Regenerative agriculture initiatives must only be applauded insofar as its flaws are acknowledged.
EPA Statement:
EPA’s job is to give American farmers the best and safest crop-protection tools available while holding every product to gold-standard science. That is how we advance the Make America Healthy Again agenda: approving better tools, retiring older, more persistent chemistries, and investing in practices that reduce chemical use at the source, so the country has a safe, abundant food supply produced with fewer and safer inputs over time.
Every one of these pesticides cleared one of the most rigorous, transparent, science-based reviews in the world. Under FIFRA, EPA registers a product only after career scientists conclude it will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on human health or the environment — a review that weighs toxicity, environmental fate, bioaccumulation, and breakdown products such as TFA at the levels people are actually exposed to.
These decisions directly advance President Trump’s Executive Order 14414, Advancing Regenerative Agriculture and Strengthening American Farm Resilience, which directs EPA to prioritize registering newer active ingredients that can replace older ones. That is exactly what these are: tools that move growers off older, more persistent chemistries — such as organochlorines like DDT and dieldrin, which posed genuinely unacceptable toxicity and bioaccumulation risks — and onto newer, more targeted products with reduced risk. Pursuant to Section 2(a), EPA is now taking public comment on proposed new uses for active ingredients that are already commercially available; if finalized, they would give farmers a new alternative to older chemistries in use today.
These tools also enable the soil-health practices at the heart of regenerative agriculture. Safe, effective, well-regulated herbicides let farmers control destructive weeds while relying less on intensive tillage — which drives erosion and runoff and depletes soil organic matter — making no-till and other conservation practices possible.
Glyphosate remains one of the most relied-upon and widely used tools in American agriculture, sustaining productivity, affordability, and resilience. It is also one of the herbicides that makes conservation tillage and no-till farming practical — a direct link to the soil-health goals of regenerative agriculture.
At the same time, EPA is committed to science-based innovation and stewardship. Working with federal partners, the agency is promoting more sustainable practices, including steps to minimize reliance on preharvest desiccation applications of glyphosate — the very practice the $30 million challenge is designed to find alternatives to. This year, EPA is undertaking a comprehensive, transparent, and rigorous scientific review of glyphosate to ensure its decisions are fully aligned with the best available evidence and with public-health and environmental protections.
As part of that review, EPA will:
- Expand public access to the underlying data and scientific rationale used in glyphosate assessments;
- Evaluate independent, peer-reviewed research on potential cancer and developmental risks;
- Identify and pursue opportunities to reduce unnecessary exposure, especially in residential settings and around schools;
- Work with USDA, HHS, and states to promote integrated pest management and alternative weed-control strategies that lower chemical reliance where feasible;
- Partner with USDA and HHS to develop a framework for assessing cumulative exposure across chemical classes in the food supply; and
- Strengthen monitoring of residues in food and water in coordination with federal partners.
EPA’s goal is clear: protect children, support farmers, and ensure that decisions are driven by science — not politics or special interests.