Weeks after Trump’s glyphosate executive order, many MAHA proponents believe that awareness about chemicals and regenerative farming is on the rise.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order that propelled the domestic production of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides on Feb. 18. Since then, many proponents of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement have said that backlash from the move will heighten awareness among farmers and consumers about the dangers of chemicals in agriculture and encourage more growth in regenerative farming.
Last month, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act when he signed the executive order. Shortages of phosphorus and glyphosate would create a risk to national security, he declared in the executive order.
Elemental phosphorus is a key ingredient in the formulation of glyphosate, which the White House said is essential to maintaining food security. According to the executive order, the Department of the Interior has designated elemental phosphorus as a scarce material.
John Klar is an attorney turned regenerative cattle farmer in Vermont. He works with the nonprofit MAHA Action and is the author of “Small Farm Republic” and the forthcoming “The War on Farmers: How Corporations, Activists, and Climate Alarmists Are Fueling a Global Food Crisis.”
More people are becoming educated about glyphosate, which is a silver lining to Trump’s order, Klar believes.
“The more that people learn about it, the more they seek to avoid it and scrutinize their food labels. The more they avoid it, the more they purchase trustworthy organic alternatives, thereby increasing demand for those safer offerings,” Klar said.
Glyphosate
Glyphosate is used to kill weeds and dry crops before harvest.
Glyphosate-tolerant crops account for a significant majority of the corn, soy, and cotton acreage on American farms.
Through its subsidiary Monsanto, Bayer is the only U.S. producer of glyphosate, which is the key ingredient in Roundup. It is the most widely used herbicide in history, according to the Global Glyphosate Study.
Today, 280 million pounds of glyphosate are sprayed on 285 million acres of U.S. farmland every year, according to the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, which advocates for organic and sustainable food.
Trump’s executive order called glyphosate-based herbicides “the most widely used crop protection tools in United States agriculture” and “a cornerstone of this Nation’s agricultural productivity and rural economy, allowing United States farmers and ranchers to maintain high yields and low production costs while ensuring that healthy, affordable food options remain within reach for all American families.”
“There is no direct one-for-one chemical alternative to glyphosate-based herbicides,” the EO states. “[The] lack of access to glyphosate-based herbicides would critically jeopardize agricultural productivity.”
