President-elect Donald Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to play a major role in U.S. food policy as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Some farmers and agriculture experts worry that Kennedy will push unscientific and unproven ideas.
"He has gone as far as saying he would 'weaponize' regulatory agencies to eliminate the use of pesticides," Zaluckyj said, adding that Kennedy has"voiced strong opposition to the scientific consensus" on farm industry practices. "His distrust of genetically modified seeds is longstanding and in opposition to thousands of scientific studies," wrote Blake Hurst, a farmer and former head of Missouri's Farm Bureau, in theKennedy has long condemned industrial food corporations as well as Big Ag trade groups, which he says have driven an obesity epidemic in the U.S. while polluting farmland and bankrupting smaller family farms.on a host of food additives and dyes.
Trump's decision to make Kennedy a major player in U.S. food policy has also drawn support from some farmers.