Environmental think tank The Breakthrough Institute has urged lawmakers to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr as secretary of health & human services, warning that “turning back the biotechnology clock on agriculture would lower yields, increase crop prices, and increase global land-use for agriculture.”
Supported by backers including climate tech funds Breakthrough Energy Ventures and the Pritzker Innovation Fund, the Breakthrough Institute believes that “large-scale industrial food systems are more land-, water-, and greenhouse gas-efficient than small scale low-intensity farming, and are better able to harness technology to increase land productivity, which holds the key to both climate mitigation and preserving biodiversity.”
While Kennedy has not outlined detailed plans to reform the food and farming industry, he is a vocal critic of GM crops, and has expressed a desire to restrict the use of synthetic pesticides, which raises alarm bells for the Breakthrough Institute.
In a letter to Senate majority leader John Thune and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer ahead of his confirmation hearing in the Senate, the nonprofit argued that Kennedy “could wreak havoc on US agriculture.”
While the HHS nominee has garnered support from all sides of the political spectrum for his mission to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’ moves to restrict crop inputs or hamper biotech applications will “make life harder for agricultural producers, decrease food production, and increase food prices for American consumers,” claimed the institute.
Its comments echo those in a letter from farming groups to lawmakers sent in October expressing concern over “misunderstandings” about common farming practices and defending the “existing risk- and science-based regulatory frameworks” governing them.
Crop protection
While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates pesticides, does not sit within HHS, Kennedy “could restrict their use by more strictly enforcing residue limits [on produce for example], imposing inordinate testing requirements, and pressuring EPA to deny new pesticide registrations or revoke existing approvals for products like glyphosate,” speculated the institute.
It added: “Mr Kennedy has proposed to limit the use of pesticides shown to be safe, curb agricultural biotechnology innovation, and reassess genetically modified crops that farmers have relied on for decades.
“Such changes risk incentivizing less productive, less profitable, and more environmentally destructive farming practices that will upend the livelihoods of American farmers, increase food prices for American consumers, and compromise the competitiveness of US agriculture globally.”
Biotechnology
As HHS secretary, Kennedy would “have the power to prioritize regulatory initiatives such as expanded safety assessments that slow-roll biotechnology innovation or curb the use of existing genetically modified crops and livestock,” claimed the Breakthrough Institute.
“The vast majority of US corn, soybeans, and cotton are GM—more than 90% for each. In the absence of GM seeds, the world would have otherwise needed to convert more than 23 million hectares of extra land to farmland. Turning back the biotechnology clock on agriculture would lower yields, increase crop prices, and increase global land-use for agriculture.”
This could also raise food prices while making farms less profitable by increasing labor costs and the use of alternative inputs, it claimed.
The prospect of RFK Jr overseeing the FDA would “further compound regulatory uncertainty for products developed using genetic improvement technologies, setting our nation on the back foot when it comes to addressing issues like food security and sustainability in agriculture.”
A warning from Sri Lanka
Should RFK Jr’s vision become a reality, added the Breakthrough Institute, the US “should expect to grapple with declines in agricultural productivity for the first time in decades.”
And such concerns “are not hypothetical,” claimed the nonprofit, citing moves to ban synthetic pesticides and order farmers to go organic in Sri Lanka in 2021 that generated “chaos,” although some commentators argue that the fertilizer policy exacerbated, rather than initiated, the economic crisis, which was in turn compounded by the Covid 19 pandemic. They also point out that transitioning to organic farming cannot be done overnight, and that poor execution and a lack of planning was to blame rather than the policy per se.
Within months of Sri Lanka’s chemical input ban, agricultural yields fell by more than 50% and food prices skyrocketed, claimed the Breakthrough Institute.
“In a matter of months, Sri Lanka’s government reversed the ban, but the damage in terms of food price inflation, economic turmoil and food security was long-lasting.”
US vs EU food regs
While some of Kennedy’s social media posts have raised eyebrows [he recently outlined plans to fire “every nutritional scientist at FDA because all of them are corrupt and all of them are complicit in the poisoning of our children”], we “shouldn’t overreact just yet,” said former FDA associate commissioner for foods Dr. David Acheson in a recent call with AgFunderNews.
Indeed, for health advocates that have been saying for years that the billions we spend on drugs to deal with chronic disease would be better spent on diet and lifestyle changes that would prevent people from getting sick in the first place, he said, RFK’s rhetoric is very refreshing.
However it is unclear whether the rest of the Trump administration—which last time around cut food assistance programs, rolled back school lunch nutrition standards and opposed Michele Obama’s initiatives to improve child nutrition—is aligned with Kennedy’s mission, he noted.
As for Kennedy’s oft-made comparisons between European and US regulatory systems, he said, the devil is in the detail. “The Europeans actually have less stringent standards on things like an allowable amount of listeria in ready to eat foods, which in the US is zero. Should we simply adopt what their standards are and apply them here, without assessing the risk ourselves? Many people would argue that we shouldn’t just do what other regulatory agencies tell us; we should do our own assessments.”
And this, he said, will require greater regulatory scientific scrutiny, and in turn more resources, which again, doesn’t seem to square with an administration committed to slashing funding to federal agencies, replacing subject matter experts with political appointees, and deregulation.
‘He appears inclined to emphasize his personal beliefs over data-driven, scientific analysis’
Although Kennedy’s focus on the links between poor diet and health is refreshing, he “appears inclined to emphasize his personal beliefs over data-driven, scientific analysis,” added Dr. Kantha Shelke, principal at food science and research firm Corvus Blue and senior lecturer, food safety regulations at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Rachel Cheatham, founder and CEO of nutrition strategy consultancy Foodscape Group, added: “RFK Jr frequently references scientific studies, but pushes science aside when it doesn’t support his narrative. If an agency aiming to reflect the gold standard of science becomes driven by a mix of science and emotion, I imagine that equivalent agencies around the world might look at anything coming out of the FDA with some hesitation.”
Further reading:
RFK Jr: ‘He believes in nutrition, but MAHA and MAGA don’t really seem to square’
