Before nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, President Donald Trump promised to let him “go wild on health, go wild on the food, go wild on the medicines,” and Kennedy has given every indication that he plans to do it. With the Senate now considering the nomination, we all need to take a hard look at Kennedy’s fringe points of view — not only his alarming views on vaccines and fluoride, but also his dangerous vision for the future of our nation’s agriculture and food regulation.
If confirmed, Kennedy would undermine decades of progress in agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability, and food security. He’s not just out of step with scientific consensus; he risks destroying the livelihoods of American farmers, undermining American competitiveness, and making basic food products unaffordable for ordinary families.
Kennedy has said flat-out, “I’m going to reverse 80 years of farm policy.” His plan is to oversee the deconstruction of large-scale agriculture, intensive meat production, and high-productivity farms. In their place, Kennedy advocates for small farms and producers who can’t leverage economies of scale and can’t produce enough food at a low cost for the American consumer.
Kennedy claims to have the nation’s health in mind. But his core vision would increase the cost of all food, healthy and unhealthy, while dismantling an agricultural system that leads the world in efficiency. When he proposes to shift our food system toward “organic, regenerative agriculture,” what that means is abandoning synthetic fertilizers and virtually all other chemical inputs to American agriculture. When he proposes to shift toward grass-fed and pasture-raised meat, that means replacing our abundance of affordable meat with high-priced alternatives for which there is no significant evidence of improved human health outcomes. These practices also typically bring far worse environmental impacts.
Kennedy’s opposition to high-productivity agriculture mirrors the positions of far-left environmental groups and advocates, such as Vandana Shiva, who use anticapitalist rhetoric to advocate against modern food systems in favor of traditional production systems that cost more and produce less. Shiva was the architect of Sri Lanka’s agricultural crisis of 2021, which saw the country ban imports of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides and attempt to shift to organic and regenerative agriculture. The consequences of the ban were disastrous: Productivity dropped 50%, and food prices shot up, impoverishing the nation’s citizens.
Similar policies in the U.S. would dramatically reduce the amount of food that farmers are able to grow on each acre of farmland and significantly reduce incomes for farmers and their families. Kennedy has not only repeated Shiva’s claims but has championed her positions in the U.S. and has hosted her on his podcast and at in-person events numerous times.
Kennedy will also press to curtail the use of genetically modified organisms, which enable farmers to increase yields, cut pesticide use, and make crops more climate-resilient; they can even enhance nutritional value. There is nothing inherently dangerous about genetic modification, simply a more technological and precise method of breeding plants and animals. GMO crops are grown all over the world, and they account for over 96% of U.S. corn and soybeans. The global shift to GMOs has increased yields of staple crops by more than a billion tons in the last 30 years and protected a land area the size of Minnesota from being converted to agriculture, safeguarding biodiversity and reducing agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, the “carbon-based fertilizers” that Kennedy opposes are key to maintaining low food prices and high productivity in the United States. Domestically, synthetic fertilizer keeps farmers profitable, food prices low, and our food supply abundant. Internationally, the world would only be able to feed about half of the global population without synthetic fertilizers. America’s farmers, moreover, play an outsized role in feeding the world. U.S. exports account for about 20% of globally traded agriculture, a fact made possible in significant part due to fertilizers and other synthetic inputs. Further, U.S. agriculture is staring down what is expected to be a record-setting trade deficit in 2025. Hamstringing farmers’ ability to increase yields will undoubtedly exacerbate the extent to which our nation imports more than we export.
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Kennedy’s plan to, in his own words, “weaponize” federal agencies such as HHS and the Food and Drug Administration to produce studies supporting his anti-science agenda is particularly alarming. Farmers and agricultural businesses depend on reality-based research and regulations to ensure that products are evaluated for safety based on rigorous scientific standards. Hijacking the FDA as a political and litigation arm for Kennedy’s fringe beliefs would not just be dangerous for consumers but would create regulatory uncertainty, stifle innovation, and harm U.S. competitiveness in global markets at the same time that countries such as Brazil, China, and Russia are deploying and commercializing agricultural advancements.
The risks of abandoning science-driven agriculture are not hypothetical; they are well understood and have been borne out by real-world experience. Kennedy is a threat to America’s farmers and our food security. The Senate must reject his nomination. The stakes are too high to give power over American food policy to someone whose vision for U.S. agriculture could catastrophically damage the American economy, our global competitiveness, and even our health. Instead, we deserve someone who is committed to results-based agriculture founded in science, to the continued advance of innovation, and to a prosperous and food-secure future for all.
Ted Nordhaus is the founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute and a coauthor of An Ecomodernist Manifesto.