The agriculture industry was one of the hot topics discussed during Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s first confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
“We need to fix our food supply,” said Kennedy as he spoke before the Senate Finance Committee.
Kennedy, who is President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, said in his opening statement that he is ‘not the enemy of food producers’.
“American farms are the bedrock of our culture, of our politics, [and] of our national security,” said Kennedy. “I was a 4-H kid, and I spent my summer working on ranches. I went to work with our farmers. I want to work with our farmers and food producers to remove burdensome regulations and unleash American ingenuity. MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) simply cannot succeed without a partnership a full Partnership of American farmers.”
But, when questioned by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), Kennedy pointed his finger at the broad range of crop protection products that are currently being used.
“We’re also destroying our soil because some of the chemicals that farmers use destroy the microbiome, and that causes the erosion of the soil that you can’t get water infiltration,” said Kennedy. “Agronomists now estimate that we only have—if we continue doing these processes—only 60 harvests left before our soil is gone. So, farmers are using seeds and chemicals that, over the long term, are costing them and us.”
Kennedy also said he wants to fast track additional incentives to farmers to steer away from the use of chemicals as crop protection products.
“We [should] offer and incentivize transitions to regenerative agriculture, to no-till agriculture, and to less chemically-intensive [products]—and by the way, I’ve also met with the chemical industry and the fertilizer and herbicide companies and they want to do the same thing, and I think we’re on the trajectory to do that. We need to incentivize initiatives to accelerate that trajectory,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy’s second confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
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