It was one of the most contentious confirmation hearings in President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s quest to become Health and Human Services Secretary included a confirmation hearing during which Kennedy said he wants to help farmers transition to no-till and away from heavy chemical usage. Five farmers had the chance to combat those claims at the White House last week, all in an effort to save glyphosate, a 50-year-old chemistry that farmers have relied on for decades as a tool for weed control.
Northeast Iowa farmer Ben Riensche isn’t afraid to speak his mind on ag issues, and that’s exactly what he did last week, as he traveled to Washington with CropLife America, as they made their way to the White House. The most enlightening conversation, according to Riensche, was with Secretary Kennedy’s team in the West Wing of the White House.
“Our opening discussion was indeed about glyphosate, and it was refreshing,” said Riensche, owner and manager of Blue Diamond Farming Company in Jesup, Iowa. He spoke with Farm Journal in an exclusive interview on his farm this week.
“They wanted to know why glyphosate is important to farmers. It felt like they’d mostly heard the late-night infomercial, carcinogen lawsuit story. We explained that glyphosate is a very low-cost product for us now that has conserved tons and tons of fragile topsoil in the United States, that we use it for burndowns before reduced tillage plantings, and that it substantially reduces our carbon footprint because instead of running a plow, you’re running a sprayer and putting it on.”
Riensche says he was one of five farmers who were invited to the White House last week, a group that also represented California, the Pacific Northwest and the eastern Corn Belt. One of those individuals was Kip Tom, an Indiana farmer who served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.
“First of all, we talked about safety. We talked about productivity gains, but we also talked about food prices,” Tom told AgriTalk’s Chip Flory on Wednesday. “If you take this tool away from us, you’re going to have the opposite impact of what President Trump wanted us to do, which is lower food prices. And so not only are we using a safe product to produce food, but we can also lower the price of the production of food by having access to tools such as Roundup or glyphosate.”
Riensche says the conversation surrounding pesticides and glyphosate — and explaining how farmers rely on those inputs as a tool to grow the food Americans rely on — made an impact and seemed to resonate with Kennedy’s team.
“His team burned up a legal pad taking notes. It was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful,” Riensche said. “We talked about other topics with them and with the White House staff. We talked about the foreign competition issues. We talked food imports. We talked the death tax or inheritance tax and how capital intensive farming is and to put the next generation in place and how punitive it can be to do that.”
Tom says they also tied it to the president’s “America First” agenda and the fact glyphosate supports U.S. jobs.
“If (they) take this product away from us, especially that from the buyer, we’re going to be subject to buying this product probably from either India, but more than likely China, and that doesn’t have a good long-term outcome,” says Tom.
Tom invited Secretary Kennedy to his Indiana farm, and he says he has a commitment from both Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Rollins to visit this summer. And that continued education may be needed, as there may still be some work to do when it comes to Kennedy’s views on agriculture.
Kennedy has stated strawberries are unhealthy, and he has expressed concerns about pesticide residues in non-organic strawberries. He has also voiced concerns about the long-term effects of consuming pesticides, particularly in non-organic strawberries, which often top lists for pesticide residues.
AgriTalk host Chip Flory recently talked about it on U.S. Farm Report.
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