How U.S. Farmers Can Quickly Cut Glyphosate By 95 Percent

Joe Rogan’s blockbuster interview with recently resigned White House health adviser Calley Means targeted a longstanding political crisis — the corporate-bureaucrat alliance. A self-described Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) advocate, Means focused on how the lobbyist revolving door has choked popular health policies President Trump endorsed in his campaign coalition that installed Robert Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. One of these policies is reducing glyphosate, a weed-killer formerly in Roundup but now available only in commercial applications. Rogan and Means claimed the product causes cancer, showing photos of a man who contracted blood cancer after being soaked in the herbicide and noting Iowa has contaminated water and the nation’s second-highest cancer rates. While everyone who has taken a science class knows correlation isn’t causation, Means also claimed industry influence is preventing unbiased studies from assessing such concerns. Means told Rogan his attempts to get a federal MAHA report to include the word glyphosate was “the greatest fight I’ve ever experienced up to that time in my life.” He alleged special interest influence got the Supreme Court to protect glyphosate from liability lawsuits and President Trump to sign a corrupt executive order declaring its use a national security concern. Researchers say it’s difficult to control for the millions of potential factors behind Iowa’s high cancer rates and water problems. Regardless, it seems reasonable to suspect that a chemical that kills everything not genetically modified to withstand it, and which farmers use protective equipment to use, may not be ideal to eat, even in trace amounts. And millions of Americans want fewer lab-supercharged chemicals soaking everything they touch. While Means says “industry” opposes efforts to reduce chemical usage on American farms, the technology to do so already exists and farmers are adopting it to save money. It’s just one example of many showing that, while the political MAHA agenda might be blocked by special interests, people on the ground level are already furthering its goals. Drones, AI Can Cut Farm Chemicals 95 Percent The federal government keeps a 45-page list of concentrated pest and weed killers farmers must get a license and wear protective clothing to use. Glyphosate is not on it. Still, a big step toward ending farm chemicals would be cutting their use by 95 percent. The technology for that exists, although it is not yet widespread. My cousin Jeremie Pavelski, the fifth generation to run our family’s Wisconsin crop farm, is testing drones to spot-treat his fields for pests and disease rather than spraying everything. This year’s Becknology Days farm expo north of Indianapolis showcased other tech that can micro-spray AI-targeted plants with weed killer, fertilizer, good bacteria, or pesticides. The SharpShooter can target an area as small as two dimes stacked and issue 240 shots per second, Verdant Robotics salesman Shad Bloomberg told a trailer full of spectators sporting steel-toed boots, sunglasses tans, and trucker hats. It reduces chemical usage 95 percent or more, he said. Inventions like these can save farmers tens or hundreds of thousands per year while slashing the chemicals that scared my mother into forbidding us as kids from making mudpies in the field behind our backyard. We still played under the irrigation when she wasn’t looking, and none of us seven siblings has cancer. “There’s misconceptions that farmers are just blowing chemicals,” says Brad Fruth, the innovation director for Beck’s Hybrids, which puts on Becknology Days. “It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. Some of the seed treatment stuff that we use, I mean, it’s less than a ketchup packet that goes in” to many acres. How much of that ketchup packet actually ends up in consumers’ gut microbiomes after the seeds grow into plants, are harvested, stored, washed, and cooked? Photo Courtesy of Beck’s Hybrids Need for Capital Investments The main obstacle to higher-tech chemical reduction is farmers’ ability to buy and deploy machines like drones and the SharpShooter. As farms do increasingly integrate with AI and robotics, their demand for migrant workers will also decrease. Robots are in development for jobs that today only humans can do well, like berry picking. Already industrialization has reduced the demand for migrant labor — potatoes a harvester can dig reduce the need for seasonal workers, and increase the skill level of those hired, providing fewer jobs but at better pay. Tech is a solution to some farmers’ reliance on illegal labor, but phasing it in requires upfront investment. Federal support could help it happen faster, and it could save many downstream taxpayer costs of illegal immigration such as exploding Medicaid charges. Another Rogan MAHA interviewee, Dr. Robert Malone, has a list of things Kennedy could do right now that special interests couldn’t stop — if that’s the real barrier. Our family farm has millions of sensors that have collected years of data points on soil health and nutrition, what chemicals hit which plants when and in what quantities, and more. U.S. farms hire data scientists, engineers, and agronomists, and work closely with top state research universities. At our family potato farm, scientists test every batch of potatoes twice per day. Image by Joy Pullmann These relationships could be turned to research about improving food quality through, for example, integrating regenerative methods into conventional farms. Federal grants and attention on this would also steer private investments. Right now, however, hyperattention on AI and energy is siphoning investor and R&D funds from this kind of ag research, Earnest Agriculture founder Eddy Mejia told me. Earnest creates biologics, good bacteria developed in compost that can be applied to seeds in place of chemical fertilizers. They are like a probiotic for plants, Mejia says, and could also eventually reduce fungicide use. Earnest’s trials indicate these prairie-developed microbes can increase crop health and yields for soil with low organic matter. “Farmers are really, they’re scientists. They are scientists at heart,” Mejia says. He also noted it would cost about $2 million for his company to do the trials necessary to get federal approval to claim their products can reduce crop diseases. The startup grew out of research from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My family’s farm works closely with the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Beck’s is similarly integrated with Purdue University. Research from the University of Missouri may be about to seriously upgrade the fats in American foods. Soybeans as Healthy as Olive Oil? Most American farmers grow the kinds of seeds Beck’s produces, commodity crops of corn, soybeans, wheat, and other feed grasses. These are typically pressed, with the meal feeding animals and the oil creating fuel and processed foods. Ultraprocessed foods are the top calorie source for most Americans, and the MAHA minority that loathes them is shifting the entire market. In 2027, Beck will release “high-oleic” non-genetically modified soybeans developed by Missouri farmers and the University of Missouri. Oleic acid is at least 80 percent of oil from Soyleic beans and 75 percent of olive oil, according to Beck’s President Scott Beck. Soy provides 80 percent of all edible oils that go into American food, from bread to energy bars to ice cream and French fries. If these beans really are healthier — and it will take more experience to know for sure — their widespread use could not only efficiently improve millions of U.S. foods, but help American farmers increase their razor-thin financial margins. Cows that eat high-oleic soybeans produce more and better fats in their milk, says Beck’s. Many buyers of American milk, like Big Food ice cream brands, pay dairy farmers more for higher protein and fat in their milk. When protein and fats are a greater percentage of the milk, not only is it healthier, but this also reduces food production additives. High-oleic soybean oils also last twice as long in frying, Beck’s says, creating other savings that can be passed both to producers and consumers. A No-Margin Food Economy Although it seems doubtful whether dumping in seed oils, stabilizers, and other additives reduces food costs, budgets may be the biggest barrier to improving American diets. The famed Polyface Farms run by self-described “Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer” Joel Salatin sells Thanksgiving turkeys for between $150 and $180 each. While they surely offer more nutrition and flavor than $15 loss-leader turkeys, that’s an entire weekly grocery spend for families squeezed by core expenses like Obamacare and housing. Nearly 60 percent of American households have a Costco membership. Costco nets approximately two bucks on $100 of goods sold. Most grocery markets are dominated by one regional chain. Walmart holds one-fifth of the entire market, because like Costco it’s savage about cutting costs. The massive food companies that stock these retailers’ shelves, like Coca-Cola, Conagra, General Mills, Kraft Heinz, Nestle, PepsiCo, and Unilever, make a few cents on each product but sell millions. The smallest one-third of American farms make approximately one-quarter of their income from federal subsidies. Even with their profit margins padded this big by taxpayers, smaller farms can’t provide billions of vegetables at such tight margins and so similar that shoppers don’t have to look twice when they grab a bag. Larger farms like our family’s aren’t eligible for these subsidies. They have to meet volume and consistency demands set by corporate monopolies, or go out of business. My uncle Dick Pavelski, who with my dad’s help ran our family’s potato farm for a half century, says standardizing farms cuts production costs, such as from needing to adjust slicing machines and cooking heat to accommodate potato sizes and sugar levels. The farmers who can deliver consistent potatoes earn 30 percent more while reducing prices and burnt potatoes, says my uncle. This increased market share for the corporations willing to put farmers out of business over these factors and compensation for the ones who could deliver. It also provides farmers reliable markets, which they need to survive. “Even on our own small farm when we were selling direct to consumer, somebody that told you they wanted to buy it today, when product became available three weeks from now, some of them then are like, ‘Oh, well forget it,’” says Fruth, who lives on his family’s hog farm with his wife and four animal-loving daughters, where he farms part-time. End Foreign Wars, Promote Home Cooking American farmers are often the victims of smear wars from adversary countries and ideologically motivated activists. A recent ad campaign claiming American pork farmers work for Communist China, for example, was funded by Silicon Valley tech bros who want average Americans to eat bugs instead of meat and milk. Anti-energy policies may be the biggest barrier to the budget margins Americans and farmers need to grow and eat higher-quality food. High energy prices drive up fuel and fertilizer costs, which raise food costs, which push Americans to buy even lower-quality foods and more American farmers out of business. That would truly benefit China, because losing U.S. farms and farmers means more outsourcing to lower-quality farms abroad. Organic and local food enthusiasts are right about the need to improve Americans’ diets, but they need to be prudent and informed. The biggest immediate improvement would probably be more Americans eating home-cooked food, whether it’s organic or not. The biggest obstacle to that is either money or the time workers trade for it. Driving up the price of energy through wars, such as those in Ukraine and Iran, erases the economic margins needed to boost American health and drives up farm inputs like fuel and fertilizer. Obamacare ratchets designed to push Americans into full single-payer is forcing consumers and employers like farmers to pay massively inflated insurance premiums. Forcing every family to become dual-income through government-inflated economic pressures also erases the margins of time and energy households need to prepare healthier home-cooked and less processed food. My family and their farming friends recently developed a “farm exploration center” that offers one model to address this. The Farm+Food Center in central Wisconsin teaches cooking classes, lets people pick free locally grown vegetables they are excited to eat, and offers locally grown foods in its café. Its education arm shows Americans the incredible complexity of getting food to our plates, so united we can work on incremental ways to improve everyone’s health while avoiding economic disruption. Baby steps like these are more sustainable than mass disruptions. Thousands of central Wisconsinites attend the Farm+Food Exploration Center’s monthly free u-picks. Image courtesy Food+Farm Exploration Center. Monopoly Economy Downstream From Government Corruption Families are still the majority owners of nearly every U.S. farm, and 9 in 10 make less than $350,000 per year before expenses. While farmers honor deep family and community loyalties, our commodity economy that prioritizes standardization and scale shapes everything they do. A century of consolidation won’t be reversed in one or even two presidential administrations, especially given a Congress that is also funded by the food and pharma monopolies federal policies protect. And moving too fast toward a theoretical health utopia could give corporate monopolies more power by bankrupting family farms that private equity then takes over faster. Every Beck’s employee I met at Becknology Days also worked his family farm on the side. Toting two grandbabies between free ice cream and face painting so their parents could work the event, a grandmother told me as a young woman she’d detasseled corn in Michigan for Beck competitor Pioneer, the world’s largest seed company. But since Pioneer was sold to DuPont in 1999, then more recently spun off, “It’s not Pioneer anymore.” Beck’s has 1,100 employees. Pioneer has more than 10 times that. Pioneer and DuPont are now controlled by global institutional investors, including BlackRock and Vanguard. “Industry sources” told Indianapolis Business Journal in 2019 that “competitors are keenly interested in acquiring Beck’s.” In his Becknology Days keynote this August, however, fifth-generation businessman Corey Beck listed the company’s 10 core principles. No. 3 is: “We will remain family-owned.” Beck’s is a fifth-generation family farm, and they want to stay that way. Photo courtesy Beck’s Hybrids. In the 1980s, the hangover from New Deal and Jimmy Carter economic mismanagement decimated U.S. farms. Interest rates as high as 20 percent to combat raging inflation plus President Reagan’s 15-month embargo on grain exports to Russia torched farmer diversity. At the same time, farmers’ corporate customers were demanding higher and higher supply from fewer and fewer farms. Because most have farmed for generations, American farmers have long memories of nearly going bankrupt or watching others lose their farms in such circumstances. This and the durability of the corporate consolidated market make them careful about a complete overhaul of their business model, Fruth says. “I’ve had this conversation: ‘I don’t understand why everybody just doesn’t farm regenerative,’ Fruth says. “I’m like, ‘Well, no-till has been around for 30 years. Farmers that could do that have done it, but you’re walking in asking a guy or a gal to change all the equipment that they have, the practice that they know, for their entire annual income.’ And I say, ‘Are you willing to make a change right now in your business where you’re risking your entire paycheck for 52 weeks?’ And they’re like, ‘No.’ I’m like, ‘Now you understand.’ People … haven’t put themselves in that farmer’s place to understand what’s at risk.” Today, the majority of Americans work for a business that employs 250 or more people, and 43 percent work for an employer of 1,000 or more. That’s a 10 percent increase from the 1980s, amid a big expansion in U.S. population. Such centralization increases corporate and government power, such as when President Biden attempted to illegally force large companies to mandate Covid shots. Farmers expect that consolidation trend to continue, Fruth says. It could be reversed if customers exercised more market power. Key to this would be what Means pushed hard: breaking up special interest control of politics. Special interests distort America’s powerful economy away from individual preferences, even those a majority of Americans share. This makes competing with the mass-food model as brutal as fighting the weather, as the high turnover at any farmer’s market testifies. In just the last three years I’ve had to find new raw milk producers three times and a new veggie farmer twice, and my organic meat growers moved two hours away to find more affordable land. My dad, who left the family farm in the 2000s to grow organic chickens, had to close that business after nearly a decade due to lack of employees, and as is true for many farmers it never provided most of our family income. As the famed adage attributed to early 1970s Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz has it, American farmers have been forced to go big or “get out.” Despite these deep structural problems, however, the Make America Healthy Again era is still improving American farms and their corporate customers while politicians characteristically remain unwilling or unable to help us. Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist and the writer and host of The Federalist's lawfare podcast series, "Overruled." Her latest book with Regnery is "False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America." A happy wife and the mother of six children, her ebooks include the NEW "300 Classic Books for Ages 9 to Adult," and the bestselling "Classic Books For Young Children." An 20-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media including Tucker Carlson, CNN, Fox News, OANN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Joy is also the cofounder of a high-performing Christian classical school and the author and coauthor of classical curricula. Her traditionally published books also include "The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids," from Encounter Books. affordabilityagricultureAIBeck's HybridsBig AgBig BusinessBig FoodBobby KennedyCalley MeanschemicalscookingCorporate Donorscorporate moneyfarmingfoodfuel pricesglyphosatehealthIllegal Immigrationillegal laborinnovationIran WarLobbyistsMAHApesticidesRFK Jr.Robert F. KennedyrobotsSeed oilssoybeansspecial interestsSusie Wilestechnology