How Republicans Plan to Give $75 Billion Dollars for a Big Ag Pesticide Bailout in the new Budget Reconciliation
EMERGENCY: Stop $75 BILLION of taxpayer dollars from funding industrial, chemical-intensive farming! 💸❌💸❌
It’s hard to imagine how Republicans, who have been promoting Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) for the past several months, believe that cutting food aid to millions of poor Americans and then shifting $30 Billion dollars of those federal funds to support 6 chemical intensive commodity crops over the next 10 years is going to make America’s children healthier again, but that’s the typical logic we find in Washington DC.
Sure, there’s been some significant progress in DC and several states about getting food dyes and ultra-processed foods out of school lunches, but if the trade-off is more toxic chemicals like synthetic pesticides such as Roundup from Bayer/ Monsanto and atrazine, a known endocrine disruptor manufactured by Swiss-based, China-owned Syngenta, it’s going to be a shallow victory. Without serious action by our government to removed toxic chemicals like pesticides from modern farming, our children’s health is only going to continue to suffer.
At a time when millions of Americans are calling for a healthier and toxic-free food system, Congress is poised to enact a budget reconciliation package that will:
-
INCREASE subsidies for the chemical-intensive production of GMO commodity crops by $30 billion over the next 10 years.
Already, the Republican-led House just passed a new budget bill that will increase the subsidies for just 6 commodity crops by 64%!
-
If allowed to pass, this will provide a total of $75 billion dollars over the next 10 years to increase the amount of pesticides sprayed across American farmland.
To be honest, this does not sound like it’s a part of the MAHA Agenda and America’s farmers and children should be concerned about Congress’s lack of leadership and bad priorities that would allow this to happen at a time when chronic diseases are rising across the U.S.
Unfortunately, this is an intentional Republican government bailout of an additional $7.5 Billion dollars a year to Big Ag, Bayer/Monsanto, and the pesticide industry when all the latest peer-reviewed science shows that the most widely used farm pesticides in the U.S., like glyphosate, atrazine, paraquat, and dicamba and are directly linked to infertility, cancer, endocrine disruption, auto-immune, and serious human health and environmental issues.
If you find this an outrageous use of taxpayer dollars and another hypocritical example of Congress saying one thing — and doing another — Please sign this letter to let your Senators and members of Congress to tell them to stop Trump’s “Big Beautiful Poison Bill” and to allocate those funds towards healthy food and farming practices that improve soil health and nutrient density with organic and regenerative practices.
A recent analysis of the House Agriculture Reconciliation Bill by ag economists from the University of Illinois and Ohio State University highlights these horrific spending details in a lengthy article, which can be read here. The full details of this outrageous Republican Pesticide Bailout Package can be seen more fully in the chart below.
Total Federal Payouts from House Reconciliation Bill
This Massive $75 Billion Subsidies for Pesticide Crops Intentionally Delays Transition to Regenerative Farming
As you can see from the chart above, the House Reconciliation Bill extends a massive increase in subsidies for 6 of the most pesticide intensive commodity crops by 64% over the next 10 years, providing a total of $75 billion dollars.
This is basically a direct subsidy to Big Ag to the pesticide industry that not only threatens public health and rural America, where most of the pesticides in the U.S. are sprayed, but further entrenches chemical-intensive agriculture at a time when we have solid scientific proof that transitioning away from synthetic pesticides toward organic and regenerative agriculture has massive benefits for human health, soil fertility, and long-term farmer profits.
Rather than double down on a failing “technology” or “tool” such as synthetic pesticides, President Trump and both parties in Congress need to properly allocate these taxpayer dollars to help farmers get off the pesticide treadmill.
Public taxpayer funding should directly help America’s farmers transition to a healthier, more regenerative food system that can help tackle America’s chronic disease epidemic. In short, this excessive spending on commodity crops is totally out of line with the mandate MAHA has given to this Congress to make America Healthy Again.
WHAT WE CAN DO:
The House budget reconciliation bill is now with the Senate. Leaders on the Senate Ag Committee will be meeting in the next 3 days to discuss the bill and make decisions. That means we have a very short window of opportunity to stop the Senate from locking us into another decade of toxic, industrial food production! Call key Senate leaders NOW and tell them that you think taxpayer money should go towards creating a healthy, regenerative food system – not towards these terrible subsidies! You can also email, but calling is slightly more effective.
· Senator John Boozman, Chair of the Senate Ag Committee
· Phone: (202) 224-4843
· Email for his Legislative Director: daniel_burgess@boozman.senate.gov
· Call Senator Roger Marshall, Chair of MAHA Caucus & Senate Ag Committee Member
· Phone: (202) 224-4774
· Email for his Legislative Director: steve_hansen@marshall.senate.gov
· Call Senator John Thune, Senate Majority Leader & Senate Ag Committee Member:
· Phone:
· Email for his Legislative Director:
· Call Senator Amy Klobuchar, Ranking Member of the Senate Ag Committee
· Phone: (202) 224-3244
· Email for her Legislative Director: baz_selassie@klobuchar.senate.gov
WHAT TO SAY:
Express your opinion however you think is best. But if you’re having trouble figuring out what to say, here’s a sample script you can follow or use as a starting point:
Hi. My name is [Your Name], I live in [City/Town/State] and I’m [Share More Details About Yourself].
I’m calling about the Budget Reconciliation Bill that recently passed the House.
· I was very upset to see that this bill will increase spending by $30 billion dollars on subsidies for a total of $75 billion dollars for just 6 commodity crops.
· This is a serious misuse of taxpayer funds.
· These 6 commodity crops are almost always grown with harmful pesticides that endanger human health, and these bloated subsidies won’t do anything to change that.
· Taxpayer money should instead go towards helping farmers grow food without so many toxic chemicals and creating a healthy and regenerative food system.
Like millions of Americans, I care deeply about making America healthy again and feel that these subsidies are a step in the wrong direction. I urge you to address this in the Senate version of the budget bill. Thank you.