Latest / REAP/SOW / A conversation with Kelly Ryerson, aka Glyphosate Girl

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A conversation with Kelly Ryerson, aka Glyphosate Girl · REAP/SOW

• Theodore Ross: Welcome to Forked. I'm Theodore Ross, editor-in-chief of the Food and Environment Reporting Network, and I'm joined by my co-host, Helena Bottemiller Evich from Food Fix. We're joined today by Kelly Ryerson, the grassroots political activist and Make America Healthy Again leader, known as Glyphosate Girl. She's got a lot to say about the state of MAHA, and we've got a lot of questions on the Supreme Court, the midterms, and much more. Let's get to it. Helena, how are you? Welcome back to Forked. Helena Bottemiller Evich: I'm doing just fine. How are you? Theodore: I'm good. Kelly, thank you for coming. We're so glad to have you here in the Forked universe. Kelly Ryerson: Thank you for having me. Theodore: I'm just going to make a little announcement before we get started. Kelly, you are here for the last episode of Forked for this cycle. We are taking off August, and we'll be back in early September. More forks, better forks. Who knows? Maybe we'll even have all the forks, so just stay tuned for details. I just wanted to let everybody know about that because we ain't going to be here after this episode comes out for a little while. Anyway, let's jump right into it and start talking about food politics and food policy. Helena, I'm going to let you lead the way. Helena: I'm glad we're not talking about parasites today because my life has personally been taken over by Cyclospora in the US, so [chuckles] let's just be glad that that's not the topic today. Theodore: Big shout out to Taco Bell. Hi, guys. I hope you're doing better. Everything is getting better. Helena: Oh, man. Go over to foodfix.co. I'm taking the paywall down on all the Cyclospora coverage so everyone can read everything there. It's confusing, so go there to catch up on everything and get solid information. Kelly, thank you so much for joining us. We, as you are probably aware, have been talking about the MAHA movement and this alliance and what it has meant for the Trump administration and the agenda that they are trying to move forward. It's always different to talk about what they're trying to do on food versus agriculture versus chemicals. We're just delighted to have you here because I think sometimes we talk a little bit more about the food side, and you have spent a lot of time on the agriculture side, on the pesticide issues. So, we're just delighted to have you here. I wanted to start off just by asking, what is the state of MAHA, do you think? You're a very prominent voice within MAHA. I know it's not a monolithic group or thing or entity. It's a big tent coalition, but what do you think the state of MAHA is right now? We're one and a half years into the Trump administration. MAHA's been credited with helping Trump win the election. What's the state of MAHA? How are you feeling in this moment? Kelly: That's a really good question, because I'm asking every day, "What is the state of MAHA?" Helena: You're like, "Gut check. How am I feeling?" Kelly: Yes, all the time. I think it's really frustrating. We're in a really frustrating point. I think that for a lot of us from the food movement and the pesticide movement that went into this weren't necessarily thinking that this was going to be the be-all and end-all, and now everything was going to be solved, for sure. At least those of us who have been in the movement for a long time understand the politics are always hard. What's been hard, I think, for us to watch is not, of course, what's happening at HHS, but all of just what's happening at the USDA and EPA, working directly in opposition to everything that we hope to achieve over at HHS and with Trump and everything. I think that people are really frustrated and demoralized, certainly on the pesticide front, but they're still showing up. There's still hope left among the people, at least of the grassrooters, that really have been on this road for a really long time, like pre-Kennedy running for independent. The people, the constituents, are still there. If anything, I would say in terms of the Republican constituents that maybe are newer to this subject, that cohort of constituents is continuing to grow. That awakening is so exciting to see because that is making a lot of us sit back and think, "Okay, what's coming up in 2028? Is this going to be a debate topic? How big can we make this where people have to start arguing for that MAHA independent vote?" Theodore: I want to see if we can talk a little bit about that cohort as it grows and how we understand it. I know that you publicly identify yourself as politically independent, but most people, and you can feel free to disagree with this, most people see the MAHA movement, at least in its origins, as a Republican movement. When you talk about a growing cohort, is that still true? Was it ever true? Kelly: The independent group, at least let's say the people that were excited, even if they didn't ultimately vote for Kennedy as independent, let me just say that they were excited about what Kennedy brought to the table. Those people all tend to be independent. There were some people that were newly Republican, but then you also have the Democrats who would always follow a Kennedy. It really has been a mishmash of a lot of political ideology that I've found myself surrounded by. I think that what's been really interesting over the last year and a half is getting to know MAGA and understanding what those constituents are feeling. Now, for me, I have family members that are in rural North Carolina, and I saw firsthand in small towns these wells of contamination, former ag land that's polluting everything, cancer rates through the roof. This is a very red place, and with these farms I visit, it's all red. I'm just watching because they're on the front lines of a lot of this exposure, like, "This is just a matter of time until this really takes off." That's what I've been seeing over the last year and a half as Kennedy has brought this to be a pretty loud topic and finally headlines. You guys have always covered these subjects, but now more media is willing to cover it, which is very exciting. That's a big change. I think that that is waking up a lot of these Republicans that maybe didn't even know about it, especially the rural Republicans, and especially younger Republicans. Theodore: All right. There's traction in red areas, there's traction in the MAGA universe for the kinds of issues that you care about as a political independent, but the Trump administration has not always done the things that you would hope. I think that's fair to say. I'm curious; I just want to get your sense of what were you feeling, and I am looking for an emotional answer as opposed to necessarily a policy answer, when the Trump administration sided with Bayer in Monsanto v. Dewayne? For those of you out there, that's the glyphosate case that made it to the Supreme Court, which eventually ruled in favor of Bayer. What was your feeling? Kelly: Oh, it's so deeply, deeply devastating. Just going back even to before it even hit the Supreme Court, just the recommendation the Supreme Court takes it up, that was something that was really shocking. I knew at the time that Kennedy had to recuse himself because he had been a lawyer on the case, so that was going to be a problem. There were plenty of others around that were trying to persuade, because I don't know who would think that this is possibly a rational thing to do, to take away our rights to sue pesticide manufacturers. One thing that is very interesting that I would love to know more about, I've been trying to find out more about, is that some farmers that are advisors to my group, American Regeneration, went in recently for an executive order for regenerative agriculture to the Oval Office for this incredible signing of an executive order. It was the same day that the Supreme Court decision came out. There were a lot of emotions going into it, and our farmers went in; they said, "This is a terrible day. This is really disappointing." It looked like Trump didn't even know what they were talking about. He asked Bobby Kennedy, he said, "Is that true?" He asked the others, "Is that true? We need to look into that." It makes me wonder, not that Trump is sitting around thinking about ag and pesticides very often, I'm sure, but how much does he even know is going on? Is this just the industry grip around him and people that he's appointed just keeping him isolated from what is actually happening, or not? I don't know. The emotional take for all of us was just deep disappointment. Theodore: I just want to follow up a little bit on that. I'm sorry, Helena. Helena: Go ahead. Theodore: Yes, Kennedy had to recuse himself because of his role as a lawyer, but there are people who said he should have been speaking out about this particular case. We've talked about this on the podcast, that he really couldn't because he was in the administration. I'm not totally convinced by that argument. I'm curious what you think about it. I know he's the leader of the movement, I know he's put in a difficult position, but how do you interpret him not speaking out on that? Explain that to me. Kelly: I got going as Glyphosate Girl by blogging the Roundup trials, and so I was there with Kennedy when he was a lawyer there. I actually do believe that to be the case, even though I wish it wasn't, but I know that when he was going through his hearings to get into HHS that that was a sticking point. I do think that he had to be pretty careful about it. Now, could he have whispered to someone else, "Go and fight this," or maybe that did happen? I don't know. With all of the wins with HHS, it's just hard to even reconcile this. I'm not even sure whether then overall, you could even say that MAHA was a success given this huge blow, at least on the pesticide front. Theodore: That's an interesting statement. Helena, I know you've got a question. Why don't you ask your question, then we can follow up on whether MAHA's a success. Helena: I just wanted to tease out that point, Kelly, you mentioned about the extent to which President Trump himself understands the political fallout of the Supreme Court case, and the administration's decision to side with Bayer so fully. I just think that's such an interesting point. I think one of the things that I brought up on this podcast before is it looks to me like, and not just Bayer, but also ag groups and other allies on this issue, have really been playing the inside game much more so than the PR game. It almost seems like they've ceded the public. You just don't see a ton of aggressive pushback on all of this criticism of them in the media, but they're really focused on inside Washington, Capitol Hill, the administration, EPA. It just seems like there's this big disconnect between the political dynamics and the way these companies are able to still secure wins within the machinery in Washington. There's a huge gap between that. What do you think about that? I personally remember, 10 years ago, Bayer and then Monsanto would have pushed back really, really hard in the public over some of these debates. Just seems like the dynamic has changed a bit. Kelly: That's so interesting. In fact, I have noticed that. They did roll out Luke Bryan recently, because he's their perpetual banner guy, American man to protect pesticides, basically, and chemical ag. Outside of that, it's interesting, you're right, they're not bothering with public perception. Zippy Duvall, who's head of the Farm Bureau, I actually think is the biggest problem that we have. That's, I think, our biggest obstacle. His relationship with President Trump is clearly one of long-time friendship. Theodore: Unpack that a little bit for people who are not as inside on this. Why is he the biggest problem? Kelly: He's head of the Farm Bureau, and the Farm Bureau is a large organization that represents a lot of farmers, mostly chemical farmers that are in this conventional system. If not entirely, well, pretty close to all. What is so frustrating is that the voice of the farmer that continues to be raised most in DC is this conventional farmer that's growing corn and soybeans using all the chemicals. That is the only farmer that's being presented until our farmers came, which was exciting and a real anomaly. There was a lot of fear, clearly, on the part of Zippy Duvall and industry that this executive order was going to be signed. He wasn't supposed to be there in the Oval Office. Why was he even there? It was to make sure that Trump didn't sign the executive order, and ended up being a huge fight. Helena: Talk briefly about what the executive order does for those who haven't been following. Kelly: The executive order is something actually my advisors worked on a lot. There was a simultaneous paper that was released. It's a big deal, because it's the first time that the government, at least out of HHS, is identifying a different path forward for agriculture that is regenerative and soil-first, and really thinking about the nutrient density of the food, given the different practices that happen in the soil. All of this science is relatively new in terms of being mainstream, at just a few years old, that's really hit the mainstream. The science was done, the papers were written, and then this executive order transpired. In this executive order, which anyone can read, he was saying we should be looking for alternatives to toxic pesticides and be supporting farmers to get off the chemical treadmill. That will benefit the food because they'll be more nutrient dense, less toxic. It didn't actually give money to anything. It was more of just a social-political indicator that this is also a way forward. Our farmers were presenting, and I think the first thing he asked is, "What's regenerative agriculture?" Our farmers told him. Theodore: The president asked that? Kelly: Yes, the president asked. What's regenerative agriculture? We had amazing Will Harris, Jonathan Lundgren, Brandon Bock all there, and then Calley Means and Kennedy. They were telling him about it. Then after presenting what regenerative agriculture is, Zippy Duvall said, "Don't sign it," pressuring Trump right after they presented this. Helena: Brooke Rollins was also there, right? The ag secretary was there. Kelly: Yes, Brooke Rollins was also there. Helena: She was for signing it. Kelly: She was. She was pretty quiet, but then she did. They had this argument. Then Trump read the executive order aloud, which he usually doesn't do. He said, "This sounds good." He said, "Sorry, Zippy. No. I'm going to sign this. It sounds good." If Zippy Duvall, who's head of the Farm Bureau, is the only voice that is repeatedly being brought to President Trump and seems to also somewhat run the USDA, it's just really hard to break through. It's so hard for just our little groups of regenerative farmers to break through that massive, massive. It feels like an enormous wall. That was a moment that even if it didn't move the needle that much, I think just indicating it was. This is very interesting. They refused to release the picture of the president with our regenerative farmers, that kind that they always do around an executive order. Helena: Oh, weird. Kelly: It somehow didn't make it. God forbid, it looked like Trump was talking to Will Harris. For those who don't know who he is, he's an incredible rancher with the best accent around. Theodore: Did you at least get pens? I hope you got presidential pens out of it, out of signing. Helena: Did anyone get a pen? Kelly: Actually, I think the question [crosstalk] Helena: I don't think they do that. That's more of a bill signing thing, I think, maybe. Theodore: I guess so. That's right. Not executive orders, [unintelligible] Helena: Also, they're not pens. They're Sharpies. Kelly: Are they Sharpies? Theodore: Really? Is that right? Helena: He signs everything in Sharpies, yes. A big, fat Sharpie, Theodore: With the presidential seal on it? That would be great. Kelly: That'd be good. Helena: Yes, they do have presidential seals on them. Kelly: When I went to the Oval Office, he gave me one of his challenge coins, President Trump did. This is the biggest challenge coin. Usually, they're that big. This is a huge-ass one that's all gold, because he felt like that would be more appropriate. Helena: That tracks. Theodore: That's not shocking. That does not shock me. Kelly: Oh, my gosh, fancy. Helena: I think that reading about that Oval Office meeting has been fascinating. It is interesting that so much of the push came from HHS. You know, Kelly, as well as anyone, HHS is usually not involved in ag policy at all. Kelly: I know. Helena: In fact, I've covered food policy for more than 15 years. I think I'd only been inside HHS one time before the Trump administration. They just did not do anything on food. At the end of Biden, they started doing more food as medicine, and that was interesting. I've been to HHS countless times. It's just a very different dynamic. Kelly: It's so wild. Thank goodness that they feel like they have the capacity to bring it forward, because it wasn't happening at the USDA, that's for sure. Another thing, with Lee Zeldin, for example, who I met with when I was really mad last December, when they were [unintelligible] Helena: The EPA administrator, for those who are not insiders. Kelly: The EPA administrator. Theodore: Not a fan of the MAHA movement in general, I think it's fair to say. That he's not a loving [unintelligible] Helena: I think he pretends to be a fan. Theodore: No, no, not him. The other way around, that the MAHA movement is not [inaudible] Helena: Oh. Kelly: No. Helena: Didn't you sign that calling for his resignation? Kelly: I asked for [inaudible] Helena: That certainly got people's attention. Kelly: It was so funny because it wasn't even a very successful petition in terms of the numbers signed because we didn't really circulate it that far, but wow, it made a splash. A few of us met with Lee Zeldin. The interesting thing is that that first meeting with Lee Zeldin, he was so new to the job. He is not someone that comes from anything EPA-wise. One of the first things he said is, "Are you going to say we need to ban all pesticides, because organic also uses pesticides?" I was like, "That's where we are." Helena: Oh, boy. Kelly: That means that industry has already told you, "Oh, these activists, they want to ban everything. Did you know organic pesticides are also bad?" I just could hear it. Helena: Jeez. Kelly: Oh, gosh, that was so frustrating. I actually don't get the sense that he personally is so corrupt. I think he does what he's told, and I think that comes from the White House that's just owned by industry. Helana: If you do what you're told, that's a form of intellectual dishonesty at best. Kelly: I could never do that. I don't know how you do that, where you know a harmful substance you're releasing for mass use. What goes through your head? Helana: Do you think he really thinks some of the pesticides they've approved are harmful, like the PFAS acting ones? Kelly: He hasn't told me that, but I definitely think that he would think so because his congressional record was voting to regulate PFAS. Helena: Yes, he did do a lot on PFAS. I don't know. I historically have not covered EPA that much because when I was at Politico for a long, long time, we always had a pesticide reporter, which was awesome. As Kelly knows, these fights get so, so intense and so political and so in the weeds, no pun intended, over so many different products. Now, for EPA to be this huge political issue, I think all the media is just not as used to covering EPA, frankly, particularly pesticide issues. I think EPA gets more coverage for emission stuff and broader climate change issues. Before we move on to the EPA, I wanted to ask you about, obviously, you've written a lot about glyphosate, and you're one of the big critics of glyphosate. We should also note, just for listeners, that EPA has determined repeatedly that glyphosate is not likely to be a carcinogen. Not everyone agrees with that conclusion, but that is EPA's conclusion, and that is what they have maintained. That's part of the big debate here. EPA has maintained, I think, consistency on its position on glyphosate and its safety. I know one of the things you have pushed for, and others in the MAHA movement have pushed for, is not banning glyphosate but maybe putting some restrictions on how it can be used in certain applications, like at the end of the season, right before harvest. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is there any sign that the administration might do some of those things? Because that does seem to me a little bit more of a middle ground. No one is asking to ban glyphosate. It would collapse the system we currently have. Some people think that'd be a good thing, but it is a leg of the stool right now. Kelly: It is. Helena: What is it that you specifically want EPA to do, and do you think there's any chance they will do anything on that? Maybe explain for people who don't know. Kelly: The largest way that we are impacted by glyphosate in terms of dietary exposure is through a process called pre-harvest desiccation. That is where a farmer will take glyphosate a few weeks before harvest and spray the entire field in order to kill it and make an easier harvest. Just one pass, they harvest it. They send it to the mill. Unfortunately, glyphosate is systemic, and so all that spray that just happened stays on the wheat or the legume or whatever was sprayed. It's usually grains and beans. Then it goes to the mill, and it ends up directly in our food supply. Then you have these really high levels of glyphosate that don't need to be there. That's a practice that's only been around for about 20, maybe 25 years now, so this is a relatively new practice that farmers started using. It's called pre-harvest desiccation. It's the easiest, most low-hanging fruit to halt the use of glyphosate for pre-harvest desiccation. They also use paraquat to do it as well, which is a chemical that's actually sold to us by the government of China, but they banned it because it causes Parkinson's. We readily spray it on our beans and legumes. Helena: It's generally recognized as being much more toxic than glyphosate. Kelly: Yes, much more. When brands and farmers think that a mill or a company is going to test for glyphosate residue, sometimes they'll switch over to paraquat, which isn't what you want. Theodore: What do you think is the likelihood of a regulation being placed on that use of glyphosate? Kelly: That is something that is our number one ask from MAHA and with a lot of the MAHA influencers. We want to halt pre-harvest desiccation with synthetic herbicides. Just stop it and start utilizing some of the things that all these other farmers do, including just letting it air dry or mechanical drying. The EPA did come out, and I think they put $30 million behind a challenge to figure out how we do that. Then similar from HHS, wanting to partner on it. Everyone's aware that it's there. I was talking with the EPA for a while, and they were talking with the USDA and like, "Oh, it looks like it would be really hard to stop this." The truth is, it's not hard. That's what's so frustrating. Now, they have the millions of dollars going into an investigation of what we would do when, really, we have the farmers; you can just ask them what they do. Like Vani Hari has said, if we got through this administration and there was still dye in Doritos, that would be incredibly frustrating. I personally, for me, it's this pre-harvest desiccation situation if we get all the way through. Theodore: Let's follow up on that a little bit. Pre-harvest desiccation, that's a very specific use of glyphosate. Maybe that can be done in an anti-regulatory administration like the Trump administration. Maybe it can't. I think one thing that you can somewhat simply say is an achievement of the MAHA movement is that there's a fair cross-section of the American public. Not everyone, but more people than when we started out who know the term "glyphosate" and have a negative association. Kelly: Oh, my gosh, that is for sure. Theodore: I think that's no small credit to you. You are Glyphosate Girl. Do you want to take credit for that? How do you stack that up against achieving a regulation like pre-harvest desiccation? Which is more important in actually making change, that change in awareness or the change in the regulation? Kelly: I think that the best thing in many ways that President Trump could have done for glyphosate awareness was having executive order supporting more glyphosate, because that really set a lot of people out there, "What is that?" All of this crying out into the darkness that I've been doing for a lot of years, suddenly, people know what it is. Now, sometimes people say "glyphosates" as the plural, but I'm like, I'll take it. [unintelligible] Helena: Glyphosphate. Kelly: Glyphosphate, there are all kinds of versions that have come forward. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, you guys are asking what this is." This is a movement. Theodore: Instead of just saying Roundup. They know what Roundup is. Roundup is the stuff that takes out the weeds in their driveway in their backyard. Glyphosate, they think, is bad. Helena: They took glyphosate out of a lot of those products, I think. Kelly: Yes, now they put Diquat. They would recognize that name brand. They wouldn't know what glyphosate is. Theodore: Now, maybe they do. Kelly: It's incredible the amount. [00:26:07] Helena: Just one little follow-up anecdote on that. I was at a meeting maybe a year ago with some pulse growers. These are the chickpea farmers. This is one of the crops that can use both herbicides to help dry out the chickpeas before harvest. I think it's really regional because I had certain growers come up to me from certain states like Montana. I think it's drier, tends to be drier, around harvest time. They were like, "We don't need it. We can do it without you." In case you were going to ask me about this. Yet you have other places where maybe they're experiencing more rain during the wrong time, and they feel like they really need it. There's a lot of variation, I learned. [00:27:01] Theodore: The ones who don't need it, are they using it anyway? [00:27:04] Helena: No. [00:27:05] Theodore: They're not using it. Because sometimes it's a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of thing, these kinds of practice. [00:27:08] Helena: No. I think they may use it in certain applications for weed control, maybe in different parts of their operation. I'm not saying they don't use glyphosate, but they're not using it for desiccation. They're drying it. They're not using it at the end. Your point about the residues in food is an interesting one because I think EPA has maintained that none of the residues we found in food are at harmful levels. They have, I think, said that. FDA, whatever agency has done testing on this stuff as well, has said that. It seems to me that it's one of those places where reasonable people agree that lower residues is better. It is an herbicide. The idea that I think it's been found in chickpea pasta, or it was found in some oat products because they were using it as desiccation in oats. It does seem to be where there is some middle ground about maybe there can be a more cautious approach to the way we do that that doesn't require banning a key tool for farmers. It's changing how they can use it. It's interesting. I don't know. Theodore: Is that in the sense of regulation versus awareness? Helena: Kelly, how would you do it? Would you have to change the label to say, "This is not an acceptable use"? I don't actually know how they would do it. Kelly: The EPA would take away acceptable tolerances, so it would decrease what that level is, which has inched its way up over the years, just quietly. They've inched up the allowable amount that's allowed to be found in oats and wheat. Helena: I do think the industry is doing a fair amount around this. These cereal companies, these pasta companies, they don't want to get their products found to have these residues, and they can tell their growers, "We're not going to accept this," or, "We're going to accept it at a very, very low level." There is market stuff that is already happening that does move the needle on this. It just strikes me as one of those areas where maybe it's not this administration, it might be a future administration. Kelly: It may be. Helena: It seems like there is more nuance around that debate versus I hear more fierce defense of glyphosate as just a weed management tool for all of our corn and soy, basically. Theodore: Let's switch gears a little bit. I want to go off of something that Helena just said, which is the future. The future of the MAHA movement. Maybe it's in a different administration. Maybe it's in the same administration. Where do you see that future? Is it going to be called MAHA? Is it going to be split up among the parties? Will it maybe dissolve? What do you think of the future of the MAHA movement? Kelly: I definitely think that it is here. Whether it's called MAHA or not, whether we can grab back some of the more left-leaning people of this movement, despite going with Trump, I think that that's what's important. How unified can we make it going forward? Probably, it can't be called MAHA. That would be my guess because that is going to perpetually be tied with MAGA, but I don't think it's going anywhere. What I'm really thinking about is, as I said earlier, how can you make this so bipartisan where it can be forced to the top, where whichever administration takes hold next can do something about it. For me, I don't really care. Just someone needs to make this their thing and go with it. I think it's interesting. I've had a lot of calls with different strategy groups in the Democratic Party, and they're wanting to understand MAHA and understand this. What I've said is many times, and I felt this way even long before MAHA, that there's been so much push on climate change and planetary health, but you could only care so much about that if your child has Crohn's disease or you have an autoimmune condition or whatever it is, and you think that it's coming from your food and your environment. Theodore: What don't they understand, by the way, those Democratic strategies you're talking about? What is the thing you're telling them? They should know already. They're in politics. They should already know. Helena: They got to read my newsletter. They got to read FERN. Why aren't they reading? Read the news, guys. Kelly: They should be. Theodore: I'm serious. What is it that they don't understand? Kelly: Good question because it's confusing to me why they're confused, and they're like, what is this whole. Where's your mind? It's everything that we say exactly. Read this newsletter. It's that we're tired of having toxic, unhealthy food, and we want to change our food supply and farming. That's really the bottom line in food security pipeline. Theodore: What is it that they think it's a pure Republican movement, or maybe they're like those vaccines, we're not down with that at all. Kelly: Oh, the vaccines always come up, and I think that a lot of times they wonder, can it be severed? Can food be severed from vaccines? To me, of course it can't be. Everyone can't agree on everything. There's some people that would feel that way about both, other people not, and those people are within MAHA too. Helena: I would argue the food movement has always had some of this ideological swirl and there's always different parts of it. The raw milk folks might be right and left, but they maybe had always considered themselves part of the so-called food movement even though the food movement generally, during Obama, was not pro raw milk. There's issues like that where they're not going to reach the center. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. I think it's got to morph in some way. I'm watching really closely. I do see Democrats circling and trying to figure this out, but I think other than Cory Booker and a little bit McGovern, I've seen Congressman Jim McGovern from Massachusetts talking more about these issues. Kelly: Chellie Pingree. Helena: Yes, she's always. She's OG, right? Chellie Pingree, she's been talking about this for decades. Kelly: She has. This is her thing. Helena: She was way ahead of the curve. She was MAHA before MAHA. It does feel like an issue that Democrats uniquely struggle on. I don't know how much of it is the vaccine issue. Is it that they don't have as many leaders that are just personally interested, because you do need that? Kennedy is clearly personally interested in these things. Whether you think he's right or wrong about certain issues, he does go to bed thinking about these issues. Trump doesn't. Kennedy does. Theodore: It's also possibly the Democrats are the party of the cities. They're basically in all the cities. Helena: Oh, that's definitely a role. Theodore: This is less of a city issue, and they got to get over that if they want to. Helena: Although, the polling, I would guess, falls similarly down urban, suburban, and rural lines. I would guess because it's falling, it's looking pretty similar across Republican, Democrat, and Independent now, and that feels new to me. I think that's the thing to watch. Theodore: We talked a little bit about the distant future new administrations. I am interested in a little bit of near-term future. At FERN, we're doing a lot of reporting on the midterms and the role of MAHA in the midterms. You tell me, Kelly, what is the role of MAHA in the midterms? Kelly: MAHA is such an important vote that the Republicans need to try and claim, and not so much that the independent voters aren't going to be running to vote for Democrats, but they're not going to vote. That's what happened in the last election. Lots of people that wouldn't have voted otherwise, suddenly this issue spoke to them, and they showed up. You see people like Ken Paxton in Texas who's writing on a lot of interesting MAHA things, and it was incredibly beneficial to him, and I think it will be. It's a mystery to me how more people that are running aren't grabbing tightly to MAHA. Whether they do it or not, they should be talking the game because clearly it's just popular with constituents who are undecided. We've many times now been telling the administration, do something big, do pre-harvest desiccation, do something like that that's really meaningful before, because all these horrible things are coming out of the EPA. You have to counter it with something. I think that our hope of at least the pre-harvest desiccation piece, if it doesn't happen by November, it's not going to happen. Helena: Interesting. We'll see. Theodore: We shall see. I know you have only a little bit of time left with us. We didn't do all of our normal formats. We normally do something called the double take, and then we do forks and knives. Skip that, but I want to stick with our last segment of the show. It's called the Good Vibes. It's in this discussion of pre-harvest desiccation, can we find one element of hope in the food politics and policy world that we all care about? I'm happy to go, but Kelly, I know you have something you want to talk about. Why don't you tell us? Kelly: I am beside myself with excitement about the candidate Zach Lahn, who is running for governor in Iowa. He's GOP. He is entirely on board with regenerative farming, has gone on multiple podcasts talking about the corrupt system, getting farmers off of the chemical treadmill, that Iowa is sick of the high cancer rates, and he has massive traction. Now, if someone in Iowa who is a Republican can get that far and get that message right there in Heartland, I think that that's the beginning of the end for the chemical ag entire complex because that just shows where the constituents are feeling. Theodore: All the statewide races, I think in Iowa are really, really interesting, and they're going back and forth on MAHA in all kinds of different ways, both parties. Helena: They're trying to out MAHA each other. Kelly: That's the best situation. Theodore: I think that is an interesting situation. Helena, do you have one? Helena: I do have one. Theodore: Go for it. Helena: I'm going to find a silver lining in the massive, unprecedented Cyclospora outbreak we are having. As of this taping, we are closing in on probably 10,000 cases nationwide, which is a disaster that makes this the largest foodborne illness outbreak in more than 30 years. Yes, I know all those cases are not tied together, but it's really, really bad. I think the silver lining, the good vibe in this, is that hopefully we are going to start taking Cyclospora seriously as a food safety concern because we now have Cyclospora season in the US, and it is May through August. I, for one, do not want to live in a country that has parasite season every summer. I think we should be able to eat fresh produce without worrying about parasites. That's my controversial hot take there. I am hoping that we get more agricultural research and focus on that parasite that nobody wants. That's my good vibe. Theodore: Pretty good. Helena: I'm turning a bad vibe into a good vibe. Theodore: I dig it. That one's a very meta good vibe because it's a little bit of a bad vibe, but that's a good vibe. Helena: That's a bad vibe. We're going to hope for the best. Theodore: I like it. You have to do a little mental gymnastics to make it work. I dig it. Mine is a little simpler. It's a shout-out to a friend of FERN, someone who I like a lot. I know you like her too, Helena, Marion Nestle. I read this on her blog today, Food Politics. It's just a website. It's called How Does Food Get Traded Around the World? You can play around with it and see how various food products of all sorts go from one country to another. I was interested to find out that we send a lot of ice cream to Saudi Arabia. Was less surprised, although I guess I knew that we get a lot of kiwis from New Zealand. That makes sense. That, for me, was the good vibe. Was just monkeying around on this website today. Not quite as meaningful as both of yours, but I think it was still a good vibe. Helena: That's cool. Kelly: Ice cream to Saudi Arabia. Theodore: That's what it said. I got to go. I'm going to get fact-checked on [unintelligible] blog. Helena: I'm guessing they don't have a lot of dairy in Saudi Arabia. Theodore: There's lots of little lines. It looked like we were sending many tons of ice cream to Saudi Arabia. Maybe they like our flavors. In that note, I think I'm going to wrap it up today. Before we go, I'm going to say thank you to you, Kelly. This was a great conversation. I really appreciate having you here. Helena, why don't you tell everyone out there in Forkland about that newsletter of yours? I hear it's pretty good. Helena: Yes. Get on the newsletter list, foodfix.co. Just go to the URL and put your email in. You can get it for free every Friday. Right now, it's all about Cyclospora. I'm sorry. Kelly: I wanted to second that. Helena: Good information. Kelly: I depend on that newsletter that you write. There's nothing like that newsletter. Thank goodness you're doing it. Anyone who cares about these issues needs to be following that newsletter. Theodore: I'm thirding it. Helena: Thank you. Appreciate that. Theodore: She's my co-host. I can third it as well. Thank you to you both. Helena: Endorsed all around. Theodore: There we go. So happy to have you both here. So glad that we made it to the end of the cycle. We're going to take our little August break, and then we'll be back in September. Thank you again. Helena: Thank you. Theodore: Forked is a production of the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Our executive producers are me, Theodore Ross, and Tom Laskawy. Our sound engineer is John DeLore. Our producer and video producer is Amanda Vicari. Our hosts are Helena Bottemiller Evich and me, Theodore Ross. To find out more about FERN and donate to support our independent nonprofit reporting, go to www.thefern.org. [END OF AUDIO]