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Glyphosate debate fuels push for regenerative farming · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:09
  Welcome everyone to the Maha Lowdown.
• 0:12
  This is Jeff Lauder back.
• 0:14
  And I'm here.
• 0:16
  We now have about this is about the fourth show underway.
• 0:20
  And what I love about covering the Make America Healthy Again movement is there's always a lot going on.
• 0:28
  There's a lot of uh detailed features to write.
• 0:32
  I was just down in South Georgia writing about Will Harris and White Oak Pastures who come from all over, mostly farmers, uh conventional farmers who are interested in transitioning to regenerative farming, or current regenerative farmers who want to learn because uh Will Harris is one of the pioneers uh along with uh I know Joel uh Salatin and uh Dr.
• 0:56
  Alan Williams in Mississippi, uh farmers who are teaching people to move from conventional to regenerative uh farming, and and one part of that is moving away from chemicals, moving away from chemical pesticides and herbicides, and my guest today is a uh very proficient on that, and that's her one of her passions.
• 1:21
  So I'd like to welcome uh Kelly Ryerson, who is known as the glyphosate girl, and she's also the co-founder of America American Regeneration, and welcome to the show, Kelly.
• 1:32
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:34
  I'm happy to be here.
• 1:35
  So I know uh and and I'm gonna post on the uh Maha Lowdown site on the America Out Loud Network.
• 1:45
  And by the way, you're listening to the America Out Loud Network and the Maha Lowdown is uh part of that network.
• 1:53
  We're proud to be part of that.
• 1:54
  And on the Maha Lowdown show uh or site, I'm gonna be posting an article uh about you.
• 2:02
  And I know uh you have quite the story of how what I find fascinating about people within the Maha movement is how they got involved in their passion, whether it be I know it's wide ranging, it ranges from food, it ranges to autism awareness.
• 2:20
  It uh it's just pretty fascinating.
• 2:23
  And you you have one of those stories where you just uh it kind of happened into it or over a period of time, and then you just had like uh uh a pivotal moment, I know.
• 2:35
  And so before we talk about the current happenings like the farm bill, state liability shields and all things glyphosate.
• 2:42
  Maybe you could tell me a little bit about your uh how you got involved in this.
• 2:47
  Sure, yeah, it is funny.
• 2:49
  And that's what I love so much about the Maha movement is that so many people have stories that you know, they're disparate stories, but all oftentimes spurred by um a situation that really, you know, a a de a desperate kind of situation in public health um and in personal health.
• 3:08
  And in my case, I had uh now a little over 10 years ago, I had uh enormous health crisis that I ended up seeing tons of specialists for, and no one really had an answer for me, but I was having all kinds of symptoms like neuropathy, uh rashes, eyesight loss, um I was losing hair, I had digestive problems, I was absolutely exhausted, and it just wasn't adding up, and I re just basically lived in my GP's uh office, and you know, she was Stanford Harvard trained, and I had every reason to believe that the answers were sitting in that office, and and we just would need to get to the bottom of them, and just the routine blood work never showed anything wrong with me.
• 3:54
  And so I was just dismissed as well, can't really be anything that serious.
• 3:59
  And um, and this was my entree into functional medicine because it was not root cause, it was just um you know, very uh superficial what the doctors were doing.
• 4:09
  And so I ended up going in in self-advocating, look going to 18 different doctors who many of them at this in the Stanford healthcare system.
• 4:17
  And I ended up layered on many medications, including um two antidepressants, a benzodiazepine, gabapentin, and a steroid, uh just to try to help.
• 4:29
  And all of them made me significantly worse.
• 4:33
  And so I finally that the reason why they're putting me in all these these psych meds is because I've had to be crazy, right?
• 4:41
  To have all of these symptoms and and the preliminary blood work is showing nothing's wrong with me.
• 4:46
  And I was desperate and I had two tiny kids, and so I'm I'm taking these medications.
• 4:52
  So finally I really um thought, well, maybe I am imagining this since it an endocrinologist even told me he thought that my problem was that I was a new mom and I should just get back out into the workforce, and that was really my issue.
• 5:04
  I mean, I guess that would explain my neuropathy.
• 5:07
  Um, and so and so I um I finally went to see a psychiatrist.
• 5:12
  The psychiatrist did preliminary blood work on me, and he happened to have a vitamin panel on it, and my vitamins came back absolutely entirely depleted.
• 5:22
  I had scurvy, I had no B12, I had no D.
• 5:25
  I mean, I was just uh what you would not expect in a Western country.
• 5:31
  And I went back to my GP and I said, I think that this has something to do with my problems.
• 5:36
  And she said, Oh no, vitamins don't matter.
• 5:38
  That's really overstated that vitamins matter.
• 5:40
  And at that point, I thought, okay, you know, I I am not a I didn't get a PhD in biology, but I know that basic nutrients matter.
• 5:50
  And I left that doctor, ended up going um to see a new doctor.
• 5:55
  That doctor said, I think you should try going gluten-free while you're rebuilding yourself with all the vitamins.
• 6:01
  I did that, I started feeling better, much better, and ended up going to a conference in um at Columbia University where they were talking about celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which is what I have.
• 6:16
  And they were trying to get to the bottom of why we all why this gluten sensitivity epidemic is is happening.
• 6:24
  And I for the first time in my life thought about the farm and went to the microphone and said, well, I wonder if something's happening on the field that might be contributing to it.
• 6:33
  And no one knew because it's this is like classic operating in silos where scientists aren't talking to the farmers.
• 6:40
  And I um and so I asked no one knew, and then someone from General Mills came up to me after the panel presentation and said, Well, roundup uh with the the active and radius glyphosate um roundup is sprayed on our grain before harvest.
• 6:55
  And I said, Well, I mean, that really doesn't sound good.
• 6:59
  It isn't good because it ended up that it's in a lot of our food, and I went down that rabbit hole and met with tons of scientists, and next thing you know, the glyphosate cancer litigation was beginning in San Francisco, so I decided I would go to the courtroom, and actually I didn't intend on going into the courtroom.
• 7:20
  I actually went to protest Monsanto who manufactured Roundup and um, but no one was there, and I ended up being able to walk right into the courtroom, sat down next to it.
• 7:33
  I mean, this has been going on for a while now.
• 7:35
  It has, and who knew we'd still be talking about it.
• 7:38
  This was in 2018, was the first glyphosate cancer trial in San Francisco.
• 7:42
  And um, and I was able to sit in the courtroom and blog every every minute of it for the first three cancer trials, and that is how I got to know Bobby Kennedy because he was the litigator uh in those trials.
• 7:55
  And um, and so that was that was my beginning into this whole pesticide in Maha world.
• 8:02
  And that is uh how you you came up with the blog, the glyphosate girl at that time.
• 8:08
  Yes, and the reason why I called it glyphosate girl, and I didn't even have my name on it because I had heard from so many scientists by that point at how um frankly scary Monsanto could be with any of the critics of of glyphosate or GMOs.
• 8:23
  And so I was anonymous for a time, but very quickly then thereafter was not anonymous anymore because they knew who I was pretty fast with their lawyers all sitting there.
• 8:32
  So that was 2018, and that was the case of um the uh the man's name is escaping me.
• 8:39
  Uh oh, yeah, Lee Johnson.
• 8:41
  Yeah, and he was the first person to uh I'm pretty sure he's the first person to win a judgment against Monsanto, and now it's mushroom to uh millions and uh hundreds of millions of dollars of uh uh judgments again against uh Monsanto.
• 9:01
  Yeah, and who would have known that this would just kick it off to such an extent.
• 9:05
  At the time there weren't weren't nearly as many cases, and um, I can tell you sitting in the courtroom that there is a reason why Bear stands to bankrupt itself with this litigation because the evidence is so damning that this causes cancer that anyone who would sit there that's why the jury's all all of them seem to go for the plaintiff because it is just so egregious this doesn't have a cancer label on it, this chemical.
• 9:33
  So obviously with uh RFK Jr., he runs uh for president and and that his message really the core, because you know, I traveled to 28 states covering RFK Jr.'s presidential campaign from start to finish, and uh pretty much everywhere he would talk about corporate capture of government agencies, especially government health agencies.
• 10:00
  And he would talk about the chronic disease epidemic and the role that uh diets play and the and chemicals and dyes and then um obviously he would talk about uh autism and he would talk he'd talk about a wide variety of subjects, but it it's interesting that that was the time that seemed to really come to the forefront the topic about well, many of those topics, but glyphosate, it's like uh no one really knew what it was.
• 10:31
  I I think people would heard in the news about um Monsanto, and you know, you'd see in the news that Monsanto loses this case or that case, but and then people who you build a niche with uh with your your blog.
• 10:45
  But as a whole, I don't think until the last year, year and a half it hasn't come to the forefront like this.
• 10:54
  And uh how how has that really impacted you and uh where what you're what you've done over the last year or two and what you're doing now?
• 11:03
  Well, it is so true that glyphosate was very niche.
• 11:07
  Um and if you knew about pesticides, I think though, if you were into this non-toxic living kind of world, you were probably the most likely to be aware of glyphosate outside of just you know, there were some headlines occasionally, I mean, very rarely with the roundup bottle and saying, oh, this might cause cancer.
• 11:25
  Uh, but outside of that, understanding the dietary impacts and just how prevalent this chemical is throughout our body um and our entire environment.
• 11:34
  That is new awareness, uh, just yeah, I it thanks really to I think Kennedy running um and him repeatedly talking about glyphosate, it it really did expand awareness.
• 11:47
  And along with just talking about glyphosate itself, also the whole story with glyphosate that is emblematic of what happens across the board on uh and all of our regulators except for now HHS, but elsewhere where it's completely captured by the industry that it's supposed to be regulating.
• 12:05
  So for those who don't know what corporate capture is, that means that companies, so in this case, Monsanto, which is now owned by Bear, bear would have a heavy hand in manipulating the results that comes out of the agencies because a lot of the people that work there and particularly in leadership positions oftentimes come directly either from a lobbying group associated with chemical companies or directly from a chemical company.
• 12:31
  We have a situation right now at the EPA.
• 12:34
  And I don't think I've ever seen in the years I've been doing it, and even looking at past EPAs.
• 12:40
  I've never seen such a heavy stacking of industry lobbyists that are indirectly from company that are right now at our EPA, and it's really being reflected in the horrible decisions coming out of it, which is an irony now that we have RFK in place.
• 12:55
  And a lot of people right now are complaining about how he said he was going to do something about glyphosate now.
• 13:03
  Look, but unfortunately, he does not have any say in what happens over at the EPA and under his HHS umbrella, there's no room to do any pesticide regulation.
• 13:15
  So that is definitely frustrating.
• 13:18
  But in terms of awareness, yes, glyphosate suddenly has risen to the public consciousness, and I am thrilled to see it because I I never thought I'd see a day where a lot of even mainstream media has not been willing to talk about it because they're in part funded by in their advertiser advertisers are bare in the manufacturer.
• 13:40
  So they've had their hands tied as to what they can say, but recently mainstream media has been taking it on, except for the Wall Street Journal.
• 13:48
  But but other than that, it's really incredible.
• 13:52
  Yeah, and that's uh well well with glyphosate.
• 13:56
  Maybe maybe you can uh uh the next step would be if you can explain in a nutshell or or maybe uh as clear as possible, because I know it can be a complicated topic.
• 14:07
  How glyphosate is used, because I know it's the most widely used um chemical and in American agriculture, but uh what are the two uh well it's I think it's a few main ways it's used.
• 14:19
  Can you explain that?
• 14:21
  Yeah, so there are a few ways that it's used.
• 14:23
  So in you the the type that you would historically buy at Home Depot that is used for landscaping, that was only about 10% of the use of of glyphosate of Roundup.
• 14:36
  And that actually is now when you this is important to note because now when you go to the store shelves and you buy the Roundup product, it actually no longer has glyphosate in it because of the lawsuits.
• 14:48
  Now you might think that that's a good thing, except it's actually not good because they replaced it with chemicals that are 40 times more toxic than the glyphosate version, but they just needed to get glyphosate itself out of the product so that people that are using it at home and developing cancer couldn't blame glyphosate.
• 15:06
  So I mean, that's just a really unethical thing to do now.
• 15:09
  People are are even more poisoned.
• 15:11
  But that's where uh a lot of the exposure was coming from from neighborhoods, but also it is widely, widely used throughout our agriculture system.
• 15:23
  So it was introduced in the mid-1970s.
• 15:26
  It was really popular because it was claimed that it didn't impact human health, and so this was a perfect weed killer to be used on the farms.
• 15:35
  And in the mid-19, so I think in 1996, uh the GMOs were launched, so GMO soy and corn, and they were genetically modified to be resistant to the effects of roundup.
• 15:51
  So they're called Roundup Ready, and this is what we're growing in in mass in this country.
• 15:57
  And so a farmer could plant their seeds, their GMO seeds, they could spray them with as much roundup as they wanted, and the crop wouldn't die.
• 16:05
  So that seemed like a miracle because all the weeds that would compete for the nutrients in the soil would die and the crop would would succeed.
• 16:14
  Now, unfortunately, the weeds have gotten smart now after all these years, and a lot of them are turning into superweeds where they're no longer resistant to roundup, which is kind of amazing.
• 16:23
  But so it's used there.
• 16:25
  And then our most direct impact to our diet in our diet is really from this pre-harvest desiccation that I was mentioning earlier about our grains and legumes being sprayed.
• 16:37
  And that is has only been going on for about 20 years.
• 16:42
  It is a process in which a farmer will do a pass of the chemical, so spray glyphosate on a crop, a grain crop, right before harvest, so that the whole field dries out at the same time, it makes it much easier to harvest.
• 16:55
  So it's sprayed, it's harvested, it goes directly to the mill and it ends up in our bread and our cereal and our hummus.
• 17:02
  So that is really that is just the the health ramifications from that are actually really substantial because what was discovered later is how vital the microbiome is to our overall health.
• 17:19
  And that's relatively new science.
• 17:21
  The BPA doesn't even consider that science, but that claim that it doesn't that glyphosate doesn't impact human health, but because um, and this gets a little more technical, but glyphosate works on a uh enzyme pathway in a plant.
• 17:38
  So it's a it's a pathway that purportedly humans don't have.
• 17:42
  And so that is why the Monsanto could justify it's not going to impact human health.
• 17:48
  But as it turns out, that pathway is in our gut bacteria.
• 17:53
  So when we're eating glyphosate and it ends up in our stomach and it hits our gut microbiome, it is selectively killing our beneficial gut bacteria, but it doesn't kill the the pathogenic bacteria.
• 18:08
  So it's like the worst kind of antibiotic we could possibly have.
• 18:11
  But you bring that evidence about how it's it's injuring us through our microbiome and contributing to leaky gut and all of these things that are at the root of functional medicine, and the EPA will say, well, we don't have any capacity if we don't require testing on the microbiome.
• 18:26
  And it's so it's so uh antiquated the way that they assess chemicals that this is a whole new frontier.
• 18:33
  So though that is really um concerning with the spraying, and I think it's contributing to a lot of things, but it's certainly not just the gut microbiome that glyphosate is impacting.
• 18:44
  And uh, we're gonna go to our first break, and when we come back, we're gonna continue the conversation on how the chemicals uh impact because that's a big uh a big issue, and that's uh an interesting topic.
• 18:58
  You're listening to the Maha Lowdown, and we'll be back in a few moments.
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• 20:52
  Welcome back to the Maha Lowdown.
• 20:54
  I'm Jeff Lauderback, and I'm here with Kelly Ryerson, who is known as the glyphosate girl and also is the co-founder of American Regeneration, which Kelly will get into that, uh, because I know that's of interest to a lot of people, uh, American regeneration.
• 21:10
  But based on what we were talking about before, I think that's interesting how glyphosate uh and not just glyphosate, as you pointed out, that's the main uh chemical that's known now.
• 21:23
  But as you pointed out, there's lots of other chemicals that are impacting in a dangerous way.
• 21:30
  So what can you tell us about that as far as like uh how that's evolving and addressing that and as far as uh the different chemicals and how they impact our health.
• 21:43
  So glyphosate, first of all, glyphosate is the most researched chemical.
• 21:49
  So there's a lot that's connected to glyphosate in the peer-reviewed research.
• 21:54
  So things like liver disease, cancer, kidney disease, significant endocrine disruption from glyphosate, where it's contributed to decre it's it's linked to decreased uh sperm motility and killing sperm and decreased testosterone, this list of hormone disorders that um really shouldn't be there and glyphosate can be a contributor too.
• 22:18
  So that's glyphosate.
• 22:20
  There are tons of pesticides right now that are allowed on our food.
• 22:26
  Uh I think it's close to 70 that are banned in Europe that we happily spray in the United States.
• 22:32
  Paracquat is another one that we allow in the United States.
• 22:36
  We shouldn't, it's so tightly connected to Parkinson's disease.
• 22:40
  It is wild that we still allow this.
• 22:42
  Chem China has historically um they just recently actually said they're not going to sell it here anymore, but there'll be other companies that do.
• 22:49
  But chem China, which is a government-owned chemical company, because they bought another company called Singenta, they sell to the United States, but they don't allow paraca to be sprayed in China because it's connected to to Parkinson's disease.
• 23:06
  This is just one example of many that are unbelievable what our country is willing to do to ourselves.
• 23:13
  Same with atrazine.
• 23:14
  Atrazine is the one if if you guys remember the headlines that seemed kind of outrageous that the frogs were the sexes of the frogs were changing after exposure to atrazine and atrazine is found in the drinking water of 30 million Americans.
• 23:32
  That's it's a high number.
• 23:35
  And that is a chemical that is not allowed in Europe because it's significantly endocrine disrupting, and it's unbelievable that the EPA is allowing it.
• 23:44
  And now atrazine is connected to cancer in the same way that glyphosate is from the International Agency of Research on Cancer.
• 23:52
  And so between that, we have some very toxic fungicides and just this accumulation of chemicals that we're exposed to is really unsustainable, and in my opinion, is actually the basis of the chronic disease epidemic.
• 24:08
  I because once you look at how biologically these chemicals are working, they're designed to kill.
• 24:14
  And that's exactly what they're doing.
• 24:16
  And it's amazing that some people think that something that kills a bug or a plant isn't going to have any the same impact on humanity.
• 24:24
  And um, and when you look at the fertility crisis in this country where for infertility now is at, I believe 15%.
• 24:32
  Um that should be a huge warning.
• 24:35
  And my argument would be instead of focusing on IVF and fertility solutions that are super expensive and oftentimes fail.
• 24:44
  Why aren't we digging into the base root reason why we are becoming an infertile country and address that?
• 24:51
  But of course, that would mean that the chemical companies would take a profit hit.
• 24:54
  So I don't know.
• 24:56
  What do you think about the education the importance of education?
• 25:00
  Because I know like I've had uh John Clark on uh who is he's a uh if you uh um you you might know John, he's a uh farmer based in Vermont, and he is I know he's heavy with the Maha advocacy, and uh and I know and of course I talked about uh uh Will Harris down at White Oak Pasture is a regenerative farmer who used to be heavy industrial, and uh he has a fifth, or he's fourth generation, and he has daughters are fifth generation, and um he has some grandchildren or sixth generation, they'll probably be taken over.
• 25:38
  And but they used to farm heavy industrial, and now he's the one people are coming down there to learn how to transition to regenerative.
• 25:48
  And they both I know John Will, other people like Joel Salatin talk about the importance of education because unfortunately likely glyphosate isn't going away.
• 26:00
  And uh the importance of education as far as like farmers and consumers, I guess it's two separate areas.
• 26:08
  But what are your thoughts about that as far as first educating farmers?
• 26:13
  And why do you think that some farmers are resistant, they're reluctant to change.
• 26:20
  So we at American Regeneration, we have such amazing, we have this amazing farming team that works as our advisors.
• 26:27
  Um Will Harris is one of them, and we oftentimes are talking about what an enormous promise regenerative agriculture holds.
• 26:37
  And regenerative agriculture isn't necessarily organic, but it is regenerative in that soil is improving because of improved practices and restoring ecosystems, and it's just it's absolutely beautiful and miraculous to watch a farm transition from these conventional methods, and you see life coming back to the farm with the birds reappear, the insects reappear, and the food tastes better.
• 27:03
  Um, it's truly a miracle.
• 27:06
  And it's if we came into the Maha movement so excited because we know Kennedy knows this regenerative secret, and and that we can really transform both our food and our land and just all this hope.
• 27:22
  And it's been extremely disappointing to see the direction of the government despite claiming to be Maha.
• 27:31
  And we were thrilled that there was an 800 million dollar pilot program put together at the beginning of the year, but the amount of money that's going to continuing to subsidize the alternative path is just really disappointing in and you know, not really what we envisioned for this administration.
• 27:49
  But back to the education issue, this is the problem that we always are talking about, where the education is uh it's it's a huge, huge ask on of the farmers.
• 28:01
  The educ you don't have someone that's coming.
• 28:04
  What you really need is you need the education and you need someone to come and say, hey, this is like a full farm plan for you that you could execute over the next 10 years.
• 28:15
  Uh and you don't have someone doing that.
• 28:17
  The NRCS groups typically aren't that well versed in regenerative practices, especially as it applies to a particular region because it varies by region, um, what those practices might look like.
• 28:30
  And then you have so you have that, and then you have the resistance from the farmers who, in some cases, I actually talk to a lot of younger farmers, so the children of the old the current owner of the farm.
• 28:42
  And a lot of times the children are more excited about trying regenerative practices, and the the parents will say, the dad will say, Oh, that's silly.
• 28:49
  Like that would never work.
• 28:50
  You have to be using the fertilizer, you have to be spraying.
• 28:53
  And so I have some hope that that next generation, as long as the farmers can hold on to the family farm, because that's questionable too, because the debt levels are really high, that you might see some more ambitious farmers getting back on the farm and thinking about really how to improve things and improve those practices.
• 29:10
  And I think that's an interesting topic itself, which I've just jotted that down.
• 29:14
  That's a good show idea for the near future.
• 29:17
  About I think the average age of uh a farmer now in the United States is 60.
• 29:24
  And uh if I have my stats correct, I I'm pretty sure it's around that range.
• 29:29
  And then, like you said, from what I've all the people I've covered, they're there is a resistance or reluctance because that's what you know, they talk about that's what my grandfather did.
• 29:41
  That's what my father did, or we've done this for decades.
• 29:45
  And then of course you mentioned uh you talk about what's happened since and we got to remember too, Kennedy's only been in um what is it?
• 29:57
  It's March 2026, so he
• 30:00
  He's been in a little over a year.
• 30:02
  So obviously there's still a lot more time it's going to take to implement some initial changes.
• 30:09
  But it's not going to happen overnight.
• 30:11
  I think that's what I've learned.
• 30:12
  And I'm I'm coming in this.
• 30:13
  I like it.
• 30:14
  I'm fascinated about this because I didn't really develop an interest in this until the last few years.
• 30:19
  And now I've been covering it.
• 30:21
  So I'm I learn it.
• 30:22
  That's why I like talking to people like yourself because I I learn a lot about topics I never had an interest in until the last few years and and now still learning about.
• 30:33
  But regenerative agriculture is an addictive topic because it's just so pleasing.
• 30:39
  Yeah, so it's so interesting because it is and I guess my next question to you, and I'll say a few more things before uh before you answer.
• 30:49
  What's the difference between regenerative and regenerative organic?
• 30:52
  Because I've learned about that too.
• 30:54
  And uh the that's just fascinating because you don't you talk about the younger farmers, and that's what I've found too.
• 31:01
  Young people are um they like this, they they're excited about it, and they see they like the farm to consumer model, whether it be raw milk or cattle or uh or crops.
• 31:15
  And uh that's just fascinating in itself.
• 31:18
  So maybe you could say uh what's what's that?
• 31:21
  Because you brought that up.
• 31:22
  Maybe you could expound on that, the difference between regenerative and regenerative organic.
• 31:27
  Yeah.
• 31:27
  So the and this is a point of conflict, actually, among people.
• 31:32
  So there's there's a very lively debate that sometimes gets really passionate around whether or not a regenerative system, if it's not organic, is it truly regenerative?
• 31:43
  Um, and their arguments back and forth because a lot of organic farmers till, and that's not positive for the soil structure and that can break break the soil up and not make it as productive.
• 31:56
  But then the organic people say, well, if you allow any chemicals at all, then that's also not regenerative because then that's killing the soil.
• 32:03
  So there's tons of debate around it.
• 32:06
  But I so I did some work with regenified, which is um uh group, a company that was co-founded by Gabe Brown, um, who's an incredible regenerative farmer, and I was able to interview tons of different farmers, and I was trying to understand their decrease in pesticide use uh as they adopt regenerative practices.
• 32:27
  And it is hearing these stories is just amazing.
• 32:30
  And this is why this is so important to me that um regenerative stays not necessarily restrictive to just organic, because these farmers are terrified oftentimes of taking the first step of decreasing an input, like one year deciding we're not going to spray a fungicide, and they are really worried because they are worried they're gonna lose profit by taking this risk of spraying less, and they do it and things end up okay.
• 32:57
  And it's very gradual process of of understanding when their farm system is going to be able to tolerate tapering off of these different chemicals.
• 33:05
  It's similar to drugs.
• 33:06
  I oftentimes think about the antidepressants that they layered me on when I was sick, uh, incorrectly layered them on, but uh, you have to taper those off really carefully, or else you have a reaction in your body that because it's not used to not having these inputs.
• 33:22
  So it's a similar kind of thing I see over on the farm where you dealing with the soil and taking away and stripping fertility overnight, it could be really catastrophic to the farm.
• 33:32
  So the idea of meeting the farmer wherever they are in the practice and giving them the education and steps that they need to do more productive, less chemical intensive farming and restore the ecosystems, all of that to me and to many is regenerative because you're healing things.
• 33:49
  It's the it's it's the active verb of regenerating.
• 33:53
  And organic takes it to the next level.
• 33:56
  And that is probably the most challenging farming that you can do, where it's both regenerative and organic.
• 34:03
  So there'll be no synthetic sprays whatsoever on the organic because you can't have that.
• 34:09
  And you can't be doing a lot of tilling because that is not regenerative.
• 34:14
  So that is very tricky, and it's context specific.
• 34:17
  And that's why when you go and you buy a regenerative organic product right now in the market, it's so incredibly expensive because of that just that high level of farming that that takes.
• 34:29
  So right now at the USDA, they have one recognized regenerative label, and that is regenerified.
• 34:37
  And um, and in order to be a member of regenerified or like part of their program, you have to be showing constant improvement through soil testing to show that the soil is in fact improving, meaning that you are putting in more regenerative practices.
• 34:51
  They're really starting to take.
• 34:53
  And um, and I think that that's a great metric that they also put on the USDA $800 million pilot program where you had, if you wanted these grants, you're gonna have to prove that your soil um improved in quality over the time.
• 35:08
  Yeah, and that's uh I I just think it makes sense because you don't just change someone's mindset.
• 35:16
  It's gonna take time for them to see the process that their grandfather did, their father did, and they've done is not really uh ideal for for the health of the animals, the land and and the people consuming the food.
• 35:35
  I that's that's why the Will Harris's story, which I just uh I just published the story on white oak, published um uh earlier this week.
• 35:45
  And I think I was there, I can't remember when I was there.
• 35:49
  I I was there for an American uh an immersion and regenerative agriculture workshop, and I thought it was fascinating.
• 35:55
  And and uh obviously you know Will, so he's a fascinating guy to begin with.
• 36:00
  He's uh oh yeah, he's a character himself, but that's that's fascinating.
• 36:05
  I mean, he he had he talked about that.
• 36:07
  How you know he went in the 70s to uh well, he's a fourth generation farmer, and he in the 70s he went to the University of Georgia, and that's what they taught him, and and he believed in those practices that what he calls heavy industrial for it wasn't until the mid-1990s that he started making gradual changes, and then in the 2000s, the first decade of the 2000s is when he went all in.
• 36:33
  And so it's a process, and uh I I think it's exciting that uh it's starting to happen now because ideally everyone would stop farming conventionally and immediately go regenerative, but even if they did that, it would take time to rebuild the soil.
• 36:53
  So I guess that's another topic too in itself, soil health.
• 36:57
  It definitely definitely definitely takes time to be making that transition and even to make the decision to to go for it.
• 37:07
  And something that I learned that I wasn't aware of is that part of the problem is that a lot of the farmers are not even on the farm anymore.
• 37:16
  So what will often happen in planning for your planting season is a farmer or the landowner basically goes down to the local co-op to their the retailer, and they will come up with a plan of what they're gonna plant that year.
• 37:32
  And this this co-op owner will have talked to the chemical companies and they'll say, okay, this year you're gonna do these this corn and this soy, and these are the chemicals you're gonna spray.
• 37:41
  This is the deal I can get you for them.
• 37:43
  What do you think?
• 37:44
  And and so then the farmer will say, okay, yeah, I think that that makes sense.
• 37:48
  And then what will happen is then they will also outsource the planting and the spraying of the corn in the soy.
• 37:55
  So they're really not even interacting with the farm, and then the co-op will send some 18-year-old kid to go and do the planting and spraying in a tractor.
• 38:05
  So they're really just making these decisions at the retail a lot, are not ever out on the farm.
• 38:10
  And so getting those large landowners to make a transition when they're not on the farm as it is, and they are just trying to make like they're not doing the physical labor.
• 38:20
  They're waiting for their subsidy to arrive and hoping that that covers their costs.
• 38:26
  So getting people back out onto the farm is really gonna be a really big part of it.
• 38:32
  And that is where this younger generation comes in.
• 38:34
  And I'm thrilled because I think I'm seeing people um younger people in their 20s and 30s that are glamorizing and glamorizing rightfully, in my opinion, um, this return to the farm and having their own lot plots and a big part of the the reason why it's not happening more rapidly is because farmland is so expensive that it's almost impossible unless you were independently wealthy to go and buy that land, um, especially uncontaminated land where they really could make a regenerative farm.
• 39:03
  So those are just some of the things that we're bringing up actually uh with the government now because making purchase of farmland more accessible, so it's not just these huge monocrop conglomerates that can afford it is gonna be really important, I think, for uh the future of our food security.
• 39:21
  And that's a this is a perfect time for our uh final break because when we come back, we're gonna talk about um the state liability shields, the farm bill, and uh other uh other projects gone on or other initiatives uh that that uh state legislatures and the HHS are considering.
• 39:42
  You're listening to the Maha Lowdown, and I'm Jeff Lauderback.
• 39:45
  We'll be back in a few minutes.
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• 40:46
  Welcome back to the Maha Lowdown.
• 40:48
  I'm Jeff Lauderback.
• 40:49
  I'm here with Kelly Roberson, the glyphosate girl and co-founder of American Regeneration.
• 40:55
  And Kelly, we could talk about, I know I'm gonna have to have you on for another show because there's so many uh there's just so much going on right now, so many topics that we've covered uh, and we haven't even gotten to uh the farm bill and what we're about to get to, the state liability shields of uh of state legislatures uh and the uh I know there's there's a couple federal bills about uh Monsanto or Bear Monsanto trying to get uh liability from uh legal ramifications.
• 41:30
  So um maybe we'll dive right into that because I know this is your passion right now, uh, standing up against this, and I know on April 27th, there is the people.
• 41:40
  Maybe we could start with that people versus poison on April 27th.
• 41:44
  Um tell us a little bit about that and uh what it's regarding.
• 41:48
  Yes.
• 41:49
  So this is an event that we hope everyone is going to come to who care who's ever cared about food and pesticides.
• 41:56
  So going back to 2018, this glyphosate cancer case that I blogged.
• 42:01
  Back then, I never would have imagined that we would be here in 2026 in there with a Supreme Court case around the glyphosate cancer case.
• 42:12
  So this is a really enormous crisis moment in this country.
• 42:17
  Bayer stood to go bankrupt from all of these this cancer litigation.
• 42:22
  They have refused to put a cancer label on their product.
• 42:26
  They instead several years ago announced that they were going to try to make it impossible to sue them or pesticide manufacturers when you get sick from exposure to a pesticide by passing different liability shields or different legislation throughout the country at the state level and the federal level to make it impossible to sue pesticide manufacturers.
• 42:48
  So that sounds absolutely insane because what member of our government would say, okay, we're gonna give protection to a form to a foreign chemical company that sells poisons and make sure that Americans cannot sue them when they get sick from exposure.
• 43:07
  Okay, so like this is insane.
• 43:10
  And never ever did even the lawyers think that that's something that could move forward because it's that crazy.
• 43:17
  But here we are on multiple fronts being attacked with exactly that.
• 43:21
  So at the Supreme Court level, the Supreme Court never should have taken up this case.
• 43:26
  It's happening and starting on April 27th.
• 43:28
  But the White House decided to side with Bayer and told the Supreme Court, we think you should hear this case.
• 43:36
  Now, what's at stake at this case is Bayer is saying that if the EPA says that glyphosate doesn't cause cancer, then they should not be sued when glyphosate causes cancer because the EPA said it was safe.
• 43:54
  Now the problem is that the EPA is an entirely corrupt institution.
• 43:58
  We know it is, it has been almost since inception.
• 44:02
  The internal documents about glyphosate approval show that they were working in cahoots with the company and they are basing it on false faulty research that was ghost-written and just crooked, crooked behavior there.
• 44:18
  So that is why we still don't have a cancer label because the EPA works in cahoots with the chemical industry.
• 44:24
  But now at the Supreme Court, they're hoping to get the the judges to say that if the EPA says it's safe, then they don't get to be sued.
• 44:34
  This won't just apply for glyphosate.
• 44:37
  This will apply across the board to all pesticide manufacturers of 57,000 different pesticide products.
• 44:43
  So we will no longer be able to sue if we get Parkinson's from Paracquad.
• 44:47
  Like the it this the fact that people don't know that this is going down and that you don't have the large environmental groups anywhere to be seen.
• 44:56
  Like there is not a whisper from them.
• 44:59
  And it's bizarre.
• 45:01
  Because if there were ever a crisis in the environmental movement, it is this second.
• 45:07
  So instead, you have a handful of people from Maha basically, and and certainly um there are also some people from organizations like Center for Food Safety and Um and EWG to a certain extent that are trying also to fight this.
• 45:24
  But it is very few people and very few organizations.
• 45:28
  But that is why we called a rally because we were severely disappointed on several different several different things that have come out of the White House, and then it was shown that um Susie Wiles and Pam Bondy both have tight connections to Ballard Partners, which is it was a huge donor to the Trump administration.
• 45:48
  And in fact, Ballard Partners, their number one group that they represent in lobbying is bear.
• 45:54
  So now we understand because that was a that was a study that was done, an investigation done by U.S.
• 45:59
  Right to know, just recently released, and so we're like, okay, so this makes more sense why all this pro-bear everything is coming out of this white house.
• 46:06
  I mean, it's entirely 100% counter to what Trump promised us to go after pesticides.
• 46:12
  Um, I don't actually know the extent to which Trump even knows about it.
• 46:16
  This seems like some of the workings of people around him.
• 46:20
  But anyway, so that is really what's at stake.
• 46:23
  But we are going to rally, we're meeting at 9 a.m.
• 46:26
  on in front of the Supreme Court, and we are going to let it be known inside that Supreme Court, we want to be loud how we, the people are standing up against poison, because that is literally what's happening here is we are directly being poisoned.
• 46:40
  And now our very last recourse of taking um taking a polluter and a company to court is gonna be stripped from us, and that's so not American.
• 46:52
  What and it's important that um that be known and and that you stand up.
• 46:58
  And I know that I've talked to Zen Hunnicutt, and she made the point that if the Supreme Court decides uh for Monsanto that that's not gonna stop the education and the advocacy to what we've what you and I've been talking about here about uh far getting farmers to uh make the transition and and getting uh you talked about the uh pilot program, which I think was uh initially 700 million dollars, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that's given to uh agriculture in general.
• 47:35
  And uh I think it's important obviously to increase that.
• 47:39
  And and I know she talked as in Honeycutt talked about the advocacy, the work to increase assistance for them and also obviously the education that and I know you're heavily involved for consumers to get them to know, and maybe that we could touch on that as far as the importance of being able to know what to do to avoid because it's almost like there's no possible way to avoid these chemicals a hundred percent.
• 48:10
  There just has to be uh a shift in mindset as a consumer to know where your food comes from and how it's raised.
• 48:19
  Yeah, I think that that's the bottom line in putting consumer pressure.
• 48:24
  The there are a lot of the the leaders in the regenerative farming movement.
• 48:28
  Many have said that this is gonna have to, we can't wait for the government at this point, and it needs to take off on its own.
• 48:35
  Um, and that means having some kind of price premium for the regenerative growers, so that when they're doing these practices, they're incentivized to do it.
• 48:44
  And so that's gonna require raising public consciousness also around what a regenerative label means and minimizing regenerative fraud.
• 48:52
  And so there's a lot that's going on, but you know, through the my my co-founder of American Regeneration, Ryland Engelhart has been a producer of both Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, the two um really amazing films that highlight the benefits of regenerative agriculture and Whole Foods did a big campaign around common ground.
• 49:13
  We now have come up with a 45-minute cut of common ground for that's an education cut just to try and spread the word because even in DC, when I we meet with agriculture, the staffers that are the ag staffers.
• 49:26
  Uh it is amazing how few people have heard anything about regenerative agriculture.
• 49:31
  And really, when you think about it, this is a very new concept.
• 49:34
  I mean, we have some of these epic veterans of regenerative agriculture, but it really isn't until recently that more people are knowing, certainly at the consumer level, even thinking for a second what regenerative really is.
• 49:46
  So I think that that it's really a PR task to raise the awareness around it because it is something that I think a lot of consumers.
• 49:54
  The polls are showing, by the way, that there are a lot of constituents, doesn't matter your party.
• 50:00
  That are waking up to the toxins in the food supply and are very upset about the pesticides.
• 50:05
  So that is amazing.
• 50:07
  If nothing else, at least my work and those of us who are working in pesticides with Maha, if nothing else, just raising the public awareness around these things and the fact that you know, and Trump, we can't not mention that Trump had an executive order a few weeks ago that basically was putting national security protection around the production of glyphosate and really doubling down and signaling that glyphosate is here to stay and we need it.
• 50:32
  And um, and it was really stunning because there was no need to do such a grand executive order around what was actually being asked, but that's what happened.
• 50:43
  Amazingly, that actually raised the public awareness of glyphosate, and people started questioning what is glyphosate.
• 50:49
  And so you had this enormous, enormous media run on what is glyphosate.
• 50:54
  And I was like, oh my gosh, that might be the best thing we could have done for raising public consciousness.
• 50:59
  Yeah, that's ironic, isn't it?
• 51:00
  Because uh I know that uh uh Zen Hunica had talked about that.
• 51:05
  She said that uh um that that is similar to the dangers of vaccines, like when uh the COVID vaccine mandates came out and then awareness was created that never had been before, widespread about the ingredients and vaccines.
• 51:25
  And uh I think that's similar.
• 51:27
  I that is ironic that uh now and I know that uh probably propels you, uh being that you're still known as the glyphosate girl that now.
• 51:37
  Well, I've never been more popular.
• 51:39
  Like suddenly my Instagram got hot.
• 51:43
  I was like, look at that, all because of the executive order.
• 51:46
  Who knew?
• 51:47
  Yeah, and I I wanted to.
• 51:49
  We have about uh five minutes left.
• 51:50
  I wanted to talk about that.
• 51:53
  And well, that executive order kind of touches on what we were talking about before, the importance of education of that if it's not going to be going away, that at least it's important to educate farmers and to help uh get them assistance to make the move.
• 52:11
  Uh uh, the 700 million pilot programs to start, but obviously it a lot more is needed, and then the education for consumers to know where their food's coming from and where to get it and how to do their best to avoid it.
• 52:26
  I mean, would you uh would you say that that's encapsulizes uh the next stages, or would you like to add upon that or uh correct any of that?
• 52:36
  Well, I really think so.
• 52:37
  I mean, I'm looking at that regenerative pilot and hoping that it indeed is just a pilot and that there's going to be a substantial outlay of more.
• 52:46
  There's a lot going on that's very interesting right now because with that executive order, I actually had said a long time, and and there are people within the Maha movement, you know, that we come from all kinds of different concerns, as you mentioned in the beginning.
• 53:00
  So you have the food people, you even have like EMF people, you have vaccine people.
• 53:06
  Um, and I just had a feeling because I've been doing this so long that I was feeling like the food and the pesticides were really a large chunk of the people that came over to Maha.
• 53:16
  Maybe that's just who I met, but it seemed like that was uh a dominant part of it.
• 53:21
  And so the fact that then that there was this executive order, and it was incredibly miscalculated.
• 53:34
  It was the worst PR possible for pissing off.
• 53:38
  Now, maybe it doesn't matter, maybe Trump would do it one way or the other.
• 53:41
  But the fact that they went there with this group um that so passionately feels about this.
• 53:51
  It was I think it was just such a gross miscalculation.
• 53:54
  And now that I'm looking forward to say the midterms, and um, and this is something now I'm being asked about a lot because I've seen this huge bleed out of Maha.
• 54:05
  Um, people that are DMing me and saying that I would never ever vote for a Republican again.
• 54:11
  I would never support this because this is the worst thing ever because of that much passion around glyphosate.
• 54:17
  And um, I mean, that's just disappointing because we know how much achievement is happening in um, you know, and other ways at HHS.
• 54:26
  But and I know this isn't exactly what you asked, but I I just, you know, it's it's just so incredibly hard, I think, as a movement when our number one voting parameters for a lot of us in the Maha movement is just making people healthy and having like clean food and clean water.
• 54:44
  And I'm finding, as I'm fighting the liability shields, that um the people that are reaching out to me are all Democrats, and I don't know where the Republicans are because the Republican constituents absolutely care about this issue.
• 54:58
  And polls have shown that this is a bipartisan issue.
• 55:02
  And I'm not sure where the movement goes forward from this, except that I'm really hopeful that on the presidential stage as we come around to the next round of it, that for the first time ever, toxicity will hopefully be debated, and um, and more money can be put into things like regenerative agriculture, and maybe there'll be more education on this.
• 55:24
  So I think we're kind of looking at a 10-year time span um to really see something measurable happen.
• 55:29
  But uh, and before we end it, I wanted to be sure to say that this fertilizer crisis that we're witnessing right now among farms.
• 55:36
  So a lot of the fertilizer we bring into this country is synthetic, and we import it, and it makes our ag system very dependent on foreign players to have fertility.
• 55:48
  There the thing about regenerative agriculture is that people grow their own fertility.
• 55:53
  Some fertilizers still use, but a lot of it is driven by cover cropping and these practices that really restore fertility to the soil, so you don't have to use as many inputs in in fertilizer.
• 56:04
  And this should be the moment because of this crisis where the farmers do not have enough fertilizer.
• 56:10
  This should be the moment that the USDA and everyone says, hey, this is scary.
• 56:15
  The United States is really threatened in national security.
• 56:19
  If we can't grow our own food, hey, let's put a lot more money into the regenerative pilot.
• 56:26
  Let's start looking for these alternative weed killers.
• 56:29
  Um all of that should be this should be the moment for it.
• 56:33
  So I'm looking to see what happens there.
• 56:36
  And we're about out of time.
• 56:38
  I wanted to remind the listeners that they could find information on Kelly and Kelly Ryerson uh the glyphosate girl, uh glyphosate facts and American regeneration, I'll put that in the article uh that is on the Maha lowdown.
• 56:55
  So Kelly, I appreciate you being on and look forward to having you again.
• 56:59
  Great.
• 57:00
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 57:01
  And uh just wanted to wrap that up.
• 57:04
  And once again, uh thank you for listening to the Maha Lowdown.
• 57:09
  And we'll see you next week.